During this Christmas season, a lot of songs are sung about "peace on earth" and "goodwill to men". These are nice images that don't parallel to the real world of politics. Peace is not experienced in many parts of the world. And the clashes are over ideology, power, material gain, and sometimes even one's very identity.
People who try to work for peace find it difficult, gruelling and sometimes, unrewarding, unlike the "merry Christmas songs" that promise romanticized fantasies.
People that have their feet grounded and understand that politics is dirty business will also understand that the lesson to be learned is sometimes to move on. One cannot force "peace", as co-ercion is an oximoronic term to peace. Sometimes, America has been accused of working in this way by miltary force. But, how else are we to "make peace" when otherwise, there will be bloodshed?
Nuclear weapons are supposed to be limited by treaties, but we also know that treaties are only as good as the people who "shake on it". The leaders of each country must be people that will uphold their agreements, and protect the treaties boundaries. Oftentimes, treaties are breached for one reason or another. And many times it is the differences in our value systems.
Humans have various needs, individually, and corporately. And it becomes a complex endeavor, indeed, to try to understand how to unravel the strings, so people will live in/with understanding. I do not have hope that there will ever be a day where peace will rule the earth, alto this is what we sing about at Christmastime.
Posts
Pslam 76
6 hours ago
No comments:
Post a Comment