Throughout the history of the world there has always been fighting and battles. Wars were fought for gain and where one had something that the other wanted, then a bloody issue became the norm. It seemed unnatural that the defending side should give up without a struggle. They had their wives and children to protect. The aggressive tendances of the attacking side brought no comfort or relief. The victorious side had killed off most of the men. The rest they either took as slaves or executed them on the spot. The women were taken into slavery and needed to please their new masters if their lives were to be spared. In the early years, battles tended to be fought to the finish on a winner takes all basis. On occasions the attacking side were nomadic and after fighting simply moved on having taken whatever pleased them. There were times when they provided war as their way of life and simply conquered and moved on leaving destruction and carnage in their wake.
There seems never to have been a time when the whole world was at peace and, as men found themselves involved with different belief systems, they fought each other because they were worshiping a different God. There grew up an arrogance, fueled by religious leaders that they were right. The other side had to be fought and saved from their heresy. These religious cults of aggression between armies of different races and creeds offered a moral question to be fought over. The losers were usually given the choice of changing their religious beliefs or be slaughtered. Crusades were even sent to accomplish the actions, and the religious clerics, who came with the troops, were in danger of inciting mass murder for the sake of saving souls who really needed no saving, but to be left in peace to find their own way to their own God.
During the twentieth century there were armed camps in Europe, where countries made agreements to come to the aid of each other if they were attacked. So it was that two World Wars were started and completed with the loss of millions of soldiers and civilians alike, simply because of these agreements to stand by their neighbors. There was no way of stopping the fighting until one side was defeated and a truce was agreed. After the Second World War, many safeguards were put into place including the United Nations and the twinning of towns throughout the world. It was thought that it was important that by twinning towns the people would be able to meet together and stand together against the prospects of a Third World War. The people needed to talk about what they had in common and not what divided them.
Unfortunately, the biggest division is still the matter of religion. There are the Jews and the Arabs. They hold different standards and there is a lack of love between them and a large amount of hatred. The Middle East is the powder keg, where the two ideals meet head on. The Jews are fed their security largely from American sources with massive arms deals to defend themselves and the Arabs have oil to buy equipment to supply their armies. There are various factions here in the Middle East between the Arab nations, who squabble amongst themselves. There are terrorist bodies who supply arms and men to fight under cover and the whole of the area is at war at any one time. Hatred flows like water between many nations. One has to understand that with nuclear weapons, it only takes one finger on a nuclear button to turn this uneasy truce in to Armageddon.
Friday, 21st May 2021
No comments:
Post a Comment