Spiralling gas charges and fears of a nuclear war

Last week my house had no lights, no WiFi, no hot food for several days. If you live in rural areas, electricity cuts and using kerosene lamps are the norm. As for hot food, well... Let’s go back to when anyone reading this and who speaks standard English might relate to. We passed through secondary school, varsity, and eventually the National Service, or JKT, back in the day. We lived and trekked through camps.

We cooked with grass and dry sticks and ate sitting on muddy, sandy grounds. We used our mess tins for washing the face, drinking tea and eating ugali, beans and amazing meals. Mess tins were our smartphones.

Ha ha ha!

In open land mashambani etiquette, missing electricity is as normal as missing a bus. There is always the next bus, but not for us town folks.

Of all vital things these days, an urbanised citizen cannot delete WiFi. We need the internet. Having no electricity and using torches is BAD, yet lack of WiFi (in London especially) is a big deal.

Take this.

These days most young people cannot cook. You want food? Just consult your smartphone. Don’t even need to speak. Just click this and that and choose any food. Vegan. Vegetarian. Meat. Gluten-free. Sugar-free. Salt-free, etc. Perches in your house in under 30 minutes. Having no WiFi, therefore, equals starvation.

Life has become super-expensive in April-May 2022.

Everything up by at least 50 percent!!!

Salaries? Some got a two to five percent rise, which is peanuts, to be honest. And that is the price of war. War is evil and akin to a grinning devil. War is also a profitable business. According to market share stats, between 2017 and 2021, the leading exporters of arms were the US (39 percent), Russia (19 percent), France (11 percent) and China (4.6 percent). In terms of military technology, we are informed, the US leads, followed by China, North Korea and Israel.

Every few years when people are savaged by planes and bombs and guns, someone makes money. While we complain about murders and prices going up, look whose bank balance is cheerful.

Open Democracy, an online report said in March, “Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has made members of the UK House of Lords tens of thousands of pounds richer through their investments in arms firms.”

Open Democracy claimed some of these Lords own at least £50,000 in the British weapons manufacturer BAE Systems. That BAE share price has blossomed by 23 percent since the mass killings kicked off.

War is about power, blood and money.

But what about us, the simple Alis, Johns, Marys and Khadijas?

We ARE feeling the pinch.

And what about us Africans?

Some Africans say Russia has never invaded Africa. Russia never colonised Africans. There was a clip circulating online, talking about double standards.

It claimed that the slaughter of innocent civilians in Ukraine is horrible, yes. Last week the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner confirmed 2,345 civilian deaths.

Now. Check deaths in Palestine, the clip said. In 2021, stats given by London’s Independent newspaper quoted an Israeli rights group reporting 300 Palestinians mowed down, “…at least a fifth were children, marking the deadliest year on record since 2014. Nearly 900 Palestinians were also made homeless”.

In Israel, 13 people, including two children, were killed.

In Syria, the pro-opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights claimed that 160,681 civilians were killed between March 2021 and March 2011. The figures list the killers as other armed groups, international coalition forces, Turkish forces and Syrian Democratic Forces.

These killings, argue many Africans, have been continuous and not much noise made at the level of Ukraine. Sympathy for President Putin is not exactly what most Africans are saying. The African argument is, in this dreadful theatre of dangerous nations, Mr Putin is doing nothing new.

Americans (and others) have been dancing it (worse) for ages.

This week’s Sunday Times headlines argued that previous British governments had hesitated (and refused) to send weapons to Ukraine since 2015 “for fear of provoking Russia”. The “Insight” story gave an impression that peace and fear of nuclear escalation is at the heart of some of these politicians’ decision making.

Meanwhile, deaths continue soaring in Ukraine. Most of us have been dreading an escalation. The first result has been life getting expensive. Next? Fear of a nuclear war. And the leading nuclear nations are Russia (total 5,977), US (5,428), China (350) and France (290).

Apparently, the only safe place to be in case of a nuclear blast is in Antarctica.

So, the lovely words for mid-2022 should be caution, discretion, care, caution and more caution.

As long as we do not have reckless leaders...