Keerti Joshi
World Peace is a goal strived for by humanity for generations. We have made some great progress but still have had many setbacks for various reasons. Humanity needs to achieve three main goals in order to achieve World Peace. Firstly, everyone must strive to create a positive environment where everyone is treated equally. Secondly, each country must respect international borders and, finally, we need to change our mindset to focus on improving the world and not our individual position in the world. Each of these goals are of utmost importance in establishing World Peace.
A positive environment must be created in order to unify the world. There are too many conflicts that occur every day because of discrimination and stereotyping. Many countries are in a permanent state of civil war or conflict. For example, recently in Afghanistan, the Taliban overtook the country once America withdrew special forces. Under Taliban rule, women are not allowed to pursue education and seek jobs. This will lead to an unjust society wherein domestic discrimination will cause a negative ripple across the world. There is likely to be additional violence and an increase in criminal activities. Organizations such as the United Nations Human Rights Council should intervene in such discriminatory situations so that local conflicts can not continue for a long time. There are many studies explaining that peace can be achieved if there are much more impactful positive actions occurring compared to negative actions. Allowing everyone to be treated equally is a human right and helps create the positive environment needed for peace.
Respecting international borders is crucial because many conflicts continue because countries haven’t respected international borders for generations. For example, India and Pakistan have had a conflict over the Kashmir region for the last 75 years with wars every now and then. Considering nuclear capabilities in this region, a catastrophe is merely a button press away. Eventually, all countries need to agree to respect borders and not attempt to take additional land.
Changing our mindset will stop us from trying to compete with others. For example, Russia attacked Ukraine in order to regain Soviet glory. We need not to focus on competing with others over land, and instead move forward together to achieve goals that will advance humanity. For example, stopping climate change, reducing poverty etc. We must not focus on competing with others and instead work together to move forward.
With these main ideas in place, we must establish a set of leaders who can guide humanity on this path. This governing body must always have a clear vision of where we must go and must have a focus on improving the world as a whole and not its parts. A problem created by our divided society is a lack of unity and a clear goal about where to go. Steps forward have been taken, for example by creating the UN, but a large flaw is blatantly clear. Individuals are still focused on themselves and don’t think about the common human goals of being healthy and living a longer and peaceful life. People and, by extension, their countries are stuck thinking about themselves as being the most important and not thinking about the greater good and its importance in the world. In short, human beings need to stop discriminating, respect international borders, and create common goals that would advance humanity.
The Blue and White 