Political Science Assessment on World Peace - Essay Example

Political Science Assessment on World Peace Name Institution Course Lecturer Date This paper keenly at the various forms of conflicts that has made the world peace and stability the main issue of concern .The first part of the paper scrutinizes what has been happening in five countries in that have at one point in the recent years been destabilized in one way or the other. Key facts like the causes of these conflicts, the parties involved and the final details about these conflicts will be highlighted. The second section of the paper explores the place that religion and nationalism play in the destabilization of the global peace. The paper will look at a number of examples of countries that have encountered these religious instigated conflicts. One major recent conflict is one armed uprising that has claimed many lives in Syria. The unrest began in 2011 in the midst of the Arab protest wave. This rebellion has been against Bashar al –Assad and his government who has been responding by forces to crack down the uprising. With time, this uprising has grown from a protest to a fully armed rebellion. The war has been characterized by loss of life with the death toll rising to 190000 by 2014.The gross violation of human rights by the Al-Assad government, opposition forces and ISIS forces has received wide condemnation from the international community .issues of religion extremism terrorism and dictatorship take a central place in this uprising. Egypt is another nation that has experienced a great revolution in the recent times. The uprising began in year 2011 where millions of Protestants from different social economic and religious backgrounds started to fight for the overthrow of President Hosni Mubarak. Over 846 people died from the clashes between the protestors and security forces. The main trigger for this uprising was bringing to an end the dictatorial ruler ship that was characterized with lack of freedom of speech and free and fair elections, police brutality and economic challenges facing the citizens like unemployment and food price inflation. Just like Syria elements of dictatorship religion and nationalism emerges in this case Alongside those uprisings was Libya conflicts that acted as an epicenter for the Arab world uprisings. The main theme and facts for this was the dictatorial rule or lack of democratic rule.It was an armed conflict whose goal was to oust Muammar Gaddafi government. The leader happened to have ruled the country for over 40 years .Come 20th Oct 2011, the Muammar Gaddaffi was captured and murdered in his attempt to escape. Since then, the country has suffered many conflicts with numerous disagreements between tribes and local militias. For example, a fight was witnessed in2012 in Bani Walid a former Gadaffi’s stronghold and following this, an alternative town council was established and established and recognized by NTC. In year 2012, Mali as a Nation was destabilized by the northern Mali Tuareg nomads. The group of armed men waged a war led by National Movement for the liberation for Rewards (NMLA) against Mali government. The main aim was attaining independence for Northern part of Mali. Following this, President Amadou Toumani Toure Was ousted due to the way that he handled the crises. As a result of the instability that followed the coup, Kidao, Timbuktu and Gao cities were overrun by these rebels for three days. At capturing Douetza, the libels said that they had fully accomplished their roles and consequently called off its offensive. Despite the end of hostilities with the army, the Tuareg Islamists and nationalists struggled in reconciling the conflicting vision for their new state. This state was later taken over by the MOJWA following a conflict. The conflict in Iraq was surrounded international politics. The case took two phases with the first one being US invasion of Iraq. Prior to this attack, there were claims that the country was in possession of Weapons of mass Destruction and following the survey, the country was found not to have these weapons. Without conducting a serious debate, US pushed the country into war with Sad am Hussein claimed to have been harboring the al-Qaeda. USA conducted a surprise invasion on Iraq even without any war declaration. Some of the facts observe in the invasion are mistrust. There was also the second phase that followed the USA invasion .This was from among the various sectarian groups and the violence against which led to Iraqi insurgency and later Al-Qaeda in Iraq. Part Two Religion is what defines the identity of most of the world communities, how people respect each other and take sanctity of life. Security on the other hand has become one of the most challenging issues to the global community. Security problem has been such a global matter that there is virtually no single country that has been left out unaffected by the security menace. In this matter religion can either build peace or cause insecurity. In practice, it is religious personnel that are found behind most of the uprisings, hostilities and assaults in the society. There are many religious sects all over the world that breaches peace. In Africa, religion has been at the centre of contemporary conflicts and it has been depicted as a trigger in most of these conflicts. It is religious convictions among other motivations that were behind the September 11 attacks in Washington D.C .Violent actions by a numerous Islamic extremists in Afghanistan and Palestine were behind these terrorism acts. Many other cases of security threats have been associated with religion. In Sri Lanka, Some Buddhists Monks and believers asserted an exclusive possession and identity for Sri Lanka thus fanning flames for conflicts in the country. There are many terrified refugees in the world that have been born from different religious conflicts. There are thousands of people in the Globe who die from ferocious cruelty of Jihadist suicide fighters that do this quoting Qur’an as they behead these victims. The long time decade of civil war in Sudan is an example of religious instigated conflict. This was between the Christians or animists who occupied the southern part of Sudan and Muslims who dominate the Northern part of Sudan. Here, the division between Christians and Muslims seemed to have overlapped ethnic, racial and geographical divisions. In Nigeria, religion has been a major divisive and a conflict factor. Northern Nigeria is a Muslim dominated while Southern part is Christian dominated region. Tens of thousands of Nigerian citizens have lost their lives in religious warfare in the country. Christians have been opposed to the extension of Sharia law to some other Northern states in Northern Nigeria. Other times Christians have been attacked due to Danish cartoons that depicted Muhammad. Though there have been many causes of conflicts like negative ethnicity, business competition. Religious conflicts have been taking a central place in the country In both Afghanistan and Somalia, one major cause for conflict is contention between the brands of Islamic to prevail. This factor has lead to confrontation and bloodshed in these countries. In the Arabic –Israel conflict, it is the access and management of religious sites is the major cause for disagreement between the two extremist groups-Muslims and Jews. In this case, religion has been used as a factor for conflict mostly motivating conflict, making identity difference and justifying conflict. In the recent days, one of the groups that are widely covered by the world media is ISIS. Though some states like USA and U.K have denied that these groups are not Islamic, there is a wide stand all over the world that it is a Muslims made group. The group still claim to derive its teachings from the holy Quran. ISIS terrorists have been involved in abduction and death of many innocent people. In other areas Groups like Kach and Kahane party in Egypt or Israel Islamic jihad highly regard and consider violence as a duty. Those who engage in violence look at themselves as divinely called and they eliminate any obstacle that comes their way. Still on the same, the radical Jewish cells of Israel and sheikh extremists and Hindu nationalists in India are some other religious fundamentalists groups that are moved by the perceived threat to their faith. On the same note, nationalism has sometimes played as a source of war, death, carnage and divisiveness as opposed to international solidarity that brings about expansion vision of the world .It is this nationalism that has forced Japanese prime minister to advocate for self defense mechanism which entails further military expansion of the country. This is likely to cause threat to other countries which may retaliate by getting into more armament. There has been suspicion and threats among states with countries like U.S.A getting threatened by upcoming nations like China. Issues of nationalism will continue emerging between these powers as china continue taking a stronger economic and political position. Many scholars believe that China and U.S.A may get into clash if the former refuses to share power with the latter as a rising world power. The relationship between these nations has been shifting from conflicting to confrontation, to economic and political completion and back to conflict. In conclusion one can say that as far as maintaining and breaking world peace is concerned, religion plays a central role. It is the duty of every state to look at the kind of constructive religious activities that bring a nation together and encourage them as it discourage at all cost any religious activity that threaten national and cross border peace and stability. Religious leaders must always put the national interests at the top of their personal gains. Nationalism is important but only to some degrees. Every nation should therefore ensure that it engage into healthy cooperation with the international community in a bid to promote peace Read More