Nation against Nation
In today's Wall Street Journal (subscription required) Thomas Sowell asks: "What is it that has made Iraq so hard to pacify, even after a swift and decisive military victory?" He answers the question with this: "In one word: diversity."
Diversity is a common buzzword today. Diversity tends to cloud discussion about many issues and hides the real cause of many social ills. It also prevents effective solutions.
Sowell makes cogent remarks about the rise of ethnic strife in the past ninety years. Note this:
Worse yet, Iraq is only the latest in a long series of catastrophes growing out of diversity. These include "ethnic cleansing" in the Balkans, genocide in Rwanda and the Sudan, the million lives destroyed in intercommunal violence when India became independent in 1947 and the even larger number of Armenians slaughtered by Turks during World War I.
Since the end of World War I there have been futile attempts at "nation building" which we still deal with in 2006. Here is another Sowell comment:
The biggest and most fatuous example of nation-building occurred right after World War I, when the allied victors dismembered the Habsburg Empire and the Ottoman Empire. Woodrow Wilson assigned a young Walter Lippman to sit down with maps and population statistics and start drawing lines that would define new nations.
What Sowell is showing is exactly what Christ said would be a sign of the times of the end of the age. Notice Christ's statement in Matthew 24:6-7
And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not troubled; for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom.
Nation rising against nation is talking about this exact type of ethnic strife we have seen over and over again since the the breakup of empires after WWI. It is true that the empires that held a lid on the world's smaller ethnic groups were never perfect in their government. But history shows that the unleashing of emotions have boiled over many times around the world during the last century. The result has been horrific strife and suffering for millions.
And we see the multitude of small states finding their way in a larger global world. In the case of Hungary and Romania these smaller nations are finding there way back into larger groupings such as the European Union.
In Iraq today we see the rise of various ethnic groups, such as the Kurds, mixed with religious sectarianism. These intractable problems do not hold the promise of a quick solution. You can read more about this subject in this World News and Prophecy article.
