ISLAMABAD, Sept 5: A number of experts have said the recent Iraq war has brought media images of raw blood and catastrophe in our drawing rooms creating revulsion in the public about the future of humanity.

They certainly have a point, if the discussion on ‘the culture of conflict and violence and war; and collective survival and collective suicide’ which took place at the TVO auditorium on Friday, under the aegis of Islamabad Cultural Forum, is any thing to go by.

Islamabad Social Science Forum President Dr Inayetullah, who made the presentation on the subject, argued that the past 6,000 years had been the theatre for 290 wars. This grim picture continued during the 20th century with two world wars, and the great holocaust in which 6 million Jews were killed.

The more regrettable was the fact that the 21st century, impacted by rational scientific attitude, had seen endless violence and war in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Dr Inayetulah said violence was rampant at the collective level, while every human being was subject to innumerable conflicts at individual, interpersonal, domestic, gender and ethnic clashes.

Given this scheme of things, the dominant trend in the world was to meet violence with violence and this would implode with world population rising to 11 billion at the end of 21st century, which would make it a near impossibility for food and good to become available to them. Hence Dr Inayetullah premised that nuclear weapons would be used by power-hungry states to destroy the entire global family.

This grim scenario generated an animated discussion in which the participants remained generally optimistic about the future of the world.

They were confident that while it might be true that conflicts and violence permeated human nature, our planet earth would be spared the doomsday scene.

Prof Khawaja Masud, always inspired by the wisdom of the great philosopher Bertrand Russel, saw unity as the emerging reality of the times. That was certainly true in the political movements in present day Europe, he said.

TVO Chairman Iqbal Jafar, who made a distinction between conflict, violence and war, said there was no inherent conflict in case of Iraq. The US had to invent one to make war on Iraq. He said the real issue was protection of and acquisition of wealth.

“The United States needs more oil. They will get hold of oil wealth of Iraq.”

Iqbal Jafar also said that he saw some wisdom in the theory of deterrence. Today more states were trying to manufacture their own nuclear devices and ultimately the fear of each other possessing nuclear weapons would prevent a nuclear holocaust, he remarked. — Jonaid Iqbal