The new architecture of violence

The colonial power may have changed its language, but it still decided who would live, who would die and who would be forgotten, writes Dr Shaymaa Elkadi.

Let’s be clear. Let’s think this through.

Man-made death; it is death inflicted through systems of power, oppression, racism, colonialism, and calculated violence. This is not death from natural causes, but death committed by human hands, in human names, for human gain.

And this is unbearable.

No matter your skin, your faith, your identity, your place, this is unacceptable.

Unacceptable means we don’t push it aside. We don’t rationalize this. We do not decide that one death is more painful than another.

Deadly Olympics: A rigged competition

Today we are watching a strange olympiad of death broadcast on every screen. This is not a game of athleticism or perfection. It is a competition in which the value of human life is ranked and scored.

First in line are those whose deaths sparked global outrage, memorials and wall-to-wall coverage.
It ranks second among those whose deaths evoke temporary sympathy but little sustained action.
There is a third place or no place at all for those whose deaths are erased, dehumanized, or rationalized as collateral.

This hierarchy of suffering follows the colonial line that once divided the world into “civilized” and “savage”. We mourn loudly when violence reaches us, but we remain largely indifferent when it devastates lands and peoples that still bear the vestiges of empire.

An attack on any person in a church, mosque, synagogue or temple because of his or her faith should be condemned with equal openness, equal indignation and equal responsibility. Yet when we prioritize some deaths over others, we perpetuate the same systems that justify killing in the name of civilization, security, or divine right.

Colonialism is not history, it is alive

To talk about man-made death without naming colonialism is to silence one of its primary architects.

Colonialism remains a living, breathing structure, and its modern incarnations include:

Land theft and dispossession in the First Nations territories of Palestine, West Papua, the Congo Basin and Australia;
economic violence, where “development” and “investment” mean exploitation, exploitation and dispossession;
cultural erasure and legal subjugation in which the laws, languages, and beliefs of colonized peoples remain marginal; And
The hierarchy of human value is an imperial legacy that continues to determine whose lives matter.

The new face of the empire: “Peace Board”

When we see drone strikes in Gaza, military incursions into indigenous lands, or the violent removal of people from their ancestral lands, these are not isolated tragedies. They are echoes of the empire, disguised in a new language and legitimized through new institutions.

This is the new form of colonialism. It no longer calls itself an “empire” and hides behind the language of humanitarianism and order. This is what many scholars and activists now describe as a peace board: an architecture of global power that manages conflict through diplomacy, aid, and surveillance, while also perpetuating the colonial hierarchies it purports to dismantle.

These peace committees meet in Geneva, New York, London and Canberra, far from the lands where they decide. They promise peace but trade under control. They provide “stability” while solidifying addiction. Under the banners of “peacebuilding” and “stability” they determine who will rule, who will eat and who will die.

They allow occupations through development grants, legitimize blockades as “security measures,” and rebrand economic exploitation as “reform.” As critical peace scholars have noted, the colonial power no longer needs conquests when it can achieve the same through consensus.

The peace board operates through multilateral institutions, defense alliances and private contractors. UN Security Council‘s selective interventions into the aid-industrial complex that perpetuates endless crisis without sovereignty. It is a meeting room where dispossession is reframed as progress and resistance is portrayed as excess.

The Palestinian people know this very well. So do Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples who resist the militarization and mining of the country in the name of the “national interest.” The people of Congo, Sudan, Myanmar and West Papua live every day under the logic of these peace councils; Their sovereignty is traded for “partnership” and their lives are negotiated by those who benefit from the instability.

It is the modern continuation of this empire. It no longer needs warships when it has global markets, no longer needs missionaries when it has media, and manifest destiny when it has the policy language of “peace” and “security”.

Calling for justice today means naming this truth: Peace without justice is not peace. It is peace that colonialism is rebranded, written by those who benefit from the silence of the colonized.

The podium will always be tricky

Let’s list the facts:

Mass killings in Gaza, measured in the thousands, lead to empty explanations but no accountability;
missiles bear the signature of leaders;
Massacres in Sudan and Congo continue largely untelevised;
genocide Rohingya and being detained Uyghurs emerges under global indifference; And
Hunger is used as a weapon and purified as “defense”.

If there were a fourth or fifth place on this strange podium, these deaths would occupy it. “Chosen” deaths will always receive gold, while “barbarians” and “monsters” who challenge the empire will be cast aside.

Ideologies of superiority

Let’s name them clearly:

Antisemitism.
Islamophobia.
Homophobia.
Sexism.
Racial hierarchy.
Settler-colonial supremacy.

These ideologies persist not because humanity cannot change, but because they remain profitable. They are the engines of empire; They transform hatred into politics and hierarchy into management.

The explanation for man-made death is not the black masks on our streets. White masks in parliaments, corporate boards, media networks and military alliances are the architects of indifference.

Call to uncompromising justice

All man-made deaths are unacceptable; No stages, no podiums, no exceptions.

If we cannot condemn every act of oppression with equal force, we are not neutral, we are complicit.

Justice demands that we eliminate not only the means of death but also the systems that sanction them. This demands that we reject the peace council that trades lives for profit. It demands that we build solidarity beyond the colonial imagination.

Because until we do this, the empire will continue to rewrite itself and history will record not only the deaths but also our silence.

Dr Shaymaa Elkadi is a values-driven management and strategy leader with over 15 years of executive and board experience in the justice, mental health and community services sectors.

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