Europe and its struggle 4

In the nineteenth century industrial revolution accelerated the growth engine. European nations were now rolling in money and surplus money meant – a) new scientific discoveries through promoting of new ideas which might be commercially viable b) wars and more wars to establish supremacy and gain a lion’s share of the plunders. Industry developed by leaps and bounds. Some new nations like Italy came up. Others like Germany emerged more powerful. France was reeling under the aftereffects of revolution and it could not withstand the shock of having a powerful neighbor. Russia under the Tsar was trying hard to keep pace. In sort, the European stage was prepared for a major confrontation and as Swami Vivekananda in his prophetic way assessed in 1897, Europe was sitting on a volcano waiting to be exploded. The race to establish control of the mineral rich areas of the world, like Africa and middle East Asia, aggravated the crisis and a “world war”, which was more of an intra European war (America was a nation of immigrant Europeans anyway, so they don’t count as outside world) but which gained the “worldly” status through the participation of the colonies often at the expense of the natives, was imminent.

Drunk with power and pride, swollen with ego and might, European nations fell and grabbed each other’s throats to begin a vicious war which claimed many lives and more importantly led to many scientific and technical discoveries, esp. in weapons of mass destruction. Such weapons coming from countries which are supposedly followers of Christ the savior were a revelation of the extent of hypocrisy of the Western world, and the Christian Church which had been so vocal throughout the past fifteen hundred years, was strangely a mute spectator all along. To be fair the Church probably did not have the authority that it had in the middle ages on the political affairs and there were simply too many vested interests, including the scientific and commercial stakeholders who were in favour of war to further their own selfish agenda.

It seems that the European nations did not learn any lesson from the fate of their predecessors, the Romans, who strangely went through the same cycle of ascendancy, arrogance, ruthless profligacy and descent. They forgot one of the main teachings of Christ – “Wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction”.