The Eco-Leadership Institute has colleagues and students currently getting bombed in Ukraine, Beirut and Iran.

Colleagues and friends suffer under oppressive regimes

One colleague with a new baby in Ukraine, has been without heating in freezing conditions, and is constantly under the threat of attack.

I write this to bring these 'distant' wars and oppressive regimes into closer focus. The news portrays wars as dramatic soap opera's. The TV channel changes... Ukraine to Gaza, to Venezuela, to Iran..... our attention displaced from one storyline to the next, whilst Sudan and other terrible wars get almost completely ignored.

The gratuitously dramatic and violent language used by the protagonists is a disgrace, they turn these wars into video games on social media outlets. This creates a dissonance between the imaginary and the real.

These wars are not abstract, they are horrendously violent and brutally damaging to millions of lives, creating fear havoc and loss to so many displaced and living in fear or grief.

To say no to war is not to support authoritarian regimes. This binary choice is a cynical narrative sown by those inflicting the violence for their own ends.

We must show solidarity with those suffering. We must constantly argue against authoritarianism, oppression and violence in all its forms. Whether in Russia, Iran, Venezuela or when ICE create fear on the streets of the USA, or UK police arrest pensioners holding placards to support Palestinians. We must work together with individuals and organisations to support humanitarian work striving for peace.

The war in Iran is not a solution, it will most likely lead to further fragmentation across the middle east and maybe in Iran. Some say it will strengthen the theocratic regime, others predict an increase in local and global terrorism - the lessons from the Iraq invasion have been buried......with the exception of trying to keep US soldiers away from danger....with the aim of marketing a 'utopian war' where one side inflicts maximum damage with minimal injuries their own side. The trouble is that no war is utopian.

What has happened to our collective humanitarian souls? Where is the leadership that once fought for humanitarian ideals? Who will say enough is enough?

It will take courageous and rigorous leadership to re-establish an international order that 'albeit imperfectly' values human life, respects diverse others, and aims to protect the environment on which we all depend, and which is another casualty in these wars.

I say rigorous, because it requires deep thinking and a re-awakening, combined with moral leadership and disciplined action to rebuild civil societies that can minimise these conflicts.

Like so many I feel impotent: yet we must speak.... Collective voices telling political leaders we are 'against war' have made a difference in the past, and can do so again......