Fire, Water, Earth: The Kashmir region
The India-Pakistan conflict has seen much progress toward resolution in the last years, with bilateral cricket matches taking place and buses now passing to the Kashmir region. Yet tension in the form of arms shopping and multiple missile tests still persists. Through analyzing the three aspects of the conflict – fire, water, and earth – Semu Bhatt proposes some tentative solutions.
Religions and War
The study of religions and war is somewhat inchoate, yet for many years scholars have noted the important role religion plays in national, ethnic and international conflicts. Many have recently pointed to the use and abuse of religious symbolism by politically motivated leaders who employ religious language as a means of generating support for purportedly righteous causes.
We have become increasingly aware that when conflicts are couched in religious and moral language, followers often quickly and enthusiastically fall in line many willing to make ultimate sacrifices to fight on God s behalf, or at least on God s side as defined by their leaders.
Whether such political leaders are sincere in espousing religiously-imbued rhetoric or whether they are simple demagogues, the approach clearly works. It works to a great extent because it seems that many people, no matter what their political leanings, prefer to reduce complex socio-economic, or political conflicts into a zero-sum values game of right and wrong.
The Horn of Africa: Prospects for Peace
The Horn of Africa, comprised of Somalia, the Sudan, Djibouti, Eritrea and Ethiopia, is one of the worst affected regions by prolonged interstate and intrastate conflicts. Besides the crippling conflicts inside their borders, those countries have become very active in destroying each other. Conflict, hunger, destruction and displacement have become words normally used to describe this part of the continent. One might wonder why they are so often tangling with conflicts. In particular, one might be inclined to believe that the prolonged wars have shaped the society’s behaviour to be conflict prone.
Evangelicals Invade Iraq
United States based evangelical NGOs and evangelical churches alike mobilized their forces to distribute humanitarian aid, as well as a plethora of Christian literature and an army of missionaries. As the efforts were underway, the onlooking Muslim world suspiciously questioned such motive
Sudan’s 50 Year War
Ferdinand Katendeko looks at the underpinnings of the conflict in Sudan, which has taken over four and half million lives, and asks what changes of attitude amongst the combatants are necessary for peace to take root in this conflict.
The Day War Broke Out
News editor, Joseph Schumacher, checks the editorials around the world on THE DAY WAR BROKE OUT.