The new hot topic has been israel - hamas conflict in land of palestine.
I don't want to go in details of historical
and political reasons and solutions of this decade long problem. But i want to emphasize one fact that is crucial in solving this problem. The thing that is most glaring and the thing that we ignore most! The religious hegemony !
First i want to discuss why religion is problem for solutions of any such issues in general.
Most of the worldly problems can be solved by convincing involved parties that setllements of issues are necessary for peaceful existence of their and fellow human being. Its not very difficult to understand that give and take policy works in almost every human conflicts! Even in extreme and in most of the cases when a war is won , certain objectives are achived by victors and penalties are paid by the losers.
It leaves a vaccum for losers but a sense of satisfaction for winners. How long does these lost ? It depends on the objective and reasons for war !
Most of the wars are faught , as we say in hindi for ' jar, joru and jameen' ( wealth , women and land).
Hardly any of these wars last more than a generation because except for land the other causes dont even exists after generation. Your beutiful woman grows old and dies and your wealth is spent.
Wars on land are the ones that are more durable but they also need a justification for their continuation. Sometimes one generation is more nationalist than other and it gives more value to land than earlier or former one.
To quote an example from indian history , Rana shakti singh did not give as much value to the disputes with mughals as great maharana pratap singh gave. Thus ending one rajput -mughal enimity in one generation.
There has been one other kind of war in west , and that is related to religion!
Religious war , crusades , jihads inquisitions etc.
They are not so common to indians that's why that ' jar joru jameen' thing doesn't cover this as a reason.
Though we had some disputes between budhhists and hindus but we agreed to use shaastras instead of shastras! So mostly peace prevailed !
Now there are some strange things associated with these religious wars. They not only cover for results in this life but also extend their services for a life to come! Rewards of winning in such wars are almost equal to or better than rewards of losing them. This philosophy makes this warfare sadly an everlasting phenomenon! Because they are faught to fulfil wish of God they.
This further makes any reasonable and rational negotiation with fighters of such wars very difficult. You can not offer to them anything that can compansate their loses of after life. You can never convince them that in this life by giving in they can do good for a lot of people. Just because they are in service of god , by killing and torturing others , they are promised a reward in after life that can be exchanged with nothing here in this world.
This divine service also makes these people distinct and they consider themselves superior to other felow human beings.They go to such an extent as to never be ready to consider others equal to themselves. Its very difficult to convince them that its good to be on good terms and give some consession and convinience to others. Its just too much to ask for.
Now just consider the opposite case. If No religion or divine force exists to interfere in their lives. It would be very easy to settle scores based on the worldly rules and benefits of each other.
Divisive force ll simply not exist and you ll not find a reason to deal differently with a person who is miles apart from you in comparison to you who is very near. I am not saying that concept of 'our people ' will not be there, but all afairs will be settled on pragmatic terms and ll not be based on divine command.
Comming back to the situation of israel and palestine, it it is not for religion, then how difficult it will be to convince jews that people in pathetic conditions in gaza strip and in weat bank are the felow humans no different from them and they have right to live with dignity ?
How difficult it ll be to convince hamas that jews are not their enemy and if they are ready to live peacefully there is no difference between them.
I am not saying that it will be easy to solve issues , but hinderence will not be a
Divine one that would trump all efforts.
Hope peace and sanity prevails and innocent lives are not lost !
Good analysis & great words of advice Pankaj. Once people understand that "Rewards of winning in such wars are almost equal to or better than rewards of losing them", such wars will be over forever.
ReplyDeleteI would say that believing in life after death many-times interpreted wrongly my people . People have been gullible to such ‘divine’ things from years and now it become foundation of so called ‘Jihads’ & holy-wars across world. I believe that this concept was only devised for social ruling in absence of written law. But world is matured now, time to make people realize that your life ends with this world. Your actions good or bad matter here only. Choose yourself either to bring peace in this world or bring violence. Whatever you sow you fellow generation would reap. Violence can only bring agony & sufferings to generations.
A question I ponder over is why in all such wars it's the same religion that is always a participant. Is it that their scriptures teach them violence, that they will have a better afterlife, that they have to prove their religion's supremacy? I don't think so! The problem lies in poverty.Be it Afghanistan, Iraq or Gaza, people have been impoverished for decades. They do not have other things to be engaged in except teaching their kids who is responsible for this dilapidated state of theirs. Think about Germany post WWI, whole world united to punish them, put stringent sanctions on them, no one noticed that they had already suffered a lot due to the war. What came out of that - WWII. I think the answer is not in Arms but in Aid.
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