PURE AS THE ENDS WE SEEK by Jim Ghedi

Jim Ghedi, the artist, writer and poet returns as guest writer on the blog with the insightful article, somewhat appropriately titled ‘Pure as the ends we seek’. His new album entitled ‘Sets of Abyssinia’, the result of a project with the singer-songwriter Neal Heppleston, is now available to the public and comes highly recommended by 1worldinternational.

 

I started to realize that as human beings we influence each other by who we are. In that sense, humanity is the most susceptible organism on earth.

This brings up an interesting concept, as being surrounded by good and positive people we will evidently be influenced to do good and positive deeds in day-to-day life. But there obviously are, in this world, an abundance of bad people with negative or selfish intentions who have the power to influence us subconsciously or indeed even consciously to do bad on this earth.

This brought to mind a continuous theme that’s existed for centuries, namely man’s constant battle between good and evil. I began to contemplate a situation, where ourselves as human beings consciously tune into goodness, positivity and love, learning from the works of great men, great composers, great authors, great artists, poets, people who committed their lives to do good for others, who sacrificed their lives for the struggle for justice and peace on earth and those who believed that the universe exists on moral foundations. Evidently the fate of the universe and the future of existence lie in our moral convictions as good human beings.

In short my realization today illustrated that previous philosophers and social thinkers through time even though well intentioned, were often misdirected, in that they observed the sufferings of the world from a materialistic point of view. For instance, Marx looked at changing or destroying states and social systems. In essence he advocated a revolution by means of brutality, when to bring true change I feel would have been much simpler than forming marched armed revolts against the state.

Imagine if more human beings awoke tomorrow morning, having simply switched perspectives and consciousness to something closer to feelings of compassion. If more people woke up with an incentive to not just be tuned in to goodness but to have a moral determination to generate positivity for the benefit of all beings in the day to come ahead of them. Imagine just by an awareness each understood the concept of this universal influence we have on each other, maybe it is all just connecting to a mental and emotional switch, where we can turn on to the prosperity of this world.

As simple as waking with a thought, to provide for something living with me today, this also creates the truth that as being consciously tuned into what’s good we must distinguish evil as well. If we continuously fall victim to this world’s distractions and fail to switch on to what’s right and what’s wrong we will not progress as a people; rather we shall fall into emptiness instead of meaning.

I realise sceptics and realists will argue that there are few who will desire the intentions of good within themselves or that people live in different circumstances and as such are unable to focus their energy towards “the good”. But I argue all human beings desire happiness and to be happy and though distracted now they must understand the only happiness they will attain will be through the goodness of what’s inside them and also what surrounds us all, in our environment, our society, our world and our universe.

Martin Luther King jr once said “the means we use, must be as pure as the ends we seek.” There is nothing quite as pure as human compassion and through that we can endure true love. We must though understand we can only achieve anything through human kind’s ability to change its own condition, nothing can be of substance without action.

THE CONGO: ARE SOME WARS LESS IMPORTANT THAN OTHERS?

This week's post comes from the writer and poet, Uche Ndaji who has produced a polemic on the fortunes, or rather misfortunes, of one of Africa's largest countries, DRC Congo. The piece adopts a multi-faceted approach in its analysis of the Congo with the author avoiding the oft-repeated patronizing tone adopted by many researchers in their attempts to channel or convey the Congo experience to the rest of the world. The piece is worth publication in the very best of the global news outlets across the world and 1worldinternational is certainly privileged to serve as the mouthpiece of this fantastic writer.


When the M23 rebel group audaciously marched into Goma on 20 November a feeling of dread emerged, an oxymoronic combination of expectation and surprise. As MONUSCO, the United Nations Organisation Stabilisation Mission in the DR Congo shockingly looked on, the M23 captured Goma with little more than agonising stares to contend with.

For the unfortunate population in eastern Congo, a sentiment of déjà vu perseveres: a feeling that a war that never ends begins once more in a conflict that has claimed 5 million lives. Where were the diplomats, the envoys and regional leaders spinning for one side or the other? Did the world leaders lose the memo? If colonial discord is put to one side for the purpose of addressing the country’s recent past, the Democratic Republic of Congo has been in turmoil since independence in 1960.

In recent times, the Congolese population have not known peace because the mineral wealth which it is blessed with including: gold, tantalum, tin, but to name a few has turned into an encumbrance. Decades of political coups d’état and unstable leadership steadily guided a country with abundant natural wealth into the hands of rapacious states.

