Words can save the world, but bombs will destroy it – Give peace a chance!

By JOHN GUBBA

As a filmmaker, writer and publicist I understand the power of both the written and the spoken word.

In a world where spin is a science designed to brainwash, where marketing is deemed more valuable than editorial and social media dominates, the real battle in the quest for world peace is not the so-called war on terror. It is a desire to unite people to stand together that should demand our full attention. It is the struggle to win the hearts and minds of the whole human race that we should be focusing on.

Not conflict. Not racism. Not hatred. Not bombs.

It is time for the people of the world to put down their weapons, to ignore the scaremongering war cries of our politically corrupt leaders and dictators.

It is time to stop dancing to the tune of the businessmen, the bankers and the weapons suppliers who thrive every time we go to war.

It is time for words to be used as our unifying weapon if we are to give peace a chance.

And the beauty is that words will not condemn the ordinary man and woman in the street to a life of poverty or a loss of liberty.

There are those within the small minority controlling the world’s ecomony who will always see the commercial benefit of conflict. The United States, for example, is a country that relies on being at war to sustain its economic growth. But responding to the horror of grotesque acts of terrorism by dropping bombs and invading one country after another is not the answer to our problems. Neither is stirring up a cauldron of hatred designed to pitch one religion against another. Whether that be Muslims, Christians, Jews or any other indoctrination.

It was the Bee Gees who penned the line: “It’s only words, and words are all I have to take your heart away.” But never have words been more important than they are right now, in an age where extremists on all sides threaten the future of our planet in a way that global warming never will.

Do not underestimate the damage already done by Donald Trump, a racist extremist who would be President, calling for a ban on Muslims entering the United States. His words simply add fuel to the fanatical hatred of the extremists controlling the Islamic State, who already occupy parts of Syria and Iraq and want to inflict terror on all non-Muslims. The worst case scenario looks bleak. But it does not have to be that way.

Let’s face it, Mahatma Gandhi was right 70 years ago when he called for peace between Hindus and Muslims. An eye for an eye can only ever end with the whole world blind. And that is exactly why words must replace the bombs if we are ever to experience any meaningful world peace.

Pitching Christians against Muslims, the dangerous road to hell that Trump and his supporters advocate, is ultimately our route to a doomsday scenario. How ironic that the words of a billionaire have the potential to bankrupt our planet in every which way you could possibly imagine.

Meantime, we have already been drawn into what could become a perpetual spiral of confrontation by bombing Syria in an ill-thought out campaign to eradicate the Islamic State. The truth, as we found out by bombing Iraq and Afghanistan, is that a conventional war when your stated aim is to combat terrorism is a never ending circle. It is a war that can never be concluded purely by using military weapons because terrorism is a cancer that can only be cured by winning the hearts and minds of the people the extremists recruit out of hatred for an enemy they perceive to be unjust.

Let’s face it, we must all take responsibility for creating this world at war. And it is time for the people to open their eyes to what is really going on.

The USA – supported by the UK and our other allies – are invading country after country not because we want peace and safety in our home countries. Every attack on another nation makes the world we live in less safe for all of us. The truth is that every Middle Eastern assault is motivated, in part at least, by oil and other commercial reasons.  The merchants of war are quite literally making a financial killing. What is even more frightening is how ‘our side’ created ISIS, the Taliban and other terrorist organisations in the first place. Not simply by bombing and invading. Many of these guys we have spent years fighting were funded by and worked for the Americans before they became our enemies. The US have a long history of funding and arming the likes of Osama Bin Ladan and Saddam Hussain and calling them ‘freedom fighters’ until a change in the political landscape re-defines them as ‘terrorists’ because it benefits Western interests to take them out. So, ask yourselves this, who are the terrorists? If you live in the Middle East you would say George Bush and Tony Blair, Obama and Cameron are the terrorists. Along with the Israelis. And this is the core of the problem that we must address.

We need to clean up our own act. No wonder the extremists find it easy to recruit. Especially when a racist maniac like Trump starts spouting such ridiculous garbage that ISIS must be rubbing their hands with glee because he is doing their job for them. Trump is an embarrassment to you, to me, to everyone in the Western world. And his words are possibliy the biggest threat to world peace since Hitler.

Racism is destructive. It always has been and it always will be. And it is not helpful that Islamophobia is on the rise. In London, the number of Islamophobic incidents recorded by the Metropolitan police has increased by 70% in the past year alone. Every time there is a terrorist incident involving evil fanatics who abuse the name of Islam an alarming consequence is that ordinary, law-abiding Muslims pay a heavy price.

Rather than verbally attacking Islam and bombing one Muslim country after another, we should be fighting the real battle. To find peace we must use words not bombs to win the hearts and minds of ordinary people. Because at the end of the day, whatever so called religion anyone belongs to, people are people. Ordinary people all want the same thing. A healthy and happy family, a good job, a nice home, a good life.

Please let us abandon going down the road of an eye for an eye where the whole world becomes blind. The time has come for the people of every race to stand together to demand peace.

It is with these words that I urge everyone who wants peace in this world to help prove the power of  the written and spoken word. Not words that offend and attack. Words that look for positive solutions in a conciliatory way. This is why I have invested my time in writing this blog and making comments on social media. Because this is the real battle. Until the world learns how to negotiate and reason there is no hope. And this must be done by conceding ground on both sides, not by aggressively attacking the beliefs of the people we need to make peace with.