what i can't stop thinking about right now
The violence on the African continent seems to me to be fueled primarily by cultural upsets around the displacement, Diaspora, enslavement, marginalization, and intrusion of a people. The conflicts are between cultures, tribes, peoples not religions. Among some, there is a strong, even frantic, anti-invasion mentality that has been focused on to Western civilization. The anti-western attitude comes from a logical fear of corruption, cultural displacement and marginalization from a continent of people none too familiar with these phenomenons. The history of Western civilizations’ participation in African politicis and warfare does not cast the west in a particularly friendly light, nor does our unfair economic dominance and greedy consumption of African resources and the resources of the rest of the world make the west, particularly the us, out to be the most benevolent empire.
Western countries have backed the conflict of certain peoples for all kinds of reasons. In the process of backing one side of a conflict, you make a good friend, and a horrible enemy. It seems natural that cultures assisted by western civilization might be easy converts into Christianity by missionary forces, where-as cultures slighted, to say the least, by western civilization, might rather violently attack a missionary. The slighted culture will probably also adopt an anti-western consensus and associate their previous enemies with the entire Western civilization. Christianity, seen as part of a huge, evil, unstoppably powerful empire which propagates violence, hoards resources, and takes advantage of small economies and governments to further its own intentions, becomes the religion of the enemy - a sign that a people has given in to the evil empire. That coupled with the fact that they two peoples were already in conflict….my point Is that Anti-Christian attitudes should be deciphered as anti-western attitudes. That seeing a conflict as a religious one helps only to further cement the differences between people and mask the true nature of the combatants, and comfortably hide the true culprits - the leaders of the government in charge. It is essential for the religions of the world to not persecute the religion of Islam or see the violence of fanatics as the beginnings of a giant religious war. In these days, the days of economic feudalism and the worldwide worship of the god of greenbacks, I can’t imagine that any conflict could truly be about religion. Wars are about economics, territory, resources, control, and revenge. An entirely new attitude towards cultural and political interactions needs to take place. A sharing of world resources. A putting aside of political and spiritual differences and a fair discussion of how so many humans can co-exist on one planet.
Political agendas based on greed for power, wealth, and dominance need to cease. We need to re-evaluate our own attitudes towards ourselves with regards to our country - to separate religion and state within us, identifying the distinction between ourselves, our religion, and our culture. My thought is that so many are afraid to look inward for their demons. I believe that now, for many, one need not go much further than the mirror to see the face of evil. We must take responsibility for our own minds and hearts and actions, take responsibility for our own prejudices and hatred, take responsibility for mistakes of the past and the corruption of our leaders (who we supposedly elect). Young people in all countries involved in violent, economic, political, or cultural invasion of another country or culture: we need to take a stand, we need to change ourselves and escape the illusions cast about us by the fools running the show. We need to educate ourselves, our friends, and the children with the combined intent to change the face of our governments, our nations, our people.
Western countries have backed the conflict of certain peoples for all kinds of reasons. In the process of backing one side of a conflict, you make a good friend, and a horrible enemy. It seems natural that cultures assisted by western civilization might be easy converts into Christianity by missionary forces, where-as cultures slighted, to say the least, by western civilization, might rather violently attack a missionary. The slighted culture will probably also adopt an anti-western consensus and associate their previous enemies with the entire Western civilization. Christianity, seen as part of a huge, evil, unstoppably powerful empire which propagates violence, hoards resources, and takes advantage of small economies and governments to further its own intentions, becomes the religion of the enemy - a sign that a people has given in to the evil empire. That coupled with the fact that they two peoples were already in conflict….my point Is that Anti-Christian attitudes should be deciphered as anti-western attitudes. That seeing a conflict as a religious one helps only to further cement the differences between people and mask the true nature of the combatants, and comfortably hide the true culprits - the leaders of the government in charge. It is essential for the religions of the world to not persecute the religion of Islam or see the violence of fanatics as the beginnings of a giant religious war. In these days, the days of economic feudalism and the worldwide worship of the god of greenbacks, I can’t imagine that any conflict could truly be about religion. Wars are about economics, territory, resources, control, and revenge. An entirely new attitude towards cultural and political interactions needs to take place. A sharing of world resources. A putting aside of political and spiritual differences and a fair discussion of how so many humans can co-exist on one planet.
Political agendas based on greed for power, wealth, and dominance need to cease. We need to re-evaluate our own attitudes towards ourselves with regards to our country - to separate religion and state within us, identifying the distinction between ourselves, our religion, and our culture. My thought is that so many are afraid to look inward for their demons. I believe that now, for many, one need not go much further than the mirror to see the face of evil. We must take responsibility for our own minds and hearts and actions, take responsibility for our own prejudices and hatred, take responsibility for mistakes of the past and the corruption of our leaders (who we supposedly elect). Young people in all countries involved in violent, economic, political, or cultural invasion of another country or culture: we need to take a stand, we need to change ourselves and escape the illusions cast about us by the fools running the show. We need to educate ourselves, our friends, and the children with the combined intent to change the face of our governments, our nations, our people.