How to resist new challenges

17 May 2019

There was an article of the chief adviser to the Chairman of the Group of strategic vision "Russia-Islamic world" Veniamin Popov in “Nezavisimaya” newspaper.

 

Actions of the West seeking to keep in any ways the escaping domination lead to new problems, challenges and conflicts. The processes started by globalization led to rise of nationalism because many nations, including big ones, became afraid not just of loss of identity, but also of dissolution of the identity. At the same time, the essence of all processes of today's world can be expressed by the term "growing polarization".

 

Here there are data of the recent survey conducted in the USA by sociologists from the universities of Louisiana and Maryland. The equal shares of supporters of Republican and Democratic parties, 42% relatively – see the opposite side as "the obvious evil". Respondents were also offered to answer, whether they agreed with a statement: "Should it be better if the most part of supporters of other party would die". 20% of democrats and 16% of republicans answered in the affirmative.

 

The following question sounded: “Whether you consider justified protest actions with the use of violence in case in 2020 the victory at presidential elections is won by the candidate of the competing party?" More than 18% of democrats and nearly 14% of republicans answered in the affirmative.

 

In the last 30 years, and it is accurately shown by reports of Oxfam, growth of economic inequality, first of all concentration of world income and wealth in hands of a narrow circle of people is observed on a global scale: more than a half of global wealth is in hands of 1% of the population.

 

Along with the going deep gap between the rich and the poor more and more evidence of lawlessness appears. On this background, the hostility to strangers and minorities grows even in the European countries. Only for the last few years, the situation with tolerance worsened in Denmark, Spain, France, Croatia and Macedonia. It is complicated for migrants and minorities in 44 countries, including Latvia, Hungary, Ukraine and the USA.

 

In April, all international community was shocked by the terrifying terrorist attacks on churches and hotels in Sri Lanka. Nine Muslim suicide bombers, natives of wealthy families, consciously blew up themselves in the Christian centers as revenge for execution by Australian Brenton Tarant on March 15 of the praying Muslims in two mosques of New Zealand. The president of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdogan characterized it as attack to all mankind, and the head of European Parliament Antonio Tajani called the event "genocide of Christians".

 

 

How to resist new challenges

 Sri Lanka. Negombo. Saint Sebastian's church where on April 21 there was a terrorist attack. In the island, security measures after a series of attacks resulted with more than 350 victims are strengthened. AP/Manish Swarup/TASS

 

More and more Christians in the world perish because of the faith. It is stated by the international organization "Open Doors". According to human rights activists, last year 4305 people were murdered on purpose only because they were Christians. It is nearly one and a half times more, than the previous year. In general, in 2018 more than 245 million Christians underwent prosecutions because of the faith. Even more often attacks fall on the main religious holidays.

 

The website Al Jazeera emphasized that the tragedy, which happened in the island of Ceylon, did not have just local character, but also was caused by "global dynamics". Aggravation of the national, ethnic and confessional conflicts has negative impact on the relations between Tamils (Hindus), the Buddhist community, Christians and Muslims. In order that in the island the lasting peace was established, it is necessary to remove the causes of discrimination against minority. Though 10 years passed after the end of the civil war, "the future of Sri Lanka still looks gloomy".

 

Practically there is no day without any messages about terrorist attacks in any Muslim states (Afghanistan, Pakistan, etc.). In Nigeria, which population approaches 200 million people and where it is equally divided into Muslims and Christians, new disorders are caused by repressions concerning 3 million Shiites.

 

The English magazine “Economist” noted the other day that during the period between 2000 and 2004 as a result of 240 attacks on the religious purposes 620 people died. Since then the number of such incidents sharply increased: between years 2013-2017 the number of the registered attacks exceeded 1400, and the number of deaths passed 4 thousand.

 

From the moment of creation of Islamic State in 2014 successors of Al-Qaeda (the organizations are banned in the Russian Federation), who focused all the anger against "the distant enemy" earlier, that is America and the West, began to instruct the followers to attack places of religious cults. Here there is a growth of number of victims in attacks on mosques, churches, synagogues, etc.



After falling of "caliphate", first of all as a result of the Russian military operation in Syria, approximately the fifth part of 40-thousand army of mercenaries began to return to the countries (and it is more than 80 states). Their communications, experience and eagerness in fight against "heretics" make these jihadists very dangerous.

 

How to resist new challenges Chief adviser to the Chairman of the Group of strategic vision "Russia-Islamic world" Veniamin Popov

 

Still international community is not able to cope with the international terrorism. Syria, Iraq, Libya, Yemen, Egypt, Algeria, Mali are the countries which suffer from actions of Islamic extremists today. It seems there is an objective need for combining efforts and not allow new terrible terrorist attacks, to keep lives of innocent people. However, still it is not possible to realize it: the mercenary line of some circles in the West on various pretexts fails much-needed coordination of efforts in fight against world terrorism.

 

Meanwhile the nature constantly dictates need not just to coordination, but combinations of efforts for environment protection – our planet is in serious danger. Thawing of ices, sea level rise, abnormal frosts, a drought, the fires, hurricanes, floods – extreme weather events are observed in the most different points of the globe. A primary problem, according to scientists, is global climYate change.

 

In circumstances when the humankind faces the increasing number of challenges, more and more attractive the position of Russia which supports respect for rules of international law looks, tries to obtain that the relationship between the states have to be built up through dialogue and formation of balance of interests.