This year has shown us how we are dependent on others, and the world around us. Climate change, volcanoes erupting, flooding, fires covering even the coldest areas of the planet, and conflicts appearing in many countries, in addition to the pandemic make us think about the future of our planet.

Not only is nature responding to our excesses, but also we are internally facing an upcoming of new concerns. The United States withdrew from Afghanistan without prior notice to its allies. Hundreds of foreigners are stuck there with no hope, women wonder how their future life will be. What was the role of the US in Afghanistan anyways? Was it just to have access to the world’s largest lithium reserves to allow Silicon Valley to further prosper? Or was it to replace the Russian presence in this area?

The US has a huge national debt with every single person owing around US$91.000 to the state. The country continues to print dollars, the majority of which China and Japan have purchased and could sell at any time, making the value of the dollar collapse within seconds. Wanting to show off with borrowed money creates fears for its future.

In other parts of the world, we witness revolutions in Myanmar, in some African countries, instability in most of the Middle East countries, with chaotic situations in Lebanon, Yemen, Palestine, etc. Russia invades Ukraine and thousands are killed on both sides, most of the cities have only ruins and millions live in underground shelters all just to satisfy a selfish vision of Russia’s leader.

Isn’t it time for the world to stop and start thinking how we should change things? The role of technology, importance of wealth, the right to exist freely need to be re-assessed by a real organisation, not the United Nations (UN), which has no results shown since its existence, with a security council, where previous superpowers still have veto rights, such as the UK, etc.

We need to sit, take the time and get the opinion of everybody and from everywhere to reach solutions. Continuing what we have today will definitely result into the end of our planet and this day will arrive sooner that we think. Biden’s speech at the UN mentioned a similar approach but still insisted on America First, which makes the rest of the speech worthless. It is not by speeches but by real actions, we get to know who people really are. Each person on this planet should have a right to speak freely and express his/her ideas, from the poorest in Africa, to those living in the US.

Some basic principles should guide our approach:

*Borders in the world have created competition, fights and wars, and consequently we should have one country, i.e. the planet earth.

*A person should be judged not by his wealth but on his human achievements – This is not the political communism, but a human communism, without any political aspect. Credit cards need to be issued based on the capital of compassion.

*The global world’s wealth, from mining to agriculture to fishing etc, should be equally distributed in the world – we are all inhabitants of the same planet.

*A real-world organisation should be established and should have representatives proportionate to the size of the population- China has for the moment one representative, so has Liechtenstein –which makes no sense. India with 1.4bn people is not present in the security council, whilst the UK with 59mn people is.

*The veto power by some of the nations should be abolished – No one has more rights than the others. It is the majority, which will decide.

*Respecting nature should be in the constitution of any location on this planet.

*And any other principle which will enable our planet to exist in a better manner.

Saleh Miri, Musacat Daily columnist, is an architect who came to Oman in the early 1980s.
The views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of Muscat Daily or Apex Press & Publishing