2023 witnessed an ignominious beginning. The new wave of Covid-19 in China has turned into a tsunami, with the lethal potential to envelope the entire world in a viral inferno.
All the major military nations flex their bulging military muscles. Five nuclear nations are engaged in a dangerous exercise in political brinkmanship that could spill over into the realm of a deadly atomic holocaust.
Putin and Nato are playing roulette in Europe. Biden and Xi Jinping rehearse a deadly game of military chess in the South China Sea. India and Pakistan continue to taunt each other using nuclear vocabulary. North Korea continues to launch nuclear capable missiles that could unleash a conflict of terrifying proportions. The Middle East, Afghanistan and Iran are in the throes of violent upheavals that could serve as a catalyst for unrestrained warfare.
Catastrophic events will spiral out of control, as nation upon nation make preparations to intensify war as an instrument of expansion and military and political dominance.
Climate change has begun to devastate the global landscape in frightening proportions. Volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, rain and snow on a monumental scale, religious genocide, the frightening implications of artificial intelligence, the scary proliferation of 21st-century weapons of war will dominate the headlines of events in 2023.
A new Covid pandemic, if left unchecked, will destroy the global economy and exact a death toll that will be frightening. A total global lockdown that we grimly witnessed in 2020 will become a grim reality as China loses the battle to contain a rampaging new outbreak.
The nuclear arms race continues unabated, as nations deploy 5th generation fighters and test 6th generation stealth warplanes.
Artificial intelligence, laser weapons, hypersonic missiles are bring deployed on land, at sea and in the air, in solemn preparation for a titanic nuclear clash that will herald the demise of mankind on this planet.
The war planners are under the illusion that a limited nuclear war will deter a greater war. The fallacy behind this delusion is that once nuclear war erupts, escalation will envelope every avenue of military strategy, those targeted and the targeter will be reduced to radioactive dust.
Civilisation is on the decline. Many nations are on the rocks spiritually, morally, racially and economically. What rich nations boast about nowadays is superficial. Look deep below the surface and you will conclude that they are in a precipitous decline.
2023 could witness gruesome manifestations of racial and religious hatred that has killed thousands in an orgy of mindless nationalism that defies logic and sanity.
In every corner of our planet, dishonesty is being rewarded. Honesty is the rarest commodity in the 21st century. Political demagogues are in power in most of the world’s power blocs.
Our global leaders have blatantly violated their oath of office. A litany of lies reveals how tragic a portrayal it is of our times that our lives are so enmeshed in deceit and falsehoods.
The lies of promised utopias, the lies of broken vows. If we continue on these suicidal trajectories, the end of mankind will become a reality in 2023.
* Farouk Araie, Johannesburg.
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.
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