Arbaeen inclusivist worldview symbol of peace, justice
The United Nations has declared September 21 as the International Day of Peace. Every year, it also sets a goal. The official title for its previous goal was “Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions”. One can see that the titles the UN comes up with for these goals are very beautiful and correct every year. However, do they actually implement them? In practice, the UN itself is arguably one of the main violators of peace in the world. Despite its mission and goals as stated in the UN Charter, we have recently witnessed several instances of massacre and injustice in Gaza, Yemen, and other places. The governments that devised the UN’s structure are the main violators of peace. After World War II, the UN was established to maintain global peace and security and prevent a third world war, but in practice, the United States and Britain — i.e. the Western bloc — formed the Global North themselves and divvied up the Global South among themselves.
By Habibullah Golmohammadi
Scholar
In international relations, four “Great Debates” have taken shape. Out of these debates, various paradigms including idealism, realism, behaviorism, and pragmatism came out on top for a while. It must be acknowledged that the new world order emerging from the UN’s structure has failed to establish peace, justice, a healthy and sustainable environment, and welfare for individuals worldwide. So, it is in need of fundamental reforms. This flawed structure still has rotten power centers, both in the UN Security Council and the UN General Assembly, which supported the occupation of Palestinian lands and the massacre of Palestinian lives by the Zionist regime.
Today, we are also witnessing the promotion of state and international terrorism and the strengthening of extremist groups, fueling genocides, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. Yet, the UN, with all its international judicial structures like the ICJ and the ICC, has failed to create sustainable peace.
In today’s world, we are seeing fundamental shifts in regional perspectives, actions, connections, and integrations in political, cultural, economic, and other dimensions. This indicates the ineffectiveness of the power-based UN. As a result, global powers are now seeking to create new legal institutions. However, in its stated Sustainable Development Goal, the UN is trying to cover up the flaws in its structure, using its self-made symbols at a great cost, and continuing to maintain its flawed system. Of course, looking at the realities on the ground through the lens of realism, we are in need of giving more strategic depth to the intellectual foundations of international relations.
To attain the UN’s previous Sustainable Development Goal on the occasion of the International Day of Peace, one need not look further than the inclusivist worldview of Arbaeen. It is a new global paradigm in the field of international relations that has brought peace, tranquility, and justice.
It must be acknowledged that the power paradigm of Arbaeen, with its goals and components, is strengthening public diplomacy and global public opinion, as well as promoting intersubjective commonalities between states and nations based on human nature. This paradigm can play a crucial role in creating new structures through research and reinforcing commonalities and cohesion among nations by triggering a robust identity-building process.
Arbaeen diplomacy is a new process for today’s world. The world needs a power paradigm that can bring cohesion and create a coherent world order based on global inclusivism. However, this requires regional connections, strengthening connections between Middle Eastern humans, European humans, African humans, and others. Of course, the focal point of these global connections is a humanistic world based on the Arbaeen thought and ideology. This new power that has come out of Shia jurisprudence has assumed a significant role in bringing cohesion to all of humanity.
This powerful intellectual and ideological approach can be formulated in a manifesto, similar to the UN Charter. This means that intersubjective commonalities between states and nations can take the form of strong institutions within the new global structure. We believe that in today’s paradigm of soft power, commonalities have been reinforced. Today’s world needs to expand these dimensions in thought, ideology, and practice, creating new structures based on the Arbaeen inclusivist paradigm. This paradigm will strengthen intersubjective commonalities and create coherent relationships between nations and governments, forming a new composition of the UN.
This can be the future of peace, justice, and strong institutions as the Arbaeen inclusivist thought uses force solely against the oppressor, not the oppressed. Through this paradigm and thought, governments will not be against each other, and a solidarity-based, development-oriented cooperation will be formed based on sustainable peace, security, and justice.