By Barnes L Mawrie, SDB
“World War III is imminent,” is what many people are saying these days in the context of the on-going unrest in many parts of the world. With the development of the present geopolitics where armed conflicts are going on in many parts of the world, it is not wrong to arrive at such a conclusion. History repeats itself as they used to say. When we analyze the geopolitics of the 1930s we immediately realize that prior to World War II, there had emerged a number of right-wing leaders in the world political scenario. Three such leaders emerged in Europe, namely, Bennito Mussolini in Italy who wanted to restore Italy to its former glory of the erstwhile Roman Empire, Joseph Stalin in Russia who was craving to restore the Czarist Empire of the past and of course the ill- renowned Adolf Hitler in Germany who founded the Third Reich in order to make the Arian race the supreme race in the world and to rid Germany of the so called “weak races” from society.
Then we have Emperor Hirohito in Japan who had the ambition of expanding his empire through military power. With such right-wing and radical political leaders at the helm of world affairs, it was a foregone conclusion that something terrible would happen. The League of Nations had become dysfunctional due to many political discrepancies. Finally, the foreboding tragedy took place on September 1, 1939 when Hitler invaded Poland and the Allies declared war on Germany and the Axis alliance. The outcome of World War II was “horrible” to say the least. It brought about immense destruction of property, loss of millions of lives and changed geopolitics once and for all.
Now when we observe the geopolitics of the present we realize that history is gradually repeating itself. There is a dangerous development in world politics today with the emergence of a number of right-wing parties and autocratic leaders. We have so many autocrats who are ruling many countries today that the situation has become extremely perilous for global peace. Prominent right-wing leaders who are on the scene today are Xi Jinping in China, Vladimir Putin in Russia, Kim Jong-Un in North Korea, the Talibans in Afghanistan, Donald Trump in the United States (if he should win the coming election), Ali Khamenei the supreme leader of Iran and Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel. One thing is common among all these right-wing leaders and that is that all of them are craving for absolute power and supremacy. Some of them are haunted by the ambition of restoring their countries to their so-called “former glory.”
Think of Putin who is invading Ukraine because he is harbouring the idea of restoring the dismantled Soviet Union, Xi Jinping who is dreaming of a greater China thereby unlawfully annexing Tibet, claiming parts of India and constantly threatening to invade Taiwan. Then we have Khamenei a Muslim cleric of Iran who has an evil desire to wipe out Israel from the world map. When it comes to the present on-going war in Gaza and Lebanon, we have another radical leader, Benjamin Netanyahu who is bent on destroying his enemies at the cost of thousands of innocent lives. It looks like the UNO is going to suffer the same fate of the League of Nations of becoming dysfunctional and of failing to bridle the greed and political ambition of these autocratic leaders.
Presently, we also witness a concerning development in western politics where we have a lot of right-wing political parties who are gradually dominating politics. In Italy we already have a right-wing party, the Fratelli d’Italia (Brothers of Italy), led by prime minister Giorgia Meloni. In other countries like Spain, Austria, Germany and France we witness a rapid rise of right-wing and nationalist parties who are exercising greater influence in their governments. European countries which used to be either left or centre-left (moderate left) are fast leaning towards outright right-wing. Coming to our own country, we have seen the rise of right-wing ideology since 2014 which is in the form of religious fundamentalism known as Hindutva. In recent years, our own state of Meghalaya is manifesting a leaning towards a right-wing ideology with the rise of the new political party, the VPP (Voice of the People’s Party).
History has shown that right-wing ideologies are always dangerous for peace in a community, in a country and for world peace in general. The United Nations has succeeded to maintain world peace and avoid another world war for almost eighty years now, but will it be able to continue doing so in the present scenario? Very few world leaders today seem to heed the constant appeals of the UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres. Leaders of warring nations care a hoot for his words. Those who have observed the facial reaction of President Putin to Antonio Guterrez’s appeal for peace in Ukraine during the recent BRICS summit in Moscow, would have seen his expression of indifference and defiance. We only hope and pray that more right-minded leaders and less despots and autocrats emerge or else a world disaster is bound to happen sooner than later.