In a letter presented on November 15 to the Security Council by the Group of Experts on the Democratic Republic of Congo, light is shed on the carefully coordinated proxy war financed by Rwanda and factions of the Ugandan government. The report emphasises the influence of the Rwandese and Ugandan governments on the conflict through arms and personnel provision. Furthermore, the report stresses the fact that M23 is the only rebel group in eastern Congo that wears Rwandan armed forces uniforms. This deals a big blow to Rwandan president Paul Kagame’s unrelenting denials of his government’s support and connection to the cause of the uprising or the M23 rebel group.

Simmering alongside allegations of Rwanda’s support for M23 are ethnic divisions which stem from Rwanda’s genocidal past and DR Congo’s safeguarding of some of the Hutu administration who devised the 1994 massacre that killed as many as 1 million people according to the United Nations Outreach Programme. In a bid to protect the Rwandan Tutsi minority and its expatriate population within Congo from attacks by Hutu militiamen operating from its border with eastern Congo, the Rwandan government has used the pretext of protecting its citizens to pillage Congo DR’s natural resources.

On one hand, criticising the international community for lack of action against a conflict that has ravaged the lives of millions seems unwarranted, perhaps unfair. On the other hand, the least the UN can do is to take action against systematic human rights abuses for the sake of the 5 million killed; 1.7 million internally displaced people and the rape victims, attacked at the rate of 48 every hour according to the American Journal of Public Health.

A recurring concern remains that warlords capture and retain territory with impunity, executing civilians, looting, raping and forcibly conscripting child soldiers. A prime example of such an aggressor is the M23 leader Bosco Ntaganda, wanted for trial by the International Criminal Court on a warrant issued in 2006 for conscripting, coordinating the recruitment and training of children under 15, as former Deputy Chief of General Staff for Military Operations for the Forces Patriotiques pour la libération du Congo (FPLC).

In light of such atrocities, there is an unpleasant impression propagated by the international community that some wars are more important than others. That if your war does not involve terrorism, extremism or a direct threat to the exportation of democracy to the developing world then it must be a trivial conflict to be tucked away into the pile of inconsequential scuffles that just happen. In such cases few resolutions are made except for squabbling between Security Council members, who doubt the motives of intervention even when civilians are trapped in the savageries of warfare: the conflict in Syria comes to mind.

Consider if the fanfare surrounding the recent Israel-Gaza hostilities had been applied to the DR Congo conflict, much progress would have been made bearing in mind that it is in poor taste to compare wars. In the same breath, restrained indifference encourages belligerent forces to continue brutalising villages. The recent UN report also called attention to the slaughter of hundreds of civilians in North Kivu under the instructions of M23, with at least 800 houses burnt down since May 2012.

Although the UN peacekeeping mission MONUSCO costs an estimated $1 billion a year, its function is yet to be realised. Established in 1999, the mission has done little to prevent widespread killings and rapes in the eastern region of Congo. The purpose of the peacekeeping mission was further called into question when UN personnel stood and watched as rebels took the city of Goma. The frequency of such incursions tells the dismal story of a failed mission but more importantly the innocent Congolese people caught in the middle of MONUSCO’s spineless assignment, leaving civilians to protect themselves.

The $1 billion spent on a protective force that appears futile can be used to prop up the projects of rape victims who assist other victims by providing shelter, medical and psychological care.

Meanwhile, the rebels are aware that the UN mission has run its course, the daring march into Goma emphasises this point and the exasperation of the angry crowd that clapped for the rebels and hurled stones at UN troops is an indication of accepted apathy. The international community must do something to restore confidence, it should either extend MONUSCO’s mandate or create a different structure, active in engaging when rebels show aggression towards civilians.

Also, it is essential to initiate dialogue between the governments of Rwanda, Uganda and DR Congo. These governments are culpable on some level of arming rebel groups. Perhaps Rwandan and Ugandan governments realise that if the war rages on in Congo they can appropriate more minerals and assure that the status quo of their regimes remain. However, the unpredictability of constant change in leadership and blocs in the respective rebel groups operating in DR Congo shows that nothing is guaranteed.

Despite the announcement on 30 November by International Development Secretary Justine Greening that £21m worth of aid to Rwanda would be withdrawn, it remains to be seen how responsive the Rwandan government and their Ugandan counterparts can be in ensuring that peace finally reigns in DR Congo.