By Harbachan Singh

“When incidents like the recent AAPI shootings in Atlanta and the Colorado shootings manifest in a volcano like eruption, voices are heard here and there why we must quickly unite communities to curb hurting each other’s feelings.  Some vigils are hurriedly arranged, some reaching out efforts are made to cool down tempers and prevent escalation of the situation.  Rallies and protests often result in some legislative adjustments or some payment of renumeration or legal punishment of individual perpetrators to bring down tension and restore status quo. But these are temporary band-aid measures.  Even then insecure feeling continues to prevail.”

AAPI attack in Atlanta and the Colorado shooting can be attributed to the continuing rivalry of man with his neighbor.  We may have recently fed a beast that is now coming out and attacking people’s lives.    The rhetoric that came out of the White House has played havoc. 

Inter- racial rivalries and wars go as far back as memory can take us, back to long time ago when men formed groups to secure themselves and their possessions from the others.  As the saying goes, “Birds of the same feather flock together” human beings also divide themselves, by race, color, gender, height, wealth each possess, education, local community, language, religion, caste, sexual orientation (transgender), country, age, and the list goes on ad infinitum.  Lines of divide (including political party lines) are drawn both horizontally and perpendicularly to garner strength and produce fear.

Basically, man is worriedfor his future, primarily food and shelter.  He wants security.  He wants to acquire more to be more secure.  He will compete hard or will deploy devious methods to acquire more.  For this, wars have been fought where people have killed each other and destroyed each other’s possessions both real property and personnel.  They have conquered each other and stolen from each other their possessions. Physical walls and natural barriers like rivers and mountain ranges and now electronic surveillancesystems were built, such as The Great Wall of China, the Wall in Germany etc., and also to divide cities e.g., in Jerusalem.  Trade wars were fought for the same reasons to accumulate more loot than the other person orthe adversary. Gradually this greed permeatedinto cultural wars and religious wars and then there were theWorld war I and the World War II.   Even intra-wars within each category itself grew and retarded the progress of man.He was still not content.  Man has during all this time developed religions and cults to teach and discipline men how-to live-in peace with eachother and to abate greed. Our grandparents referred us to scriptures such as “To do to others as I would that they should do to me….” or they would say “Put yourself in the other person’s shoes to better understand the problem,” or they would say, “overload your adversary with love and influence him into submission.”

International organizations had been created like the League of Nations and the United Nations to bring countries together to conclude multilateral agreements so that countries can feel secure, safe and assured that their possessions are well protected and life could go on in a normal manner.  Nuclear test ban treaties and treaties on environment and climatic change agreements were also aimed towards the same goal.  Compliance systems are in-built and monitored. When religious institutions and world governments fail in their respective responsibilities, this same human fear begins to debilitateman. Mistrust intensifies and tensions grows high.  It then only needs a small incident, spark or excuse to blow up the built-up contained and compressed orsuppressed tension.

When incidents like the recent AAPI shootings in Atlanta and the Colorado shootings manifest in a volcano like eruption, voices are heard here and there why we must quickly unite communities to curb hurting each other’s feelings.  Some vigils are hurriedly arranged, some reaching out efforts are made to cool down tempers and prevent escalation of the situation.  Rallies and protests often result in some legislative adjustments or some payment of renumeration or legal punishment of individual perpetrators to bring down tension and restore status quo.But these are temporary band-aid measures.  Even then insecure feeling continues to prevail.

Unless and until man takes a step back and thinks out of the box and addresses the root causes of this perennial problem which has existed from times immemorial, World War III is but inevitable and the clock is ticking.

To find a real solution, we may have to create another United Nations like organization to tackle this gargantuan problem.  It is after all a worldwide problem.  The present Charter of the UN touches lightly on this point but does not provide for any substantive action to create and sustain sufficient level of safety and security between men and through them between nations that will do a creditable job.

The fact is that traditional monitoring methods or the stable building of understandings between men have failed to resolve this ‘unsecure feeling’.  New methods in this day and age of modern technology must therefore be developed using scientific methods or the IT as necessary, which are capable and reliable enough for men to have total confidence in the productwhich can perpetuate and guarantee complete faith in one another in the world where everlasting distrust amongst mankind hasincessantly plagued the world with this problem.  Could the solution lie in drawing the separationlines in a cross-section manner or in any other way to bring about the desired result? In other words, can we eliminate the lines of distinction?

Actually, we may need to collect a bunch of genius youth from around the world and put them into a room and lock them up until we see the smoke appear from the window.  They will have to look directly into the eyes of hate and discrimination to tackle the problem.  Only they can find a solution and create a world devoid of hate and discrimination for their own world.  The bias with which we have grown-up with prevents us from thinking wisely or creatively.  They may even say do away with police in uniforms with guns.  It is understood that UK Bobbies and UN Peacekeepers do not carry guns.  Any solution must restore complete confidence in social interaction and reform public safety.  The solution must take a more holistic approach.

Sometimes we say we should de-fund the police or come up with other proposals such as to promote more blacks,in order to address the problem.  For how long can we keep on barking up the wrong tree? These are symptoms.  We have to get the bull by the horn.

AAPI attack in Atlanta and the Colorado shooting can be attributed to the continuing rivalry of man with his neighbor.  We may have recently fed a beast that is now coming out and attacking people’s lives.    The rhetoric that came out of the White House has played havoc.  He has not backed off nor apologized but has kept on digging.  Basic cause has not changed – insecurity for life and possessions.  Jealousy, greedand arrogance, are but offshoots of the basic phenomenon. We must stop making the mistake over and over again.  This monster must be wrestled downpermanently lest we continue to live in danger and in the process destroy the planet on which we live and depend on.  The number of resources and the amount energy that gets consumed when we continue to live under insecure conditions today can eradicate entire poverty and disease on this planet.  Has anyone calculated the total daily military budget of all nations in the world?  We will save all these trillions of dollarsif we can find a solution to the insecure feeling of man in this universe.

(The author is a former Chairman of United Nations Headquarters Committee on Contracts. He can be reached at 4harbachan@gmail.com)