I will never forget an interview in the early 80's with Vladimir Posner, the Soviet talking head of choice back then. That's unfair, the man was (and is) a brilliant debater, a fine historian, just overall damn smart. At any rate, he was being lambasted by some one about the lack of freedoms in the USSR, a fairly thorough Fisking of some recent press release. Finally, Posner asked "Our nation is barely 70 year years old, do you know what your nation was doing when it was 70? It was fighting the Civil War. Keep that in mind when you criticize us." Of course, after the Civil War, we bagan the long climb to universal freedom and liberty, and sure enough, a few years later the USSR became Russia, the Ukraine, and all the others, with liberty and justice for most, if not all. It made me wonder if we ARE condemned to repeat history.
Flash to 2005. The Islamic faith is some 1500 years old. What were Christians doing in 1500AD (oops, I mean CE)? Driving Jews and Moslems out of Europe, the Spanish Inquisition was in full swing, and oh yeah, we traded smallpox to the "New World" for gold and slaves. Are we seeing the beginning of that same cycle? Will Islam rise and conquer the world the way Christianity did up through the 60's? Is there nothing but bitter religious war and battle ahead?
Hopefully, all this date nonsens is just a correlational thing, and not causal, because otherwise, I'm going to have to teach my 5 year old son how to become a global warrior, a profession I had hoped was retired when the wall came down.
No comments:
Post a Comment