The Aftermath of War

Peace appears to be a mere interlude, war, the default condition of human beings

- Amir Ali

SOME years ago, the elderly and amiable former President of Uruguay, Jose Mujica at the end of an interview he gave to the Al Jazeera journalist Theresa Bo, suggested that the world was headed to hell. Sadly, today well-intentioned calls for peace in the face of war become the littered detritus of best intentions that have always paved the road to hell, a road the world now inexorably marches on and which Mujica referenced so well.

The wars in the world show no signs of ending. The two most prominent ones are the 'special military operation' in Ukraine that Russian President Vladimir Putin initiated on 24th February 2022 and which nears three years and the over a year of relentless Israeli attacks on the Gaza strip since the October 7, 2023, Hamas attacks. There are other, lesser-known theatres of conflict such as Sudan, where for two years a civil war has raged between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). There is also a frightening fluidity to global politics, evident in the rapidity with which the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria fell and the flurry of diplomatic activity that has accompanied the newly powerful Ahmad al-Sharaa's overseeing of state-building activity.