World Politics News   Articles for World Politics Course

The Global Peace Index measures violence and the fear of violence in different countries.  It uses a set of quantitative and qualitative indices to measure the level of fear, and by these measures the world spent $14 trillion in 2014 to address the problem of violence.  The highlights of the annual report are:

• Since last year, 81 countries have become more peaceful, while 78 have deteriorated.
• Many countries in Europe, the world’s most peaceful region, have reached historically high levels of peace. 15 of the 20 most peaceful countries are in Europe.
• Due to an increase in civil unrest and terrorist activity, the Middle East and North Africa is now the world’s least peaceful region for the first time since the Index began.
• Globally the intensity of internal armed conflict has increased dramatically, with the number of people killed in conflicts rising over 3.5 times from 49,000 in 2010 to 180,000 in 2014.
• The economic impact of violence reached a total of US$14.3 trillion or 13.4% of global GDP last year.

Unfortunately, most of the world’s population (2 billion) live in the 20 least peaceful countries while a minority (500 million) live in the 20 most peaceful countries.

Pope Francis issued his encyclical “Laudato Si (Praise Be), On the Care of Our Common Home“, and the language of the encyclical is straightforward and harsh:

1. “Laudato si’, mi’ Signore” – “Praise be to you, my Lord”. In the words of this beautiful canticle, Saint Francis of Assisi reminds us that our common home is like a sister with whom we share our life and a beautiful mother who opens her arms to embrace us. “Praise be to you, my Lord, through our Sister, Mother Earth, who sustains and governs us, and who produces various fruit with coloured flowers and herbs”.

2. This sister now cries out to us because of the harm we have inflicted on her by our irresponsible use and abuse of the goods with which God has endowed her. We have come to see ourselves as her lords and masters, entitled to plunder her at will. The violence present in our hearts, wounded by sin, is also reflected in the symptoms of sickness evident in the soil, in the water, in the air and in all forms of life. This is why the earth herself, burdened and laid waste, is among the most abandoned and maltreated of our poor; she “groans in travail” (Rom 8:22). We have forgotten that we ourselves are dust of the earth (cf. Gen 2:7); our very bodies are made upof her elements, we breathe her air and we receive life and refreshment from her waters.

Most analysts have concentrated on the Pope’s analysis of the problem of climate change.  But his more important analysis has to do with the link between inequality and the environmental crisis:

56. In the meantime, economic powers continue to justify the current global system where priority tends to be given to speculation and the pursuit of financial gain, which fail to take the context into account, let alone the effects on human dignity and the natural environment. Here we see how environmental deterioration and human and ethical degradation are closely linked. Many people will deny doing anything wrong because distractions constantly dull our consciousness of just how limited and finite our world really is. As a result, “whatever is fragile, like the environment, is defenceless before the interests of a deified market, which become the only rule”.