When I do good, I feel good. When I do bad, I feel bad. That's my religion -Abraham Lincoln.
Today we are living in a society which, many people whole heartedly agree as the golden age of civilization, internet, technology, and entertainment have greatly improved our life. Yet, the drought in Somalia has led to the death of hundreds of thousands of lives. In the African republic of Congo, child soldiers are brutally killed on a day to day basis. Leaving the African continent, we can see that Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan have death, destruction and devastation as a common theme. Whenever the world news is turned on, we see the dictators who rule with an iron fist of tyranny, bringing misery to its nation. So now, one must certainly question, are we living in a golden age? Or are we living in a civilization worse than the dark ages of humanity?
There is a common ground on all failed civilizations, an imbalance on either Law, Religion or Governance. This imbalance generates a series of generations impressioned over what the ideal utopia would be with complete disregard for the current situation. When the current situation is disregarded the impertinent duties are forgone, which leads to a civilizational collapse. To clarify let us take examples of societies where this imbalance has caused its ultimate devastation.
Take for instance India. The movie Slumdog Millionaire was not an exaggeration of living conditions of most Indians. The director lived in the slums for a period of 14 months before filming. Now we must ask ourselves, what on earth caused a country which was once the envy of the entire planet to be downgraded to such an extent? Ancient India was so advanced that the chinese traveller Hsing noted that he felt as though he visited the future when he saw India. The law exists to protect, aid and grow the nation. Adherance to the law brings security and order, which also makes the governance of the nation more effective and efficient. Now, what happens where in there are more laws than the government can handle? More laws are introduced to police the existing laws. This leads to beaurocracy. With heavy beaurocracy, the people of the nation would like to find a simpler and quicker alternative to solution and if there is some way to overcome the beaurocracy, they would. In comes bribery. When bribery becomes rampant, corruption takes seed and lo and behold we have a slumdog millionaire situation.
Religion is crucial in the maintainence of harmony, ethics and morality within a nation if adhered to with an unbiased, & just law above it. The careful application of religion would emphasise the growth of a safe and harmonious civilization. Moving more north, we can see what happens to a nation where Theocracy was the law. In 1989 with the soviet troop withdrawal from afghanistan, the country was torn apart by warring mujahideen groups and warlords. However, one power was gaining vast influence. It was called the taliban, they were heavily impressioned with views of pashtun nationalism and Deobandi fundamentalism. Noticing this, the ISI (InterServices Intelligence Agency) of Pakistan grasped the chance to weild power. They supported the Taliban as pakistans allies in their push to conquer the pashtun mainland. Their first major military activity was in 1994 when they marched into Kandahar City and sorrounding provinces losing only a few dozen men. Upon a series of successful conquests, they managed to take over Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan by 1996. While in power, the taliban enforced one of the harshest interpretations of Sharia Law ever seen in the islamic world. They became notorious internationally for their treatment of women which included banning their education past the age of eight, not allowing them to speak loudly lest a stranger hear their voice, must appear in public with a male relative or husband. They banned music, film, photography and most of the arts. They bought the nation into a worse situation than what it was before. Now we question what went wrong here? This is an example of an ideal which occurs when an Ideal has not changed with time. The majority of the criticism of the taliban was actually bought on by the leaders of Islam itself. This is a classic example when the balance of the three is tipped too heavily in fundamentalism.
Finally, moving more north-west we see a young bedouin raised man who, gathers power in a bloodless military coup d'etat overthrowing the then king of the nation. Muammar Muhammed Gaddaffi, a young and ambitious man convinced the suffering nation of Libya about a future of equality and prosperity. At the start, he greatly improved the nations standard of living and quality of life, however as time went on, the stake of fear (in this case loss of power) drove deeper and deeper. Libya is a nation rich in natural resources, unfortunatly, Gaddaffi led an overtly lavish lifestyle while the rest of the population were beginning to lose their quality of life. Most of the businesses were controlled by Gaddafi and his family, enjoying expensive caviar while a large section of the population were starving. Finally after a decade of untold misery, the population revolted, causing a rebellion. On 17th February 2011, major political protests began despite stiff resistance from the Gaddafi's government. By late February, the country had rapidly descended into chaos and the government lost control of Eastern Libya. Gaddafi fought back by hiring Ghanian mercenaries, reportedly paying them upto $2500 a day. Sources also confirmed the recruitment of Belarus and the presence of Ukranian and Serbian mercenaries. Among the terror, Gaddafi, instigated horrendous crimes against humanity which included:
It is crucial for an unbiased yet simple system of laws in place, in order to police the fanactical mindset of both religion and government. If either three loses balance, chaos begins. The riots in London were an example of how a population would behave incase there is no adherence or respect to authority. The maintainence of this balance is intricate and delicate, too much control and you would have a population revolt, too little control and anarchy would be the rule of the land.
So inconclusion, humans must understand the underlying reasons for each protocol. Legal protocols exist for the safety and effective administration of security. Religious protocols exist to aid man in the development of faith which is a powerful tool for spiritual upliftment, moral behaviour and ethical conduct. Governance protocols exist to SERVE civilizations and not the other way around. No government should get involved in running of an economy, religion or law. No religion should either. I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crisis. The great point is to bring them the real facts -Abraham Lincoln. This is the most important aspect of the article, humans are very intelligent and very capable of taking care of themselves, therefore, control should only be in respect to the nation and not the people.
