New Year would have been too happier if only….

We are just few hours away to 2024!

I wish you all a prosperous and happy 2024!

The New Year would have been too happier if two things happened.

Permanent truce between Russia and Ukraine.

Had the War ceased and the blazing missiles stopped raining on Ukraine, how happier the world would have been! People of Ukraine are facing intensified war by Putin on New Year’s eve.  Just imagine people freezing to the bones in the punishing winter facing a fusillade of missiles and bombings from drones. Do they not deserve peace? Differences between countries are inevitable. Because there are various visions. Desperate ideologies. And antagonistic interests. But is war inevitable? Is military solution the only way to resolve issues how complex they might be?

Also read: Cost of Israeli War on Gaza  

Russia opposed NATO’s expansion. Bygone were the days of the Cold War. Why should the US resurrect the superfluous military alliance, when the Warsaw Pact ended in 1991? NATO could have been abandoned immediately after Warsaw was disbanded. NATO attacked Iraq, and Afghanistan, small fries among the comity of nations. Iraq is in total chaos. Afghanistan had to be abandoned and was entrusted again to the Taliban. What did NATO achieve in these wars? A colossal human tragedy. Except the American Military Complex, who did benefit from these wars? The western powers hunted Gaddafi and killed him. They unseated one government. What is the result? There is no single government in Libya, now. Two governments with two capitals are in perpetual quarrel. NATO in the 21st century is infructuous. Instead of disbanding the NATO, the US is trying to expand it. The NATO could not break Taliban. Could it save Ukraine from Putin?

And the Russian Federation under Putin is on an expansion spree. It is a reaction to its fractured Soviet Union that got severed into different countries in 1990’s. Russia is doggedly expanding into Russian dominated areas. Whether it is South Osetia of Georgia or the Russian dominated eastern parts of Ukraine, Russia wants to expand. One wrong cannot justify others to commit indictable deeds. Belligerent hostilities, wars of aggressions can never be sane solutions in a civilized world.

Also read: It is a cakewalk for Modi to put the Indian economy on the top If…

And immediate ceasefire in Gaza along with the release of all the hostages kept captive by Hamas.

80% of the 23 lakh people are forced to flee from the homes and hearths. Is it the Second Nakba, the first version uprooted 7 lakh Palestinians in 1948- 55 and made Palestinian people without a country. More than 20,000 were killed and two thirds of them are women and children. 50,000 are wounded where hospital facilities are scorched to rubbles. And the flow of medicines are a drop in the ocean. 7000 perhaps died under the debris. Neonates in the ravaged hospitals, are to unable decipher the incredible decibel levels of the missiles and bombings from the fighter planes that Israel imported from the US and rat a rat of the Tavor X95s. Pregnant mothers are sharing crowded verandahs without an iota of privacy where bread and water is rationed at the abysmal levels. Gaza, the largest open prison turned into a biggest grave yard. Without electricity for more than two months, and sans basic needs and not knowing if they live in the next minute, can they think of New Year at all?

And the plight of hostages in Gaza. Netanyahu without a sliver of flexibility, and with his fanatical pursuit of Hamas, and caring zilch towards the lives of the hostages, is intensifying the war levels. It may be that the remaining 129 hostages would become sacrificial lambs to the Netanayahu’s Zionist aggressive pursuit. Netanyahu has already buried the ‘two state solution’ under the Mediterranean Sea by unending expansion of new settlements, and by flattening Gaza with massive bombs and numerous rockets.

There are clashes all over the globe. Sudan is simmering with civil war. China is restless to take Taiwan. A conflict over Essequibo region is graduating into a conflict between Venezuela and Guyana. Armenians had to flee from Nagarno Karabakh region. And at home, the tragedy that unfolded in Manipur between Meiteis and Kukis for months is still a pestering wound in our hearts. But the two conflagrations in Ukraine and Gaza are major ones to destabilise the world peace with possibilty of domino effect. 

Carols were not sung. Tintinnabulations from Church bells became silent. The decorations looked faint. Christmas that used bring fervour and gaiety turned into a mourning day in Jerusalem.   Perhaps for the first time.

Let us hope that sanity will prevail over Putin and Netanyahu in 2024. Let us also hope the Biden would stop the NATO expansion. And Biden stops all military assistance and accepts the UNGA’s massive mandate to bring immediate cease fire in Gaza. Is it too wishful? Perhaps in the trying times. But hope is always a frailty that humans nurtured since ages.

Let us wish a world without wars of aggression! How happier the world will be!

Happy New Year, once again!

Also read: G 20 Summit and  the War in Ukraine