A #KISS post on the messy ideas behind this current real world mess.
The current events in Gaza feel familiar, a replay of the tragic historical cycle that has been spinning for decades. Israel occupies Gaza. Gaza resists this occupation by attacking to retake occupied land, Israel responds by obliterating swaths of Gaza in brutal retaliation. The Arab countries, bound by, dark agendas, and historical and religious ties, half-heatedly come to Gaza’s defence. In response, Israel attacks Hezbollah in Lebanon, and then Iran steps in to defend Lebanon. This pulls the U.S. and U.K. into defending Israel.
It’s the same history we’ve seen before, and it’s the same history we’ll likely see again.
But what could happen next, the mess that’s looming: Israel escalates its conflict with Iran, triggering a regional implosion. The Middle East is thrown into chaos. People die, displaced by war and destruction. Refugees flood into Europe, triggering a far-right political backlash as governments shift further into the current nationalist, isolationist, and authoritarian politics in response to the refugee crisis.
On the current path, if it’s not this, it will be the next crises. Amid all of this turmoil, what happens to climate change? #Climatechaos marches on, unaddressed, with billions of lives at stake. While increasingly right-wing and failing liberal governments are preoccupied with wars and managing waves of displaced people, no significant action is taken on the climate front. The consequences are catastrophic, with more mass death and displacement on the horizon.
The key point here is that this is a mess, a mess we’ve seen unfold before and one that’s almost certain to play out again unless we find a different path to take. A part of this different path is we need to tie the ongoing conflicts directly to the larger global failures, not just politically but existentially, as the real crisis of #climatechaos continues to be ignored, masked by the drama and horror of the endless cycles of war and dead end power struggles.
We can’t stay on this path #KISS