Online Reporter
Communion with Bishop Lazarus
Today marks the beginning of the most sacred week on the Christian calendar — Holy Week — through which we remember the egregious persecution, torture, crucifixion and death of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
It is His sacrifice for the salvation of the human race that lies at the core of our faith.
Dark clouds
But this week feels anything but holy.
Evil forces are on the prowl.
A very dark cloud is currently hanging over humanity more than at any time in recent history.
To our east, disturbances continue in northern Mozambique, where the insurgent group, Islamic State Mozambique, continues to attack both military and civilian positions in the Mocímboa da Praia and Palma districts, as well as some districts in the neighbouring Nampula and Niassa provinces.
Overall, the insurgency, which began in 2017, has claimed more than 5 000 lives and displaced 1,3 million others.
Similarly, although news of the conflict is no longer grabbing headlines as it used to, hostilities continue in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), where clashes between government forces and AFC/M23 rebels are spreading from traditional theatres such as North and South Kivu.
The security situation in the DRC has deteriorated so much that food insecurity is expected to affect 26,6 million people — roughly a quarter of the population — this year.
Adding to this tragedy is the fact that scores of people have been killed, while seven million have been displaced in a festering conflict that has also drawn in regional countries such as Burundi, Rwanda and Uganda, as well the United States.
And then perhaps the mother of them all on the continent is the long-running civil war between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces, which began on April 15, 2023.
It is widely regarded as the world’s largest and most severe humanitarian crisis, as it has forced over 13 million-14 million people from their homes. Estimates suggest that between 50 000 and 150 000 people have been killed in this unrelenting cycle of violence.
In Eastern Europe, hostilities between Russia and Ukraine are still continuing, with close to half a million lives having been lost to date, among them 15 Zimbabweans who somehow found themselves on front lines more than 10 000 kilometres from home.
We can also not afford to forget the scale of death, destruction and suffering in Gaza, which has been obliterated by the Israelis after Hamas’ surprise attack on Tel Aviv on October 7, 2023.
All told, some 75 000 Gazans have been slaughtered through an Israeli-led genocidal campaign in an enclave that was home to a little over two million people.
The scale of human tragedy around the world is just unimaginable.
So, yes, it can never feel like Holy Week, especially against the backdrop of the haunting dirge that is sounding from every corner of the world.
It feels more like the apocalypse.
This reminds Bishop Lazarus of Matthew 24:6-8: “You will hear of wars and rumours of wars but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of birth pains.”
Gates of hell
But the most consequential conflict for humanity in the 21st century is the one unfolding in the Middle East, where the United States, under Donald Trump (the first convicted felon to occupy the White House, with countless other scandals above his head), and Israel, under Benjamin Netanyahu (who has been indicted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes and crimes against humanity), have ganged up against Iran.
With exactly a month after the beginning of the war, the impact of the hostilities is already reverberating across the world.
Economies in some parts of Asia are now groaning under extremely limited fuel supplies as the Strait of Hormuz — a vital artery through which about a quarter of the world’s supply flows — remains shut.
It is now clear that whatever the outcome of the war, which has all the makings and hallmark of major wars of the 20th century, the world will never be the same again.
The question in many people’s minds is, why and how does the world find itself in this mess?
Well, at the height of the chaos is a desperate plan by an empire in decline — the US — to reassert its hegemony in a world where a rival power — China — is irrepressibly rising. For Washington, its very survival depends on the sustenance of the petrodollar, whose lifeblood is oil, particularly from the Middle East.
The longer the world continues to buy oil in US dollars, the more sustainable it becomes for the US Federal Reserve to continue running the printing press with reckless abandon, for it knows its pervasive use as a transacting tool will naturally give in inherent value.
The collapse of the petrodollar will be catastrophic for the US. Over the past four years, Washington has been making its play.
A sequence of the events in the aftermath of Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine in February 2022 has given the US the opportunity to rewire the entire European energy system away from Moscow.
The US now supplies more than 58 percent of Europe’s LNG (liquid natural gas) requirements, up from about 28 percent in 2021.
Trump went further.
In January, he kidnapped Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and effectively turned Caracas into a vassal state, which is now paying tribute through its fabulous oil reserves — the largest in the world.
A critical outcome of this daring action has been the US’ ability to sell Venezuelan oil in US dollars; therefore, giving more life and vitality to the petrodollar.
You need to appreciate, dear reader, that Venezuela and Iran were the two major oil producers that existed outside the dollar system, which explains the ongoing assault on Tehran.
War hawks in the US calculate that if Iran is successfully brought under Washington’s orbit, an estimated 40 million to 45 million barrels per day of global production out of 103 million will effectively be under US control.
As one commentator recently noted, “The old system was built on Saudi crude priced in USD. The new system is built on American crude plus American gas from the Gulf Coast, with no alternative supplier of comparable scale.”
So, talk of the US targeting to take Khargh Island — which accounts for 90 percent of Iran’s oil shipments — is not surprising.
Might is right
As Bishop Lazarus hinted before, what is probably more worrying as it is frightening for the world is the new philosophy that is emerging in the West that asserts that “might is right”.
Such a philosophy has recently been sold to the world as machismo and bravado by that blubbering loudmouth, Pete Hegseth, the US Defence Secretary.
It was also crystallised by Netanyahu in a recent press conference in Jerusalem, where he quoted Will Durant, saying: “History proves that, unfortunately and unhappily, Jesus Christ has no advantage over Genghis Khan. Because if you are strong enough, ruthless enough, powerful enough, evil will overcome good.”
What is even more perilous for the world is the fact that we now have a gang in Washington that wields a lot of power but flagrantly disregards international law, values and norms.
And Trump has already put it on record that he does not need international law and his power is only limited by his own “morality” — whatever that means.
Such hubris.
This is why they do not bat an eyelid when Gaza was bombed to smithereens.
They also did not give a damn when over 100 little schoolkids were killed after an elementary school was bombed in Minab, Iran.
After recolonising Venezuela, Trump has already said his next mission after Iran is taking over Cuba.
Folks, call it whatever you will, but what we are seeing is colonisation of the resource-rich countries by the powerful.
Colonisation 2.0
Remember, the powerful will need strategic minerals if they are to maintain their hegemony and retain their status.
In simple terms, it means we, as countries blessed with these minerals, are back on the menu again. We need to be wary.
It is a strange world that we are now living in.
Bishop out!
