While the world wrings its hands over the violence in the Middle East that is driving the refugee crisis in Europe politicians and the media ignore and refuse to pursue the most obvious and clear solutions to the problem. The conflict in Syria is only one of a host of ongoing geopolitical problems worldwide that have been part of human existence for centuries and have the same source – our male dominated patriarchal society. Religious belief is also a key component. These two elements have been directly responsible for the majority of the carnage in the world and the loss of billions of lives and yet in our male dominated world there is little attention paid to them. If it is not Syria, it is Iraq, if not Iraq, it is Iran or the Ukraine, or Ireland or Georgia etc. They all have the same core – an aggrieved male or males mixed with religion. There will always be a humanitarian crisis somewhere unless we change how we interact socially with each other and change the core values that drive our disparate societies and our leadership models around the world.

The short term and only realistic solution to all conflict including the current one in Syria is to stop the flow of weapons to the countries affected. This solution is never considered. Anyone who has a grudge or an axe to grind can purchase a single weapon or tons of weapons from arms dealers across the globe who make huge profits arming both sides and everyone in the middle. Guns are big business and arms manufacturers are the silent partners in global conflict and destabilization. Any rag-tag mob of men can purchase weapons on the global arms market and begin fighting. Trillions of dollars that could be spent on poverty reduction are spent instead on killing each other. In fact, killing each other is the only thing that humans do really well. An end to war means an arms embargo on all states in the region monitored and enforced by the U.N. Security Council and endorsed by all member countries. Weapons are dangerous thing s but we hand them out like they were candy at a birthday party. Terrorists or dictators without ammunition or weapons cannot continue to fight wars and slaughter and displace civilians with their petty theological, ideological or geopolitical rivalries. This would mean that member nations – particularly the G8 would be required to provide real global leadership in restricting, monitoring and verifying the production and sale of weapons in their countries to ensure that none fall into the wrong hands. They would also strictly control the production and distribution of weapons of all kinds. Police forces and the military are the only legitimate groups requiring weapons. Currently the massively profitable arms industry that funds politicians’ election campaigns, lobby’s through the powerful NRA in the United States and turns a blind eye to the consequences of the sale of their arms with the complicity of geopolitical leaders. They are all equal opportunity death merchants. If you have the money they will sell you the weapons. This must stop. This means confronting a powerful political forces in the world – the military-industrial complex that Dwight D. Eisenhower warned was the biggest problem facing world peace going forward after the Second World War. He was right.

As a first step, arms producers should pay steep death taxes on the weapons that they do sell to compensate society for the damage they cause and discourage gun sales in the same way as tobacco. Global death by guns in warfare and civilian violence dwarfs the death rates of the heavily regulated tobacco industry yet little or nothing is done to tax arms producers to pay for the carnage they cause in our healthcare and social system. The facile arguments of the NRA in the United States that people kill people, not guns is not even worthy of response. The undeniable reality is that to reduce violence everywhere, we must restrict access to weapons of all kinds – 2nd Amendment rights or not. The argument that people need the right to bear arms two hundred years after that provision was written is ludicrous.

Finally, the long-term solution lies in changing the prevailing cultural and gender stereotypes that are driven by our male-dominated, patriarchal culture that continues to privilege males throughout society in a myriad of ways and to permit their aggressive, controlling ethos to dictate how we all live. Whether sectarian, geopolitical, economic or domestic violence – men are the main perpetrators driven by their privileged, self-affirming view of their own importance and value. Violence is without question a male social problem and it is high time we confronted it as such and began a universal dialogue about how we socialize our sons to become adults and how we deal with men who commit violence in our society. We also need to examine the hypocritical messages we send out through our hyper-sexualized, violent and mythical portrayals of males in the media that idolize male dominance.  Clearly, if tolerance, acceptance and non-violence are our goal we are failing miserably around the globe with males. To end the Syrian and other humanitarian crises we need to begin to re-socialize our males into peaceful, democratic and humanitarian values that do not idealize martyrdom, hero-worship, singular, aggressive leadership or violence in any form. This has deep implications and requires an in-depth self-examination of our shared social values and practices at all levels. We have a long way to go if we wish to survive and thrive. Although the problems are complex there are simple steps that we can take immediately that will bring positive results. That would be real leadership.