Happy New Year, everyone. 2024 has come. But the thing that we should not be doing is repeating 2023, and making sure humanity can do better in the future.
2023 - a year of many unexpected events around the world. Wars and disputes have plagued our minds and many conflicts have stopped humanity from advancement. You have probably seen videos saying many bad things happened, but let's be optimistic about the good ones and hope for a better year. Let me be frank, if you see globally, it's filled with more bad things than good things.
Being optimistic is good. It means that though a lot of bad things happen, you're staying positive. But the problem is if you only just stay positive and do nothing else to improve your next steps. So, the question we should be asking is what are we actually planning to do for 2024.
What happened in 2023 happened. Since it's impossible to time travel, we can't go back and fix all our problems. The only way is to make sure whatever decisions we make in the future are for the benefit of the people. Let's talk about 5 top global problems that should be properly addressed in the coming future whether it's 2024 or later.
1. Human rights
The amounts of reports of abuse of Human Rights it's frightening. This year was full of that. The violation of basic human rights has surged after the pandemic. During the pandemic, a lot of people became united since it's a global problem; but after the COVID-19 pandemic ended people went back to their old ways.
Human rights violations include killing women and children indiscriminately whether it's in the Gaza-Israel conflict or Russia-Ukraine conflict, should be stopped. When women and children are dying the whole world has stood silent and let it happen. The people who tried to speak up were shut down (another human rights violation). The way governments around the world acted, when they had always projected an image of them supporting human rights, was really upsetting to watch.
Possible solution: In 2024 or later, a lot of elections will occur in democratic countries, so it's a chance to challenge our candidates with human rights issues and all the issues that are to come in the future. Join together globally to unite against violations of human rights.
2. Reluctance for the right
2024 was a year when many people showed reluctance to support the right causes. Whether it's leaders or mass people, it was really sad to watch. Another thing that made it very easy was how the government and corporations or any institutions forced people to stay silent regarding certain matters.
The Gaza-Israel war is going on, and people are still reluctant to label Israel's bombing of women and children as war crimes and genocide. While protests around the world are increasing, political leaders are taking on a diplomatic approach by calling for a "humanitarian pause" instead of a "ceasefire" and other kinds of stuff like that. This has also happened for many other groups where the rich and powerful are dominating our governments.
A lot of government leaders have also done things that should've been criticized by world leaders. World leaders should've put sanctions on those leaders. Instead, the world leaders decided to stay silent or they decided to follow the status quo.
Possible solution: This is something we have to point out before their (world leaders) eyes. The reluctance a lot of people have shown to hold up the 'right' has really changed my perception of how far humanity has come - it has come a lot far, but now maybe it's falling off the cliff.
3. Middle-East
Middle-East problems have persisted for many years. It became a hotter zone of diplomacy and global presence than the superpowers' traditional opponents. With the Israel-Palestine conflict, Iraq and Iran having a significant impact on the Middle East it has become vital for the world powers to make sure the situation doesn't explode and make a mess.
Several deals have happened between the countries of the Middle East. While they are trying to make the deals effective, it is still impossible when the countries cannot agree on things that are actually important for the future of that region.
Possible solution: The thing that we should be seeing is how the more fire burns the existing problem, the more fuel any Western interference puts. The problems have simply become too dependent on the West and other powers when it should be an effort by the Middle-East countries to solve them.
4. Racism
Racism has just increased rapidly over the years. When the world should be a platform for people of all countries and races to come together to contribute to the future, it is very impossible due to many people's racist views and actions. The most horrifying thing is that in this modern age when we should be making people apologize for being racists, we're allowing them to lead us and we're eating from their palms.
I have continuously written against racism. It is a very important factor that is an obstacle to global development. The leaders in the global market or the leaders in global politics have made it clear that they won't support the people of different races making it very impossible for "those" people to actually participate.
Possible solution: People should be more aware of what constitutes racism and make sure they don't allow racism to thrive in the place they work or live. Being logically aware and understanding how being racist makes one living example of how low a human can be, a proper explanation of the concept should be carefully shown. And we need to make sure racists don't have power over us.
5. Always Diplomacy
While diplomacy is a huge aspect of any country's relationship with any other country or institution it just becomes very frustrating when we see diplomacy working against the people than for the people. The present 'play-safe' and diplomatic approach taken by governments by not addressing key issues that are dangerous and horrifying is harming the world.
What this 'play-safe' actually is - is that the global powers have become selfish. When something doesn't align with their interest (even if the thing is supported by many people) or the interest of a particular individual or party though it will benefit the world, it is absolutely selfish.
Possible solution: Call for this kind of diplomacy to change can really make it happen. The world leaders must be ready to take actions that benefit humanity as a whole rather than being selfish and not allowing any effective decision to take place.Global representation: One example of change should be the UN Security Council which has proved multiple times how democracy fails when a permanent state vetoes a decision that can actually do something effective. This concern has been brought up by many other leaders saying that this has become big powers making decisions in the name of the world when global participation is supposed to happen. (I talked about it in my last article).
Conclusion
What I want to say in the conclusion the plans I mentioned above are all very important to be addressed for the world to actually change. Celebrating the New Year by partying won't actually do anything effective. 2024 shouldn't be the year of a clean slate but should be a year in which we shouldn't repeat the wrong and horrible decisions we made in 2023. 2024 is the year in which we should be aware of our shortcomings in 2023.
There are many more problems that should be addressed. But off the top of my head, these are the most pressing matters right now. These 5 problems have been existing before 2023 but resurfaced last year due to different circumstances. I should also point out that I am by no means an expert on this issue - just a concerned citizen who wants to see the world at peace. The solutions I have provided are some concepts I think can be actually workable, still though there might be gaps that need to be filled since, I am saying again, I am no expert in this field.
I apologize for any mistakes. I hope you can help me out by providing more information and comments. It will be very helpful to understand what the perspectives of others are. Thanks for reading. Have a great year.
IMAN AWAKENS
Article art acknowledgment: Original photos (left) provided by Mahmud Hams (AFP) used for non-commercial purposes as per AFP's Terms of use, and Jahanzeb Ahsan (right) which is free to use under the Unsplash License. All designs and illustrations are designed by Iman Anwar. A better version of this article art (since Google decreased the resolution) is available here.
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