World Leaders gathered on Sunday in Paris to mark the centenary of the end of World War I to honour millions dead in the years-long conflict. Similar ceremonies took place in other European countries on the same day such as Poland which marked the 100th anniversary of its rebirth as an independent state at the end of World War I.
The UK also marked the day and thousands of people have marched through central London to honour millions of soldiers fallen during the war.
It is a global event that brought together some 84 world leaders including Amir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani to attend the ceremony at the invitation of French President Emmanuel Macron. World leaders gathered to honor more than 15 million soldiers killed during the war and also hear a call for peace from President Macron who warned that “history is at times threatening to return to its tragic course, and to compromise the heritage of peace that we had thought was sealed with the blood of our ancestors”.
“Each of them is the face of that hope for which a whole generation of youth was willing to die, that of a world given over to peace, a world where the friendship between peoples would overcome warlike passions,” he added.
He called upon the leaders to work for preventing this happen again. “Let us once again take this oath of nations, to place peace above all, because we know its price, we know its weight, we know what it demands”.
World War I claimed the lives of about 9 million soldiers as well as millions of civilians, several states collapsed, communism and fascism rose, but due to the strong influence of nationalism, lack of international institutions dealing with international peace and security at the time, the world went into another most destructive second world war.
President Macron said the world’s stability is threatened by nationalism, racism, antisemitism, and extremism as well as by economic, environmental and migrants-related challenges. These statements raise the question of why President Macron made such call and observations under relatively stable situations of the world.
There are real threats posed by the emergence of right-wing and populist groups in the Western societies, in particular, these groups have influenced Western voters to reach power in many countries under different pretexts such as the illegal migration and growing multiculturalism in these societies.
The second reason may have been the rapid decline in the role of the international organizations which emerged with the end of WW II like the UN institutions as effective mechanisms for dealing with global security and maintaining peace. At the times when major powers are unwilling to activate the role of these global institutions to maintain security and resolve regional conflicts such as Yemen war, Gulf crisis and Syrian crisis, it is a must for us to stand in support to the call of President Macron.
