By Michael Boyajian
There is a violent religious struggle now going on in the Muslim world as mainstream Islam and the West faces Islamic extremists. The struggle is as violent as the Reformation with the Islamic battle claiming far more Muslim lives than Western ones yet threatening all with calamity.
The violence will continue until world civilization advances to a new plateau. That advancement lies in the creation of a borderless world where power struggles including Islamic extremism are neutralized.
Proof of this outcome can be found in the European Union where Euro extremists (IRA, Basque separatists) have all but faded into history thanks to a borderless Europe. Expanding on this and applying it to the entire world results in the same outcome. After all, it is world hegemony that is driving the fundamentalists and if there is one borderless world there is no way to expand or a reason to for we are all joined together as one. Even their ability to recruit fades away.
The magnitude of such a change is daunting yet a model exists in the form of the European Union proving that change is indeed possible. To begin, the union must be formed out of mutual trust between all the members of the union. All must hold hands together.
In North America the United States could do this perhaps with Canada though Canada may be reluctant to do so in the face of American power. At this time it could not work with Mexico due to the drug wars there. America will not open its borders in the face of this war.
However if one were to decriminalize soft drugs in a way that has been successfully carried out in the Netherlands and place them under government regulation this would neutralize the war and lead to a borderless North America where migration does not merely flow north into the U.S. but moves in both directions in pursuit of opportunity. After all many American companies have already relocated to Mexico a fact that will eventually draw American workers south.
Once trust is established then a contract between nations is entered into and the union become a whole free from internal power struggles. The size of this task can be seen in NAFTA and its failure to become a borderless union yet on the other hand we can look to Europe and its success as such. The answer is in mutual trust.
But trust need only go so far as can be seen in the European model where individual nations still maintain their own military whose use is rarely needed internally although still used externally as can be seen in the Afghan War and the greater war on terror which itself would end with the formation of a borderless world because there are then no more external threats, all is internal within the mutual trust of the greater union.
How do we establish trust in say North America? By dissolving threats posed by say the drug war discussed earlier and by compensating between greater and lesser powers through a federalist system while each nation maintains its own military and traffic flows two ways throughout the continent. This would certainly induce Canada to a union with the United States.
But it does not stop there. Before we have a borderless world we must first have borderless regions like Europe, North America, Africa, the Middle East, Asia, South America and South Asia that eventually meld into one greater union.
Does the world become homogeneous in a borderless world? Only to some extent. Sub regions retain their individual culture for the most part as once again can be seen in Europe where there is one currency but France is still French, England British and Spain Spanish. Yet each nation finds common ground with its neighbors and blends a bit with newcomers.
This situation removes threats and hence the United Kingdom now has an independent Scottish Parliament and Spain its autonomous regions. The violence of Northern Ireland and the Basque region has subsided because control is not by one country over another people but of the greater union of all of its parts joined equally as one.
When does each individual regional union merge into a greater whole? When a step is made that bridges two regions. An example can be found in the future admittance of Islamic and partially European and Middle Eastern Turkey to the European Union. This bridges Europe to the Middle East. A joined Middle East then naturally bridges to North Africa and hence the African continent.
What then what about Israel? Well it can still maintain its Jewish character but it blends into the greater Middle East as it once did in Biblical times where Jew and Arab were more friend than foe and both had an economic interest in friendship.
What about historical empires? These were heavy handed attempts to usher in a borderless world through the use of force rather than free will. Look at the Hellenic world, the Roman Empire, Dynastic China, the British Empire and the old Soviet Union. Yet each fell because the secret to union is mutual trust and not force. Force merely begets counter force.
What about Russia? To eventually join it to the European Union would work to bridge Europe to Asia due to Russia's expanse that crosses Europe and Asia. So bridging regions spreads like a pandemic eventually leading to one borderless world.
Getting back to borderless worlds created by force. Force creates force whereas mutual trust creates trust and eliminates the need for force. This brings us to our current state of affairs where Islamic extremism seeks to expand into an Islamic empire created by force. You deflate this attraction to empire by joining Turkey to Europe and Israel to the Middle East. This creates one vast super region that eventually joins together as we advance to a borderless world. Extremism and war between nations is then replaced by peace.
What about the United Nations? Well when all the regions unite into one world then that becomes a united nations and the United Nations itself converges into the greater whole.
Getting back to cultural identity. Look at the United States. It is one nation yet even with the vast migration to the sunbelt the South is still the South, Texas still Texas and California still the California dreamland just as New York City is still New York even with its mix of cultures from around the country and the world.
So ask yourself do you choose between many nations filled with discord or a single world of peace made up of still distinct cultures? I believe in the end we will choose the global peace, the borderless world.
End.