There’s a song called “We didn’t start the fire” by Billy Joel. It is a fascinating chronicle of the sequence of events in our modern history one after another, with the torch of conflict passed from earlier to now.
He doesn’t necessarily connect all the dots between the events. He simply enumerates them. But the fire that represents the passing of the torch from world challenge to another conveys how, looking from a higher level perspective, the same energy of conflict has taken different forms along the course of human history.
The nature of conflict is such that a decision that is made carries forward reverberations that reflect the nature of the decision many years, decades, lifetimes, or even societies later. And…the reverbations are not localized to one area of the world but connect us all.
So, in developing a Base for different perspectives, a central clearinghouse for human conflict, we shall keep in the mind that conflict has been around as far back as we can see. It runs wide, deep, broad, and long. It’s not easy…but we’re committed…all those on our planet who seek to do such work.
Ranjeeth Thunga
Perspective Mapper