Noah
Smith - a writer with quartz.com - recently wrote a thoughtful article, “Why
China can’t take over the world.” A
provocative title to be sure, but one that many are considering as China
approaches the same GDP as the USA. As
though answering the un-verbalized fear of many Westerners, Noah goes back
through history to show that the concern of many in the West about China’s
global ambitions may not be grounded in the soundest of judgment in spite of
their economic successes. He points out
that while China was always a powerful country geopolitically, it was also
almost always turned in on itself – largely because of the number of disparate
people/political groups within it, and for reasons of internal strife and power
struggles between said groups, never rose to the prominence that it might
have. He concludes that this situation
is still valid today and in all likelihood will be valid for the foreseeable
future. “The same thing that often kept China from realizing its potential as
the world’s dominant nation—its tremendous, unwieldy size—means that although
it will surpass the US in total GDP, its supremacy may well be short-lived and
incomplete.”[1]
If
Noah’s analysis is correct, then what of the USA? It is larger than China, and surely has just
as many (if not more) people/political groups within? And what of Canada – even larger? Certainly we might see that with both Canada
and the USA, we simply do not have the time behind us to see if we will be
successful where the Chinese have historically not been (that is, in keeping
our eyes and efforts beyond our borders instead of inside them). Two hundred years are but a fraction of the
Chinese history. In fact, if one looks
at the same time period, we could conclude that the principle has been proven here
even more than in China – for the native north Americans were not united and
thus fell from power once European immigration set in. Noah’s principle (that too large a country
will automatically fail to maintain world prominence because of the divergence
of the peoples within) has significant merit, and it could be easily argued
from world history. People are people –
and that means they each have unique identities. Countries only exist because of a common
identity among peoples, and as soon as that identity is pushed too far by
cultural shifts, the fabric of that common identity is shredded. That means that in order to see a global
unity, there must be a global sense of identity.
Your
identity is a complex mix of personality and culture (internal and external
influence). So it follows that a working global sense of identity would need to
come from both an internal and an external influence in the people it
governs. Countries fail when they try to
overcome the gap in internal influence through use of external pressure. Such a strategy will always fail because it
cannot create unity of identity (in fact it always creates the opposite - a
sense of ‘us vs them’). What is needed
then is a sense of identity that is just as rooted in people’s minds for what
they are, as it is rooted in their culture of who they are.
That
idea isn’t new – in fact we have an English word for exact this. We call it religion.
Religion
has become a bad word in modern society – so much so that many reading this
will have stopped at the previous sentence.
In fact, one might argue – as many do – that religion is not a unifying identity
so much as it is an agent of separation.
That’s perhaps too big a subject
for a short discussion – nevertheless all countries have borders, and those who
are not ‘part’ are kept outside, and those who are a ‘part’ are welcomed
in. The struggle is not that religion
separates – it is that religion as mankind has made it cannot overcome
the internal and external influences on the people it claims. What we need is an internal identity that
lines up with external influence.
Revelation
7 says;
“After
this I looked and there before me was a great multitude that no one could
count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the
throne and in front of the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding
palm branches in their hands. 10 And they cried out in a loud voice:
“Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.” [2]
“Then
one of the elders asked me, “These in white robes—who are they, and where did
they come from?” 14 I answered, “Sir, you know.” And he said, “These
are they who have come out of the great tribulation; they have washed their
robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. 15 Therefore,
they are before the throne of God and serve him day and night in his temple;
and he who sits on the throne will spread his tent over them. Never again will
they hunger; never again will they thirst. The sun will not beat upon them, nor
any scorching heat. For the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their
shepherd; he will lead them to springs of living water. And God will wipe away
every tear from their eyes.” [3]
Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment