Longrangty Longchar
What is conflict? How does it start and how can it be resolved? Everyone might have some answer to this question which might seem to be the best to them.
However, even after thorough deliberation by thinkers, politicians, statesmen and intellectuals, conflict lives on in this world or more so in human lives, changing lives for better or for worse.
So, let us try to find what conflict is and how it does, or did, begin.
The word conflict needs no further explanation for anyone knowing the Three Rs, as the word simply means disagreement, differences, argument, clash or quarrel over any matter be it ideas, interests or beliefs. So how does it begin, the answer is again very simple, it is human nature to disagree or quarrel over such thoughts or ideas with others, but the more important question is, did conflict germinate in the mind of human nature alone? The answer seems to be in the negative.
The religious book of the Christians says that man is made in the likeness of God, so going by this view, the thoughts of humans and God must be more or less the same.
During my childhood days my mother used to narrate stories from the Bible, about the great flood, the famines, the birth of Christ, and also a story about how a certain Angel rebelled against God and was sent down to earth as a punishment.
Those interesting and unbelievable stories did not mean much to me until now, especially the story about an angel rebelling against God.
So, when I look very carefully, conflict could have begun not in the subtle mind and imaginations of human beings but most probably in the most unlikely of places – in Heaven, when an over-ambitious angel rebelled against the almighty God. And when that ambitious angel, Mr Lucifer, came down to this beautiful earth with all his evil designs and ambitions to rule the world with evil, it must have influenced and entered the minds of the world. So the battle lines were drawn between an ambitious angel hell-bent on spreading hatred in the world and lead the people into his kingdom of hell, and a loving and compassionate God determined to save the world from darkness. Most probably, the word conflict might have been defined and taken root by that heavenly incident, and the new ideas, thoughts and beliefs might have been formulated and propagated by the ‘two gods’; the Evil Lucifer, ‘Evil God’, and Almighty God, God of Loving kindness. Who knows, it might have been this conflict that made God create the great flood, the exodus and the crucifixion of His Son at Calvary for human salvation.
So, millions and millions of years after that ‘conflict’ might have compelled humans to wage war, kill, destroy and dominate others. However, like the time of the conflict between God and Lucifer, life continued on.
Remember the great wars in history; all waged for the sake of dominating other people, the First and Second World Wars, and the endless conflicts among small and big groups of people, and not to mention the conflicts in the minds of human beings. But still then life goes on, even after the worst nightmares; remember the atom bomb dropped in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which we read in History, after the destruction caused beyond human imagination, those two cities still continue to be some of the most advanced cities in the world.
Surely, there is something, some power in ‘conflict’ which is too great to be comprehended by human imagination.
What would our beautiful world be like had there been no conflict of interest or ideas or belief? Where would we be? Who knows, had there been no conflict, then human civilisation might still be far behind.
It is this conflict that made human nature afraid of others thereby making his subtle mind devise ways and means to defend himself, it is this conflict with nature that made humans build houses and seek shelter, and it is conflict that has brought man to be competitive and develop better lives for themselves. The power of conflict has its ugly sides but still it has its brighter side without which no human development might have taken place.
No doubt the darker side of conflict overwhelms its brighter side, however, the question now is, can it be solved, and the answer seems to be discouraging, because it is a part of human nature implanted by some force beyond our control. It is here to stay, the only option left for us is to accept it as it is.
However, in order to overcome this conflict, all we have to do is to steadfastly believe in the ‘enduring mercies’ of God; besides that there seems to be no other way. Conflict first began in Heaven, and God is the only one who could completely solve it by kicking out his over-ambitious angel, His servant; Heaven seems to be a place where conflicts do not exist.
Going by this above view, the worldly conflict came from Heaven, unfortunately the ambitious angel brought it along with him, and the only reason why it has still not torn the world apart is because of the unquestioning love of God; and only God can solve the conflict that the world faces today.
Readers can send their comments to the writer at longrangty@rediffmail.com
