Dwight Eisenhower's farewell address, 1961. Wikicommons screengrab. Some rights reserved.
‘We the people’ share a problem – one that’s defied solution since the United Nations was founded – how to ‘save succeeding generations from the scourge of war’? The worst wars may be elsewhere for now, but they are not going away.
Over the past decade, the incidence of armed conflict tripled. Last year, UN officials warned of the worst humanitarian crisis since 1945. Then, the world also simply watched as nearly a million Rohingya people were ethnically cleansed from Myanmar. Now, sixty-nine million people are desperately fleeing war, violence and persecution. In June, the International Crisis Group reported deteriorated situations in: Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Somalia, Somaliland, Mali, Niger, Taiwan Strait, Afghanistan, Indonesia, Israel/Palestine, Syria, Iran and Yemen. More recently, the Global Peace Index 2018 estimated the annual cost of war and violent conflict at a staggering $14.7 trillion (US). Even children recognise that’s unsustainable.
