SSP Diaries | 2025 another year of questions without suitable answers

THE YEAR 2024 is now history, it has come and gone. It was a year full of global turmoil, a lot of chatter about how to resolve issues and make earth a better place for human existence. If anything, the past year was characterised by humanity’s suffering on unprecedented scales across the globe. We asked our leaders and ourselves many questions as we strived to come to grips with the abundance of atrocities faced by humanity, yet the year ended with little or no resolution, much less hope for future generations.

Now 2025 is upon us, and we still carry the ‘baggage of hostilities’ from the past with us – race fighting against race, religious upheavals, nations unable to live in peace, human greed, the lack of respect for life, the continued rise of ideological radicalism, etc. Differences continue to be matters to be resolved through violence rather than discussions/negotiations, the use of rational thinking. Violence is a common tool for resolving issues. This was aptly demonstrated in 2024, and it has cast a trend that will continue for many years to come.

In the recent past, the CEO of a large health insurance company in the USA was murdered by an assailant who felt that the company had failed him in delivering services they were contracted to provide. Whereas the act was clearly wrong, the population in general felt that health insurance companies preyed upon the sick, making billions of dollars in profit, rather than providing the contracted service. High costs of health insurance and limited services provided for clients in need are a reality in Jamaica, and many of us identify with the case in the USA.

INCORRECT DIAGNOSES

Then there are the many cases of incorrect diagnoses, negligence by health professionals – sometimes resulting in deaths – that impact our own health services and for which there is never appropriate closure. The population today is much wiser and not likely to be as tolerant as those before them. When will our local health services begin to be held accountable?

Inappropriate legal representation, wrongful detentions by law-enforcement services, wrongful incarcerations by our courts, victimisation at the workplace and various kinds of abuses are commonplace in our society. All these acts can be classified as acts of violence against a person and which, in turn, are likely to result in the violent act associated with the revenge syndrome.

NATO AGENDA

The war continues unabated between Ukraine and Russia. It has now reached the stage where its continuation is one which suits the NATO agenda, and so the suffering will continue until one party or the other is destroyed. The war in Gaza has gone beyond its original boundaries and is still being supported on the original pretext, Israel’s right to defend itself, by the USA and the EU generally. West African countries, such as Nigeria, Mali, Niger, Chad, Burkina Faso, continue to struggle with asymmetric warfare waged by radical ideological groups based on the teachings of Islam. Additionally, some are still recuperating from oppressive colonial pasts.

In our own backyard, our Haitian neighbours struggle to be released from the grasps of lawlessness that has taken over the country. This experience does not seem to have and end in sight, as the assistance received to date is not sufficient to create the desired results.

If all this is not enough, we note where the next president of the USA wants to buy Greenland and the Panama Canal, sovereign territories, and if this fails, he’s allegedly prepared to take them by force. One wonders what signals are being sent to Venezuela, which has eyes on Guyana, for example. Violence against women has increased in Afghanistan, and the situation is being carefully watched in the new and emerging Syrian state. Is there likely to be any action taken by the UN, or the developed world, if things go south here? It hasn’t happened in Gaza or the areas of conflict in Africa, so the result, sadly, is likely to be the same. For what it’s worth, the trends have dictated reality. The year 2025 will see people the world over asking the same questions they did in 2024, but getting neither meaningful nor suitable answers that speak to the reduction of global violence in all its nature. When will all this madness end...again, there is no answer, except that violence begets violence!

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