He­len Dray­ton

To­day, East­er Sun­day, Chris­tians cel­e­brate the mys­tery of the res­ur­rec­tion—a mo­ment when hope shat­tered de­spair and death de­fied. Je­sus Christ, ven­er­at­ed as God by be­liev­ers, sac­ri­ficed him­self to re­deem hu­man­i­ty from sin. To the Jews au­thor­i­ties of his time, his teach­ings were blas­phe­mous. Hailed mock­ing­ly as King of the Jews, he was deemed an ex­is­ten­tial threat to the es­tab­lished re­li­gious or­der and the might of Rome and brand­ed an en­e­my of the state. To this day, with­in Ju­daism, Je­sus is not recog­nised as the de­scen­dant of Abra­ham, and the promised Mes­si­ah, the Son of God, sent to ful­fil the covenant­ed promis­es.

As Chris­tians re­flect on the res­ur­rec­tion of Je­sus as a joy­ous oc­ca­sion, there are bru­tal and un­nec­es­sary wars tak­ing place in the Mid­dle East, os­ten­si­bly in the name of peace. There’s mer­ci­less bomb­ing of chil­dren and civil­ian ar­eas, killing thou­sands and dis­plac­ing mil­lions, aris­ing from the Feb­ru­ary 28 at­tack by the US and Is­rael on Iran. Jus­ti­fi­ca­tions for that at­tack re­main un­clear or con­tra­dic­to­ry, rang­ing from stop­ping Iran’s nu­clear ca­pa­bil­i­ties (which the US said it de­stroyed a few months ear­li­er) to ad­dress­ing threats to Is­rael to regime change in Iran. The rest of the world watch­es as mo­tives, con­trol over en­er­gy re­sources, and the Strait of Hor­muz be­come ev­i­dent amid the blur of me­dia and in­for­ma­tion ma­nip­u­la­tion.

The dev­as­ta­tion of Pales­tin­ian civil­ian and pub­lic in­fra­struc­ture, and the wide­spread suf­fer­ing en­dured by non-com­bat­ants in the Gaza Strip, dis­tin­guish­able from the ac­tions of Hamas, the at­tack on Iran and the in­ten­si­fi­ca­tion of con­flict in Lebanon ap­pear to be el­e­ments of a cal­cu­lat­ed strat­e­gy aimed at re­shap­ing the re­gion, dri­ven by far-reach­ing am­bi­tions.

War may some­times be jus­ti­fi­able as a last re­sort against ag­gres­sion, but the war in the Mid­dle East seems dri­ven by a quest for dom­i­nance over crit­i­cal re­sources and Is­rael’s ob­ses­sion with vic­tim­hood and se­cu­ri­ty para­noia. Past suf­fer­ing—such as the Holo­caust—can­not jus­ti­fy un­pro­voked wars, the dis­place­ment of mil­lions of peo­ple and the ex­tinc­tion of na­tions or any­one it deems en­e­mies. War per­pet­u­ates hate and a cy­cle of trau­ma and re­venge, es­pe­cial­ly among chil­dren, who are soon to be adults, en­gen­der­ing a vi­o­lent cy­cle of con­tin­ued suf­fer­ing.

Else­where, name­ly in the African con­ti­nent, Su­dan, Er­itrea, Ethiopia, Dar­fur, the East­ern Re­pub­lic of Con­go, Mali, and Niger, some of the worst hu­man­i­tar­i­an crises have un­fold­ed—star­va­tion, maim­ing, slaugh­ter­ing, and weapon­is­ing sex­u­al vi­o­lence. These crises re­ceive lit­tle glob­al at­ten­tion com­pared to sim­i­lar sav­agery in the Mid­dle East, in­di­cat­ing that, to the rest of the world, the con­ti­nent’s vast nat­ur­al re­sources are more im­por­tant than peo­ple’s wel­fare. These are tragedies linked to lead­er­ship ri­val­ry, weak gov­er­nance, cor­rup­tion, pover­ty, and for­eign in­volve­ment, tar­get­ing min­er­al wealth. Has the dev­as­tat­ing lega­cy of ex­ploita­tion, slav­ery and vi­o­lence in Africa been learned?

The Rus­sia-Ukraine war, just as vi­cious, with an es­ti­mat­ed 15,000 civil­ians killed, is now in its fourth year, and part of a broad­er con­flict that ac­tu­al­ly start­ed in 2014 af­ter the an­nex­a­tion of Crimea and fight­ing in east­ern Ukraine. Clear­ly, the lessons of war have not been learned. Hate and dis­trust re­main deep and last­ing, to man­i­fest in fu­ture con­flicts.

And is democ­ra­cy in re­treat? There are signs of fla­grant dis­re­gard for in­ter­na­tion­al law, the weak­en­ing of the foun­da­tions of eco­nom­ic unions and the Unit­ed Na­tions, all bur­dened by bu­reau­crat­ic, in­ef­fi­cient sys­tems. Cari­com is no ex­cep­tion, as the old di­vide-and-rule game plays out in this chaot­ic world. Here, the Gov­ern­ment, ei­ther ig­no­rant of his­to­ry or proud of be­ing a pow­er­house pet, cham­pi­ons de­mo­c­ra­t­ic ideals while sup­port­ing vi­o­lent regime change and em­u­lat­ing au­thor­i­tar­i­an be­hav­iour.

To­day’s democ­ra­cies—born from the ash­es of World War II—wres­tle un­der the weight of rapid tech­no­log­i­cal up­heaval, glob­al­i­sa­tion, widen­ing in­equal­i­ty, mi­gra­tion, and po­lit­i­cal sys­tems that leave large sec­tions of so­ci­eties feel­ing their needs and voic­es are un­rep­re­sent­ed. These forces have ig­nit­ed cul­tur­al anx­i­eties and frac­tured so­ci­eties, breed­ing dis­trust, fu­elling pop­ulism, and erod­ing in­sti­tu­tions of ac­count­abil­i­ty. Democ­ra­cies stand at the cross­roads: ei­ther cling to mod­els that have served their na­tions well or reimag­ine them, craft­ing so­ci­eties that are just and tru­ly in­clu­sive, where ad­vances in tech­nol­o­gy serve hu­man­i­ty’s deep­est needs. Trans­for­ma­tion de­mands re­ject­ing the siren calls of co­er­cion, war, and de­struc­tion. Every sys­tem, no mat­ter how mighty, even­tu­al­ly with­ers. Yet in the act of res­ur­rec­tion, there is a pro­found op­por­tu­ni­ty: to let truth il­lu­mi­nate, to cre­ate en­ter­pris­es with a con­science, to de­moc­ra­tise jus­tice, and to gen­er­ate prof­it guid­ed by moral pur­pose.

As Chris­tians cel­e­brate the Res­ur­rec­tion, it’s use­ful to re­flect on how it teach­es the re­deem­ing val­ue of com­pas­sion and the pur­pose of life: to con­tribute to the good of all sen­tient be­ings.