Wars

[Toomanywars]

Whilst the focus has been on Ukraine and Gaza, I've just heard that in Sudan's 2 year war, the latest death estimate is over 150,000 people. WHO figures.

That's awful.

Also describes 'one of the worst humanitarian crisis'. More women and children dying.

Men and their egos, religion or land. Whatever the reason, its all awful.

Hoping for peace in Ukraine, Gaza and Sudan, any anywhere else where war is raging.

Syria and Yemen are also still war zones. Hundreds of thousands dead.

Too many wars indeed.

African suffering is nearly always ignored, or at least people don't fully engage. There is profound racism at play. This war has barely touched the wider public consciousness. This article is good on it.
www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/oct/11/world-humanitarian-disaster-sudan

Is it racism or helplessness. If the west takes a side they're interfering, if they don't take a side they're ignoring There are aid agencies overwhelmed on the ground but they mustn't be 'white saviours.'

Maybe China will come in with it's belt and road initiatives and support infrastructure and agriculture for the usual price of loyalty (or else).

Somaliland (not to be confused with Somalia) is rumoured to be stable, what's their secret?

Racism is a big part of it, I have absolutely no doubt. Many people just don't identify with African people and so don't see their humanity. Also most people don't have a clue about the geography and politics of the continent so when a crisis hits the news they dont have reference points/context to understand it in.I agree there is a helplessness and a sort of poverty fatigue too because the problems seem ongoing and intractable. I agree with you that in the West we have got in a right muddle about how to engage with the global south. But that is partly because most people's understanding is so shallow to start with - when Islamist militants capture christian girls in Nigeria people turn away because they dont want to be seen to be islamaphobic etc yet any decent human should be able to figure out that it is a monstrous crime and be prepared to say it. Also on big geopolitics the world has always been carved up into spheres of influence. You mentioned China, looks like the west is prepared to cede most of Africa to China and that has been going on for several decades.I dont know what Somaliland's secret is but there are quite a few peaceful countries in Africa.

My son was showing me a you tube about drone deliveries of medicine in Rwanda. Solving an infrastructure issue in a creative way.
The brilliance and energy are there. I hope their civil war is truly behind them.
Close to home, Spain still bears the scars of it's civil war, families were torn apart, you will come across memorials in otherwise beautiful places to people who were summarily executed.

Peace is such a precious thing, how do you guard it without breaking it?

Imo China won't worry about what the rest of the world says whilst in pursuit of their own self interest. They benefit from the resources, they're also hopefully stabilising the region whilst spreading themselves thin in the way that empires always do.

The end result could go many ways of course. China is now only vestigially communist but they are authoritarian and their brand of governance would be very uncomfortable to many in the west, ( if it tries to impose itself further westward). As the USSR discovered, a Russian identity is helpful to social cohesion but is not easily imposed.

My view currently is that 'nation states' (assuming definable boundaries) want change from within rather than without. If they have a common identity that they are proud of they are teflon with respect to external crticism. National identity is like a religion, it can be used for good or evil and the boundaries of those definitions seem to be very subjective.

Just opinion of course, subject to change in light of new information.

What does this have to do with the middle east? The same sort of power struggles. The main players are Iran(Russia), Saudi Arabia(possibly allying with USA - depends who you talk to). Israel is a distraction really, Saudi is involved in the Yemeni conflict, Russia is involved in the Syrian conflict. Most people see China as more Russia's ally than America, but really it's completely out for itself and happy to let the world focus elsewhere while it works on 'belts and roads' in the middle east to extend it's influence.

imv of course.

Excellent points quantumbutterfly

I do agree with that. Some countries do appear to get ignored. Sadly, all conflicts and suffering are sad.

Good points. Interfering or ignoring.

Or the Myanmar Civil War. Also what is even more tragic about the war in Sudan is how the conflict is interwoven with slave trading.

Whilst I deeply hope for peaceful solutions in all the conflicts you mentioned I honestly cannot dedicate time or financially contribute to all in equal measure as there are simply too many conflicts to do this.

So by way of prioritisation I would have to look at which conflict is resulting in the most deaths or affecting the most people. By that measure the war in Sudan has the highest deaths, the persecution and concentration camps of Uighars by China impacts the most people and the forced deportation of over one million Afghan refugees by Pakistan the most refugees.

Name 3 women who have taken their nations into conflict?

It's quite difficult to find information about the conflict in Sudan or work out who is who. It's largely ignored by the BBC despite the vast numbers of people affected.

Why is that?

It's largely ignored by the BBC

Is it ?

It's there if you look, but it doesn't receive nearly the attention of the Israel/Hamas war or Russia/Ukraine, which each have their own 'front-page' section.

@Oodiks

"Name 3 women who have taken their nations into conflict"

I love a historical challenge:

Margaret Thatcher (Falklands War)
Elizabeth I
Catherine the Great of Russia
Joan of Arc
Boudicca

and Aung San Suu Kyi oversaw a genocide.
Men are more likely to be the heads of state but power can corrupt anyone.

When women get into power, they are just as corruptible and likely to start wars and order violence. The reason why the proportion is mostly men is because women have been historically barred from power and the battlefield.

It’s like how it was with medicine, you could have written that proportionally men are more likely to save lives than women because more men are doctors.

You have to take into account the fact that the positions in society that are not as open to women affect the likelihood of men or women doing bad or good things.

As it is more men get sent into combat than women, and it is proven that being sent into combat is a major risk factor for violent offending the rest of your life and suicide.