The Third Force Why The Streets Are Our Last Hope

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We are watching a genocide unfold in real time. In Gaza, children are pulled from the rubble without limbs, entire families are incinerated in their sleep, and the living are left to wander through ash and bone.
The videos are everywhere, unfiltered, unbearable. The moral clarity is blinding.
Still, world leaders respond with silence, double-speak, or the same hollow choreography of condemnation and inaction.
International law, crafted in the aftermath of the Holocaust, now lies in ruins, rendered toothless by the very powers who once swore “never again”.
The institutions meant to prevent atrocity: the United Nations, the International Criminal Court, the Geneva Convention, have proven themselves paralysed when faced with a state backed by military might and geopolitical favour.
The UN issues non-binding resolutions. The ICC stutters under political pressure. Meanwhile, Western governments continue to bankroll the very forces reducing Gaza to dust.
Guardrails being manipulated, exploited
This is because the structures that were meant to restrain the powerful have instead become tools of delay and denial.
United NationsAnd let’s be honest: the horror in Gaza is not an isolated moral failure.
In Myanmar, the military continues its reign of terror against ethnic minorities and democratic activists alike.
Under the pretext of a “ceasefire”, the junta continues to massacre civilians, bomb villages and receives less global attention than a celebrity trial.
This is clearly a system that protects the violent and punishes the vulnerable. It rewards strategic allies and sanctions the expendable.
Here’s a case in point: while US President Donald Trump attacked South African President Cyril Ramaphosa at the White House, accusing his government of White genocide, he conveniently ignores the one where 53,000 people have been brutally killed and another 14,000 babies who will die in less than 24 hours.
But while Trump didn’t invent this architecture, he stripped away its last pretences.
Cyril Ramaphosa and Donald TrumpHis presidency gave cover to the worst instincts of state power by normalising xenophobia, dismantling rights and protection mechanisms, and cosying up to autocrats.
A return to “Trumpism” does not just signal indifference but would also accelerate collapse.
The streets hold the answer
So, where does that leave us? It leaves us with the only force left: the people. A third force. Not governed by treaties or borders, but by conscience.
We have seen it before in anti-apartheid movements, in global climate strikes, and in women’s marches that spanned continents.
The question now is whether we can summon that same fury and focus for Gaza, for Myanmar, for the dismantling of a global order that has failed catastrophically.
If governments won’t act, we will. In our thousands and millions, we flood the streets. We disrupt business as usual. We force governments to sit up and listen to our demands.
Because the truth is this: no amount of horror will move those in power. But power will move when the cost of doing nothing becomes higher than the cost of complicity. - Mkini
CHARLES SANTIAGO is former Klang MP.
The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of MMKtT.

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