The Battle for Hearts and Minds

Posted August 17, 2006 in News

As the world watches in trepidation as the dust from the latest Middle Eastern conflict hopefully settles, there is a growing realisation that peace can not be imposed through violence. Further, it is becoming clear that the romanticisation of violence is feeding unholy alliances between disaffected youth, power mongers, and those that simply hate.

Various commentators have said that it is really too early to say who won the war. Others comment that Israel is about to be face the harshest guerilla war in its history; which brings up shades of Afghanistan, Iraq and Vietnam.

If the players continue on their current paradigms, it can be said that the only winners will be those who seek to curry favour from their local populations as communities become dependent on local warlords and their alliances to protect them from violence. This will create a future where women and children become booty; the sciences knowledge, the arts are to be suppressed or distorted. If we can not rise to the challenge, we face a future where organised criminals will intimidate societies globally.

To move forward involves tough love. This includes looking at how our thinking has become militarised and how we demand perfection from others and refuse to surrender our pride for the sake of the greater good. It means coping with not being able to solve every problem or demanding perfection from the other before we make concessions ourselves. It means being open to public scrutiny. It means asking the hard question "What price victory?"

This is a particularly hard and emotional question for those who are angry with how the Jewish people have treated them in the past. Is it possible to remove Israel from the map of this world? Yes. Is it possible to exterminate them from history? Yes. But then the question has to be asked. What would achieving that mean for the people who succeed? How would the God  of the Abrahamic religions perceive the souls who succeeded in such a reckless course? What would Abraham think? What kind of a cultural legacy would they be for leaving for their descendents? And if they did succeed. Would that be enough? If not, who would be next, how long would it continue?

There also appears to be an unholy alliance between the militaristic communistic elements and the jihadists. Which means there is probably an underlying premise that once they have elminated the enemy the world would be as it should be. But those of us looking in from outside remind them to look at the Pol Pot and Stalin regimes. History tells us that souls who believe in the "overthrow" of the existing regime are often bankrupt in their own treatment of those under their influence. If souls want to convince us that they have a better vision for the future, maybe they could begin by making manifest that vision in the hear and now, so we can see whether the fruits they have to offer are sweet, or merely a mirage from delusions whispered from dark shadows.

Sources: Countercurrents Times Online Ekklesia The Australian The Age Arab News

BBC Taking on extremists Ceasefire but conflict not resolved Very real threat 

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