Mapping global conflicts

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If statistics are anything to go by, 2011 marked 26 armed conflicts worldwide. A majority were a result of a series of  pro-democracy movements, rooted in Middle East and North Africa. On an average, Asia and Africa still account for three quarters of armed conflicts while Europe, Americas and Middle East host only one quarter.

A flood of military conflicts inflict the current global page, stemming from violations of human rights, unlawful killings, forced displacements and torture. Off these, Internal conflicts make up for a huge majority. Issues of identity, ethnicity, religion and competition underscore the current conflicts in Afghanistan, Iraq, Africa, Sundan, Congo, Uganda and Sierra Leone. 
Where there is conflict, there will be laws to mitigate the effects. The questions is- are these laws effective enough to grapple with the gravity and complexity of these conflicts? Mapping the current regulatory field, the International Humanitarian Law or Laws of Armed Conflict takes center stage. While the IHL applies only during armed conflict, human rights laws apply as much in war as in peace. Despite these laws and the constant effort of the UN to monitor and report the human rights violations and conflicts, many perpetrators go scot-free. Powerful nations have often shown a sinister willingness in doing so and continue to disclaim any responsibility. 

One of the most sophisticated developments in international law, since the adoption of the UN charter is the establishment of the International Criminal Court in 2002 that aims to prosecute people accused of genocide, crime against humanity and war crimes. The Universally binding Arms Trade Treaty is still under consideration.

This storify page is a quick snapshot of the plurality and diversity of issues that plague military conflicts worldwide.

Military gains social legitimacy

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The war has defined the world we live in. You are living as a result of a war your ancestors won or survived.

History stands evidence to the role military power has played in establishing civilizations. The rise and fall of empires has largely depended on the strength of military armies.

500 hundred years after Egypt and Mesopotamia took to bronze over stone, warfare gained a new paradigm. It marked the beginning of the development of weapons and sparked tactical innovations. Juvenile it would be to assume that improved weaponry characterised the increase in warfare. Social structures made a profound contribution.  Weapons only licensed the impetus to fight. It was the birth of complex societies that sparked the military revolution.

Societies gave legitimacy to social roles and behaviours. Agricultural abilities endowed societies with the ability to cater to basic resources and grow large populations.  This empowered them with a new economic base. At the intersection of these abilities, state governing institutions took birth giving stability and permanence to the organisation of social resources. Construction of military structures was thus only the next expected outcome that was fast to gain social legitimacy.

The birth of the state and the social legitimacy of military structures alone, however, did not propel conflict. Religion, the psychological engine that drives the spirit of conquest played its role. Religion gave legitimacy to the military to declare conflict and war soon gained not just legitimacy as a social function but as an indispensable social order of survival.

Warfare thereon assumed a size, a mechanism of sustainability, a certain frequency of occurrence and a legitimate license to kill the man beyond the border.

‘I declare my relationship with war as difficult’

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Before I call myself a journalist, a writer or a broadcaster, I call myself a military man’s daughter, a military man’s granddaughter and today, a military man’s sister.

 

As far back as my ancestry goes, the military has not just been a way of life but the only life. The war makes a huge part of who I am today. It has given me moments of pride and has inflicted on me equal moments of loss and pain. I am gripped by gratitude as much as I have conjured up anger for the life the military gave me.

 

It robbed me of a normal childhood.

 

It pulls a family apart, snatches the emotional attachment you might have shared with your father and suspends your life in the lurch. You can never be too sure if and when the next call you get tells you – your father is dead. You can never be too sure of anything in the military.

 

A crucible of contradictory emotions run through my blood when I trace the dots that thread my relationship to the military. In short, I declare my relationship as difficult.

 

Over the years, like many other things in life, I’ve made peace with my disillusionment with war but I’m impelled by an inner urge to seek a deeper understanding of conflict; of bloody wars; their miserable aftermaths; the violent civilian strife and the peacekeeping measures that ostensibly hope to change the bitter realities of war.

 

Driven by a gripping desire to study movements of conflict and resolution, I use reportage and writing to get closer to the subject and trace the ongoing global conflicts.