Intolerance is sweeping across the globe with an unprecedented ferocity and hurtling at humanity with deadly consequences.

Racial prejudice, religious intolerance and the quest for total political supremacy are the incubators for this deadly surge.

Oppression has become the biggest threat to global peace in our bloody 21st century and intolerance extends from a simple lack of consideration to wars of aggression and genocide.

Instead of a world of understanding and tolerance, people around the world face violence and human rights abuses.

Persecution operates around the entire world and graphically reveals the existence of hatred and intolerance, the gruesome incubators for brutal violence that can undermine global societies and spawn savage attacks across national frontiers.

Freedom of conscience is the bedrock of all liberties, but unfortunately, this most basic human right is widely violated around the globe.

From 1955 to 2002, 5.4 million people died as a result of wars in 13 countries.

Historian Eric Hobsbawm wrote that 187 million people were "killed or allowed to die by human decision" in what he called the "Short War", a period from 1914 to 1991. There are now, in 2017, only 10 countries in the world that are free of conflict.

And, for the first time since World War 2, more than 50 million people are refugees. There are 45 conflicts raging unabated around the world. The US has thus far been involved in 134 wars, and sooner or later someone will press the nuclear button. That will be the end of all wars and sadly, the end of mankind as an earthly species.

Farouk Araie

Benoni