How do we change the World?

How do we change the World?

Ambassador Curtis A. Ward

(11 July 2020) — In this Commentary I ask “How do we change the World?”  But, I didn’t leave the question hanging.  In this video Commentary, I offered some of my own perspectives on what we need to do to change the world. The full text of my Commentary is below, but take a few minutes and watch the Video.

How do we change the World?

Today, I wish to pick up on a theme about which I have been writing in The Ward Post over the last several months – problems we face with the lack of leadership in times of national and  global crises and trauma of historical proportions.

As I ponder the many issues and challenges confronting us, I pose the question to all who care about the state of the world, and accept as our collective responsibility that we must work for fundamental changes that make the world a better place.

The question that comes to mind is: How do we change the world?

It’s not can we change the world? The world cannot be changed by sudden transformation, or merely by re-imagining what the world should, or ought to be. Changing the world is a process.

How change happens, as we face the future, puts our individual and collective wills to the test. When and where change begins; and with whom?

We will never change the world by doing what’s easy, only by doing what is hard.

We will never change the world by making it perfect, but by making it better.

We can’t change the world just to satisfy a few, but by making the world a better place for all.

We can’t change the world acting alone, but together as brothers and sisters with love in our hearts for each other.

That’s how we begin to change the world!

We tell ourselves each succeeding generation must inherit a better place than what we found.

Yes, my generation has transformed the world by creating technology unheard of by the preceding generation. With advanced technologies, we unleashed globalization with expectations that it would benefit rich and poor countries, but globalization moved so fast, my generation has been overcome by the transformation it has wrought.

And with it, the world’s problems have grown exponentially and out of control.

My generation has struggled to keep pace, and very often, due to lack of leadership, we have punted the problems to the next generation.

But wait! Wasn’t fixing today’s problems our responsibility? Aren’t we the ones on whose shoulders the next generation should stand and thrive? The world is turned upside down.

And we, inadvertently, have created a mess.

How did we get to this place, where people are dying from an out of control global pandemic that respects no borders, and are not intimidated by a wall?

Isn’t it situational irony that the wall we build keeps us in, and keeps out good people, but doesn’t keep the enemy out?

We find ourselves at a place, and seemingly locked in a time and space, where the lack of empathy, racial prejudices, support for inequality, and inhumanity dwell in the highest places.

We now occupy a planet threatened by neglect and the lack of universal will to arrest its decline.

A world where human existence is threatened by climate change, new unchecked diseases, and inattention to conflicts.

A world where might triumphs over right, and man-made threats to civilization pass as the norm.

We barely coexist in a rudderless world suffering from lack of moral leadership when it is most needed.

It’s a world in which the most powerful country on the planet has failed to lead in a time of global crises.

The failure would not be so profound if real leaders from north to south, from east to west, stood in unison against this aberration.

If leaders fearlessly stood in defense of human rights and human dignity, for fundamental freedoms, democracy and the rule of law.

Yet, there are good leaders in the world who could make a difference.

But, they must overcome the fears of retribution, and not surrender to coercion and intimidation.

No matter the short-term cost, they must embrace morality and human decency, and put immorality and decadence asunder.

Leaders who put themselves on the right side of history have little to fear?

The hearts and minds of the peoples of the world are waiting to embrace bold moral leadership.

While change will come to the most powerful nation on earth, and evil men shall rule no more, solving the problems we face today can’t wait.

Changing the dynamics which create bad leaders must begin now! With our generation and the next.

Action to make the world a better place must start now, not tomorrow, not after the next election and leadership change, but right now.  And, It starts with you and me.  Vote!

Thank you for watching.

I am Ambassador Curtis Ward, host of CaribNation TV, and Publisher and Editor of The Ward Post

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© 2020 Curtis A. Ward/The Ward Post