Coming Together to Tear us Apart
Bangkok - “They should have learned by now that no one country is able to resolve any of these issues on its own, no matter how powerful it is,” said Mohamed Elbaradei, 2005 Nobel Peace laureate Monday at The Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Thailand on the issue of Global equity and security.
Elbaradei, who was awarded a joint Nobel Peace Prize with the International Atomic Energy Agency for their “efforts to prevent nuclear energy from being used for military purposes and to ensure that nuclear energy, for peaceful purposes, is used in the safest way possible,” believes that is the money used for the army could have a much better use instead of using it for making more nuclear weapons.
“I mentioned poverty, and it is not that we don’t have the money. We…last year we spent 1.7 trillion dollars on army,” he said. “If they would get just one percent of that money, the 900 million people who…who go to bed hungry every night would have enough to eat.”
“It’s not a matter of money, it’s how we have our priority structured.”
In his speech at the John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum, he mentioned that “rich countries are apathetic to the misery of the poor,” supporting his views on why money is not used to help poverty but is instead used for the benefits of the army in the production of nuclear warheads.
The reality of the gap between the wealthy and the poor between countries and people simply shows the lack of unity in the world. Despite globalization, which is meant to bring the world together, the world is becoming more polarized by the day. It has led to people trying to prove whose is more powerful.
Elbaradei said he believes that polarization will help no one and will only lead to the worst. He stated that we are living with an “us” versus “them” aspect, which means that if it doesn’t affect us, we do not have to care.
This has led Elbaradei to state that he has lost optimism in reducing the amount of nuclear warheads with disarmament and ultimately preventing a nuclear war from happening.
“The answer is, of course I’m not optimistic.”
Elbaradei began his commitment 44 years ago, but has lost much faith in the commitment he made due to there being over 16 thousand warheads present after the end of the Cold War.
“You cannot really say that this is commitment have been made in good favor,” he said. “I think we are going in the reverse in fact, I mean all the weapon states have modernizing their nuclear weapons.”
The risk of a nuclear was isn’t only at the hands of choice, but a simple malfunction of a computer could end up leading the world into a chaotic war.
“Up to 2,000 nuclear warheads - mostly in the US and Russia - are constantly on high alert, which leaves the door open to a computer error that could lead to great destruction,” said The Nation on Elbaradei’s speech at NIST International School in Bangkok.
Time is growing thin, for even Elbaradei believes that we must rush nuclear disarmament and become united as opposed to full of pride. With the world coming together, the opportunity is there to make this world a better place, we should not make it a competition on who has the bigger gun.
If we do not become one, great destruction will become inevitable.
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