Welcome to 2005

Dear friends,

I wish all of you a very prosperous New Year. May it be full of happy surprises, and filled with God's blessings.

Many of us lived through the last century, and entered into the 21st century with hopes. The leadership of many nations went into the hands of younger people, and others were left in the hands of older ones. We might be the beneficiaries of their sound judgments, or victims of their poor ones.

If we ourselves did not have time to learn from our past experiences, we can not fault younger people for not learning from theirs, obviously who had less years to learn from. We therefore depend on the advice of others, who are expected to know more. Many take the scriptures as their guide, as they believe it to be the Word of God. However, an equal number believe in interpreting it in their own ways. Others use tools like History to educate themselves how things will turn out, based on past experience. However, the History that we know is 'one sided' - always from the point of view of the 'victors' who wrote it to glorify themselves. Josephus the Hebrew Historian of the first century failed to record Jesus Christ in his works. To the learned Jews of those times, he was a persona non grata, so it would not have been 'politically correct' to comment on Jesus who was known to be a 'Rabble Rouser' - and till today, the same belief pervades those among the Jews who preferred to follow the older faith. That was at the root of their opposition to Mel Gibson and his interpretation of the Life of Jesus.

Hence my point is that when we study History, to be fair, we should take all points of view, of the victor as well as the vanquished. It is because this has not been done, we have to face the same situations again and again, as the views of the vanquished have been wished away, but have lingered long after the events, giving rise to new tremors and earth shattering events, that have turned History upside down.

In the first century, Romans managed to have domination on a large chunk of territory, and their empire was divided into Western and Eastern Zones. The West had its capital in Rome, and the East had its capital in Constantinople, which is known as Istanbul in Turkey. It was the Romans who executed Jesus, and it was they in the year 70 AD drove away the Jews from their homeland, and they were dispersed throughout the world. Unfortunately, for them they did not have any Government which favored their point of view until 1917. It started with the Romans being against them, and in 1452 when the Eastern Roman Empire fell to the Turks, who were predominantly Muslim, they too looked unfavorably on the Jews. This is what I mean, the history of the vanquished. They sustained their goal of returning to the homeland, and how the achieved it is another story, of intrigue and political manipulation.

This brought about other hatreds, and we had to face the 2nd World War as a result. When the Germans were defeated, a new breed of vanquished had started. Their views were deliberately suppressed, and have been raising their head every now and then in the last century. After the end of the first World War, when the British Empire defeated the Ottoman Empire, they were mandated by the 'League of Nations' also a creation of the 'victors', to rule the Ottoman territories, and their arbitrary boundaries, led to the Middle East wars, which we are watching on our television screens to this day.

As we watch, we see modern powers playing their part, in creating situations for the- future, and today's vanquished will be tomorrow's tormentors. Many who are born this year, will live to be 70 years old, and see how things will turn out. Or will they? It all depends on how much they have learnt from the History, not from the books written by the victors, but also from those of the vanquished.

Their good fortune, is the Internet. Any one who is sincerely interested in the Truth, can make a research of events, on Yahoo or Google Search, but has to use one's own common sense. In judging History, one should be aware, how we human beings react for oppression, subjugation, and intolerance. From that we can guess what the likely outcome could be. The events of the past, are just reactions of people to the provocations they had to submit to, as they were not strong enough to fight back. You should understand today's "Suicide Bombers" in this light - those who are not an equal military footing on those who would like to 'suppress' them. Here again the view of the victors and the vanquished are diametrically different. The media we read and see, are controlled by the 'Modern Victors' - - It is only through the Internet, you can get the other man's view, if you are interested.

The Good and Evil which some see, again is clouded by their personal points of view and personal vested self-interest. Ordinary citizens are not privy to the decisions. But when we see from God's point of view, for whom all creation is good, and the humans whom he has created free, go in directions away from the paths he would like them to take, life in human communities goes hay-wire. In the process of cause-effect relationship, every action begets a reaction. Some become catalysts, and cause a turn in the path of History. It is interesting to watch these catalysts at every bend of History and learn from it.

My New Year wish is that more and more people will take an interest in studying the actions of people in an historical context, and try to be catalysts themselves, who can change the march of history, in a positive direction.