There used to be a fad in the 1970s for forecasting the exact day and time the world was due to end, imminently. As a teenager, I sat alone in Stella’s cafe in Cork one Saturday afternoon when, according to Nostradamus groupies, humankind was scheduled to perish on the stroke of three o’clock. Beyond the cafe’s window, the brass clock over Keanes jewellery shop farther down Oliver Plunkett Street raced towards 3pm and then crawled past it. The world did not so much as hiccup. Life went on.
The daily barrage of international news these days evokes the same feeling of dread I had that Saturday watching the advancing hands of the clock. There is a sense of everything falling apart. Our planet is in mortal danger from climate change. There is a war in Europe and the wholesale slaughter of human beings in Gaza. Experts have warned that artificial intelligence has the potential to create weapons of mass destruction. Propagandists and conspiracy theorists churn out so many lies it gets ever harder to tell what is true.
The Doomsday Clock, according to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists founded by Albert Einstein, is set at 90 seconds to midnight. That countdown point was fixed for 2023 before Hamas murdered 1,400 people, taking more than 200 others hostage, in Israel and in retaliation, Israel murdered more than 10,500 people in Gaza, driving over a million others from their homes.
It feels as if everything is being allowed to slide. On Tuesday, Russia formally withdrew from the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe that was drawn up after the fall of the Berlin Wall to impose verifiable limits on the military weaponry of Nato and Warsaw Pact countries. The Russian leader has a penchant for geographical expansion and for frolicking bare-chested in he-man hunting pursuits.
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In the US, the probable Republican Party contender in the next presidential election is a proven sexual offender who has been indicted by courts in four states on various charges that include orchestrating “a criminal enterprise” to overturn the result of the last election. A New York judge is weighing up whether to strip Donald Trump of control of his own businesses and, yet, masses of voters want to give him control of their country.
Amid the global chaos we are witnessing, one of the most alarming revelations has been the absence of good leadership. In turbulent times such as these, the world needs a Nelson Mandela or a Mahatma Gandhi. Instead, what we have is Joe Biden nicely asking Israel for “restraint” in its pulverisation of Gaza while he sends a nuclear submarine to protect Israel’s rearguard. War-war is easier than jaw-jaw for those calling the shots from the sanctuary of their control rooms.
Our planet is, literally, going up in smoke while its political powers in Moscow and Washington, Tehran and London are flexing their partisan muscles. Vladimir Putin’s regime has threatened to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine. Amichai Eliyahu, Israel’s heritage minister, has said that dropping an atomic bomb on Gaza is a “possible” option.
Machismo is a weak and sorry excuse for leadership. It makes everything worse, not better. It destroys hope for the future and confidence in non-violent methods. It is devoid of courage and is the polar opposite of Gandhi’s painstaking ethics in achieving resolutions by peaceful means. “A leader takes people where they want to go,” said Rosalynn Carter, the writer, activist and wife of a former US president. “A great leader takes people where they don’t necessarily want to go, but ought to be.”
Great leaders bring people together. They do not drive generations of division between them. Great leaders know when to stop talking and how to listen. Great leaders have the strength to show their own humanity. Without great leaders, humankind is a runaway train careering to the abyss.
In London, the prime minister has attempted to outlaw this weekend’s march calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. Unsettlingly, a similar scenario is the starting point for Paul Lynch’s gripping novel, Prophet Song, which is shortlisted for this year’s Booker Prize. The Irish author paints a terrifying vista that is even more terrifyingly plausible. It begins with a crackdown by State authorities on a planned protest march by teachers and swiftly turns into all-out tyranny.
While reading Lynch’s novel, I closed the book each night with a thumping heart and gratitude that Ireland’s foreign policy of military neutrality and peacekeeping facilitates the Government to voice the constitution’s commitment to “the principle of pacific settlement of international disputes”. We know what Leo Varadkar and Micheál Martin are saying about Israel’s aggression is being heard where it needs to be heard because the now suspended Eliyahu suggested that, when his country retakes the Gaza Strip, its Palestinian inhabitants could ”go to Ireland or deserts”.
Recently, a healthcare professional who grew up in a Middle Eastern territory that is neither Israeli nor Palestinian and lives with this family in Ireland told me that “because of foreign policy”, he could not live anywhere but here. His words made me glad for Ireland but worried for the wider world. “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world,” cautioned the American anthropologist, Margaret Mead. “Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”
Big elections are looming. Next summer, the 27 countries in the European Union, accounting for 448.4 million people, will elect a new central parliament. On this island that was long riven by violence, we voters need to make our choices judiciously. Had the late Ian Paisley and Martin McGuinness, for example, not been elected to the Northern Ireland Assembly, the relative peace that prevails today might still be but a dream. “He risked the rejection of his comrades and the wrath of his adversaries. He made honourable compromises and was strong enough to keep them,” Bill Clinton said in his eulogy at McGuinness’s funeral.
By demanding Israel’s diplomatic ostracisation from Ireland, McGuinness’s Sinn Féin heirs have abandoned the former IRA leader’s ultimate acceptance that compromise is essential if we are all to live together in peace. Sometimes, great leaders are closer than we realise.