The first study to rank countries around the world according to their peacefulness and the drivers that create and sustain their peace was released on May 30th. The Global Peace Index studied 121 countries from Algeria to Zimbabwe and its publication comes one week before the leaders of the world’s richest countries gather for the G8 summit in Germany to discuss issues of global concern.
According to this Global Peace Index, Norway is the most peaceful nation and Iraq is the least, just after Israel and Sudan. The survey places Israel at the bottom end of the scale at #119.
The United States is also among the least peaceful nations in the world, ranking 96th between Yemen and Iran.
Tunisia comes in at #39 right after the United Arab Emirates and before Ghana.
The Index aims to provide a quantitative measure of peacefulness that
is comparable over time, and that will hopefully inspire and influence world
leaders and governments to further action.
The main findings of the Global Peace Index are:
– Peace is correlated to indicators such as income, schooling and the level of regional integration
– Peaceful countries often shared high levels of transparency of government and low corruption
– Small, stable countries which are part of regional blocs are most likely to get a higher ranking
Full list & more: First Global Peace Index Ranks 121 Countries
[Via: Sabbah]
– Peace is correlated to indicators such as income, schooling and the level of regional integration
So, we here in the US are poor, uneducated, and live in a strict class system.
– Peaceful countries often shared high levels of transparency of government and low corruption
And we here in the US have a corrupt and repressive government.
– Small, stable countries which are part of regional blocs are most likely to get a higher ranking
Yes, this one is true. And it’s also obvious. It’s easy to be “peaceful” when you have powerful neighbors and friends.
As Craig cogently notes, the U.S. is very much a classist society: an oligarchy wherein the majority of the wealth is controlled by an ever tinier minority, with a concomitant dumbing down of the public education system and an extinguishing of the middle class.
As he and most of the world have noted, our government is corrupt and repressive. Bellicose, too, though not mindlessly so–it has an agenda, that of further enriching the oligarchy. (He neglects “incompetent,” always the handmaiden to corruption.)
Speaking of incompetent government–remember Hurricane Katrina?–we’re having our first tropical storm of the year tonight, here along the Gulf Coast. It just sort of sprang up out of nowhere–that’s been happening more often recently. Cool. (Note: today’s the first official day of the annual hurricane season.)