The world has a number of conflicts that appear to be blessed with eternal life. Just to cite a few examples: the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Russia-Chechnya, Kashmir, are multigenerational conflicts. The question for today is: What makes these conflicts have such a long range shelf life. Religion is the biggest force in extending out conflicts because how do you tell a group of people that their religion is wrong, while another religion is right when both religons teach that their religion is the absolute divine truth.
Ethnicity and race can be key triggers in some societies as we’ve seen in genocidal societies like in Rwanda or the former Yugoslavia. Other examples include the Tamils and Shinalese in Sri Lanka. These conflicts have roots in decades and centries of procieved and actualized racist policies by colonial powers and those chosen to govern following colonalization. This conditions often are difficult to reconcile and often reconcilion is often achieved after an exhaustable blood letting.
There’s a very human factor beyond ethnicity or religion, in order for conflicts to remain hot for decades or centries, there has to be powerful and charasmatic leaders who have their root policy point and won’t deviate from it. As long as leaders dig in their heals on a set point there is always that central point of intransagence that can be used to rally support for their cause. Without hardend human beings, convinced that their position is correct, unwilling to accept anything less than ideal…the conflicts will always burn.
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