When the villain is dangerously innocent

Rabat - In a world buzzing with global summits and symposiums on tolerance and peace, we often find it hard to tell who starts the war and who ends it.

World leaders tend to hold on to their arguments concerning their visions of the world they want. They opt for attack as a defensive technique. They say the pie shall be equally split. However, some world powers pretend to own the so-called fixed pie and wickedly cry out to get the biggest slice.

Sometimes it is difficult to determine the reasons leading to conflict. Many factors cause turbulence when needs and interests are not fulfilled, or at least not addressed. For this reason, world powers appoint people they call mediators or negotiators. These people take it as their duty to stall violence by making their needs and interests clear and by trying to find a common ground. It is amazing to see the wiliness of parties accepting face-to-face meetings, for it gives a positive impression in the negotiation process. However, while they are having those cozy conversations in air-conditioned rooms, sipping a warm cup of tea, the world outside is blazing.

It is not mandatory to reach an agreement at the end of every negotiation. Yet, the third party is assigned a number of responsibilities in order to alleviate tension and save what can be saved. Why is it so hard for people to make concessions for the world to live in peace? Why is humanity so self-centered? Such questions have lost their content and become philosophical because we no longer know who we are or what we want. Indeed, we now use our minds to destroy each other.

The once beautiful mind, which struggled to build a tree house or bragged about having skillful green fingers or dreamed of making the world a better place through codes and morals, has become infected with individualistic thoughts. The mind grows to be very intricate. It is built to process the most challenging matters that arise. Such a heavenly gift has drastically shifted focus to outstanding inventions. These inventions suggest that the motto “Urbi et Orbi” is a mere speech orated by those who spent most of their lives in ivory towers.

The wars, the arms race, the nuclear powers all reveal a thirst that will be quenched only with blood. Many people have lost their families and friends because of the negotiations that failed to save their lives. These negotiations are mirages that are intelligently used to keep running the game of hope—a hope that seems to collide with the mind’s unexpected games. We no longer value the creature that contributes and enriches our diversity on this planet. The mind shows ingratitude to our lack of appreciating each other.

The world has become paranoid and over protective. The process of protection has remarkably developed from a matter of saving face and name with a sword, to more tangible interests such as territory and arms. The success of a party in an armed conflict is judged by the least amount of losses in war as possible. Technology revolutionized our means of defense from tactical to strategic plans. Extraordinarily, military forces can go into war while sitting at their desks. We can find a soldier sipping a cup of Starbucks coffee in a sophisticated office in the Big Apple, while an unmanned aerial vehicle bombs a neighborhood.

The world leaders hire specialists and masterminds to impress with eloquence and to destroy with weapons. Both are the heirlooms of Don Quixote de La Mancha: they are heroes in the eyes of their masters, but traitors and deceivers of the human race.

Edited by Katrina Bushko