Today we are living in a society which, many people whole heartedly agree as the golden age of civilization, internet, technology, and entertainment have greatly improved our life. Yet, the drought in Somalia has led to the death of hundreds of thousands of lives. In the African republic of Congo, child soldiers are brutally killed on a day to day basis. Leaving the African continent, we can see that Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan have death, destruction and devastation as a common theme. Whenever the world news is turned on, we see the dictators who rule with an iron fist of tyranny, bringing misery to its nation. So now, one must certainly question, are we living in a golden age? Or are we living in a civilization worse than the dark ages of humanity?
There is a common ground on all failed civilizations, an imbalance on either Law, Religion or Governance. This imbalance generates a series of generations impressioned over what the ideal utopia would be with complete disregard for the current situation. When the current situation is disregarded the impertinent duties are forgone, which leads to a civilizational collapse. To clarify let us take examples of societies where this imbalance has caused its ultimate devastation.
Take for instance India. The movie Slumdog Millionaire was not an exaggeration of living conditions of most Indians. The director lived in the slums for a period of 14 months before filming. Now we must ask ourselves, what on earth caused a country which was once the envy of the entire planet to be downgraded to such an extent? Ancient India was so advanced that the chinese traveller Hsing noted that he felt as though he visited the future when he saw India. The law exists to protect, aid and grow the nation. Adherance to the law brings security and order, which also makes the governance of the nation more effective and efficient. Now, what happens where in there are more laws than the government can handle? More laws are introduced to police the existing laws. This leads to beaurocracy. With heavy beaurocracy, the people of the nation would like to find a simpler and quicker alternative to solution and if there is some way to overcome the beaurocracy, they would. In comes bribery. When bribery becomes rampant, corruption takes seed and lo and behold we have a slumdog millionaire situation.
Religion is crucial in the maintainence of harmony, ethics and morality within a nation if adhered to with an unbiased, & just law above it. The careful application of religion would emphasise the growth of a safe and harmonious civilization. Moving more north, we can see what happens to a nation where Theocracy was the law. In 1989 with the soviet troop withdrawal from afghanistan, the country was torn apart by warring mujahideen groups and warlords. However, one power was gaining vast influence. It was called the taliban, they were heavily impressioned with views of pashtun nationalism and Deobandi fundamentalism. Noticing this, the ISI (InterServices Intelligence Agency) of Pakistan grasped the chance to weild power. They supported the Taliban as pakistans allies in their push to conquer the pashtun mainland. Their first major military activity was in 1994 when they marched into Kandahar City and sorrounding provinces losing only a few dozen men. Upon a series of successful conquests, they managed to take over Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan by 1996. While in power, the taliban enforced one of the harshest interpretations of Sharia Law ever seen in the islamic world. They became notorious internationally for their treatment of women which included banning their education past the age of eight, not allowing them to speak loudly lest a stranger hear their voice, must appear in public with a male relative or husband. They banned music, film, photography and most of the arts. They bought the nation into a worse situation than what it was before. Now we question what went wrong here? This is an example of an ideal which occurs when an Ideal has not changed with time. The majority of the criticism of the taliban was actually bought on by the leaders of Islam itself. This is a classic example when the balance of the three is tipped too heavily in fundamentalism.
Finally, moving more north-west we see a young bedouin raised man who, gathers power in a bloodless military coup d'etat overthrowing the then king of the nation. Muammar Muhammed Gaddaffi, a young and ambitious man convinced the suffering nation of Libya about a future of equality and prosperity. At the start, he greatly improved the nations standard of living and quality of life, however as time went on, the stake of fear (in this case loss of power) drove deeper and deeper. Libya is a nation rich in natural resources, unfortunatly, Gaddaffi led an overtly lavish lifestyle while the rest of the population were beginning to lose their quality of life. Most of the businesses were controlled by Gaddafi and his family, enjoying expensive caviar while a large section of the population were starving. Finally after a decade of untold misery, the population revolted, causing a rebellion. On 17th February 2011, major political protests began despite stiff resistance from the Gaddafi's government. By late February, the country had rapidly descended into chaos and the government lost control of Eastern Libya. Gaddafi fought back by hiring Ghanian mercenaries, reportedly paying them upto $2500 a day. Sources also confirmed the recruitment of Belarus and the presence of Ukranian and Serbian mercenaries. Among the terror, Gaddafi, instigated horrendous crimes against humanity which included:
- kidnapping innocent civilians and torturing them
- providing his soldiers with a viagra like drug to incite war rape
- Kidnapping little babies for instilling mercy
- Using live ammunition on a protest
It is crucial for an unbiased yet simple system of laws in place, in order to police the fanactical mindset of both religion and government. If either three loses balance, chaos begins. The riots in London were an example of how a population would behave incase there is no adherence or respect to authority. The maintainence of this balance is intricate and delicate, too much control and you would have a population revolt, too little control and anarchy would be the rule of the land.
So inconclusion, humans must understand the underlying reasons for each protocol. Legal protocols exist for the safety and effective administration of security. Religious protocols exist to aid man in the development of faith which is a powerful tool for spiritual upliftment, moral behaviour and ethical conduct. Governance protocols exist to SERVE civilizations and not the other way around. No government should get involved in running of an economy, religion or law. No religion should either. I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crisis. The great point is to bring them the real facts -Abraham Lincoln. This is the most important aspect of the article, humans are very intelligent and very capable of taking care of themselves, therefore, control should only be in respect to the nation and not the people.
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