THE growing pro-Palestinian protests worldwide is a barometer of one thing: the world order as we know it needs to be re-engineered. It is brutally clear that it is not a just world order.
From economics to geopolitics, money and might are sitting in judgment of the moneyless and meek. If nations are able to purchase "justice" — like Israel is doing — or have the might to dictate it — as the powerful nations are doing — then expect a free-for-all world where there will be a succession of invasions, wars and revolts. Good leaders learn from history and bad ones repeat it.
Wars never made peace, especially the ones waged to install democracy throughout the globe or pre-emptive strikes to justify a view of human rights.
The mighty's way of seeing is not the only way of viewing the world. Being civilised means using force only when necessary.
And using force with no restraint is uncivilised. No nation has the right to impose its view of the world by force.
Superpowers may think that there is only one type of nation: free market liberal democracy based on Western values. To the extent they are not, they must be compelled by invasions to be replicas of free market liberal democracy based on Western values.
Truth be told, nations come in many shapes and sizes. There is no one shape or size to fit all the 193 nations we have today. Neither was there in the past.
Francis Fukuyama, who argued in his 1992 book, The End of History and The Last Man, that one type of government was the model for all was clearly wrong.
Little wonder that then British prime minister Margaret Thatcher had this unforgettable retort to the writer's way of seeing: "End of history? The beginning of nonsense!" That put an end to Fukuyama and his dubious take on history.
But the delusional dream of the West to make the rest variants of itself persists. To achieve this, it is on a two-pronged programme. One is to bury the Westphalian notion of sovereign nations, an attempt as old as the 1990s.
Its argument is that when sovereignty is limited, there is no reason for the United Nation Security Council's approval for an invasion. Two is to compel the non-West to buy into their distorted version of human rights.
Though the dream has been a cause of many nightmares, invasions and pre-emptive strikes continue. The liberal version of democracy has become a vehicle of tyranny. But this can't persist. So say the Palestinians, who are fighting for self-determination.
Their message is echoed around the world in speeches made in parliaments in Ireland, Spain, Britain and the European Union. And yes, the message reverberates on the grounds of American campuses, just blocks away from Washington. Stifle the voices, however you will. They have made the point.
A world order that licenses tyranny has no place in the 21st century.
A new world must take its place, one that metes out justice to one and all without fear or favour. In this world order, there must be no Pax Americana, Pax Europeana or Pax Asiana.
Such groupings can never be guarantors of international peace. History is a good argument against them.