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An OverView of Conditions Around the World
The winds of political change are blowing across Europe, including upheavals in the Netherlands and France. Dutch rightist and party leader Pim Fortuyn was assassinated on May 6, not long after his party's surprising showing at the Dutch polls. It came second in a country whose governmental structure usually embraces a coalition of parties.
In France, extremist party leader Jean-Marie Le Pen came in second in the French presidential race, consigning socialist Prime Minister Leon Jospin to third place and paving the way for his ouster from government. This left France in a state of shock, producing a national scare that in turn engendered the overwhelming victory of incumbent President Jacques Chirac in the runoff.
These headline-grabbing changes are indicative of what is taking place a little more quietly in much of Europe. According to The Economist: "A pattern may now be emerging across the EU (European Union). Centre-left and social democratic governments are losing power to centre-right governments. In the past year the left has lost power in Italy, Denmark, Portugal and now the Netherlands. In France, the Socialists' candidate (Leon Jospin) failed to reach the final round of the presidential election."
Germany's Social-Democratic chancellor, Gerhard Schröder, faces a tough challenge from the farther-right Edmund Stoiber in September's elections. Jörg Haider's right-wing Freedom Party is gaining ground in Austria's ruling coalition. Racially extremist National Front movements are on the rise in both Britain and France. Said Claude Allégre, former education minister in the socialist Jospin government: "We are witnessing a Europe swinging back towards the right, and sometimes towards the extreme right. And France is no different. Why should it be? Pink Europe is finished."
The New York Times succinctly sums up the current situation: "From Spain to Scandinavia, European politics is drifting to the right. As the economy slows, political parties stressing law and order and stricter controls on immigration are gaining ground, and mainstream conservative politicians are becoming more popular."
At the heart of the problem is the westward refugee movement from Eastern Europe. The iron curtain and Berlin Wall are no more. People pour into the nations of Western Europe demanding asylum amid a climate of high unemployment (on the Continent) and strained social and financial resources. Often the citizenry resents the sudden presence of these refugees, however compelling their individual cases may be.
Margaret Thatcher's observations are instructive in her new book, Statecraft. "During my lifetime most of the problems the world has faced have come, in one fashion or the other, from mainland Europe, and the solutions from outside it" (2002, p. 320).
From time to time
since the era of the Roman Empire, the European continent has been host to damaging
revolutionary movements that periodically repeat themselves, devastating the
land with pain and death. The worry is that a European superstate may lead the
next wave. Our The
Book of
Revelation Unveiled shows where these trends fit in Bible prophecy.
(Sources: The New York Times, The Christian Science Monitor (electronic
edition), The Economist, Statecraft, The Sunday Times (London).)
Writing in the British Independent newspaper, diplomatic correspondent Robert Fisk commented on the continuing Mideast conflict, which has contributed to the division between the United States and the European Union.
Titled "There Is a Solution to This Filthy War—Foreign Occupation," Mr. Fisk's article calls for international action and predicts that "in time, we will close down the Middle East war. With Russian and EU and UN support, there will, eventually, be American and NATO troops in Jerusalem. There will be a western protection force in the West Bank and Gaza—and in Israel. The Israeli and Palestinian armies will have to return to barracks. Jerusalem will be an international city."
Bible prophecy shows
that Jerusalem will be a focus of world conflict immediately before the return
of Jesus Christ. "When you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then know
that its desolation has come near ... Jerusalem will be trampled on by the Gentiles,
until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled" (Luke 21:20,24,
New Revised Standard Version). (Source: The Independent (London).)
A Sunday Times feature article contained an element of surprise. It was the sort of news one is used to seeing in print about North America and Britain but rarely mentioned about France. It said in an on-the-spot report: "France has a sickness that pervades its politics and corrupts the bourgeoisie. Decadence now rules in a morally rudderless society."
The reporter, Matthew Campbell, observes: "Les Chandelles is the most exclusive boite échangiste, or wife-swapping club, in Paris. Such places have never been so well frequented. Talk around polite dinner tables about which are the best échangiste clubs to frequent is one gauge of how widespread the habit of collective romping has become." There are an estimated 50 such clubs in Paris and perhaps 200 throughout the rest of the country.
Jean-François Mattei, a professor at the Institute of Political Studies in Aixen-Province, recently stated: "There's been a retreat from political life in France in favour of personal pleasure. It's a decadent society dedicated to sex and pleasure. We are swimming in hedonism: nightclubs, wife-swapping, magazines for men, magazines for women. It's the pursuit of pleasure all around."
Once pretty much the preserve of the elite, this sort of behavior has spread to all levels of French society. Novelist and university professor Michael Ermin echoes the general thought: "The country is in the grip of a hedonistic, licentious and frivolous mood. People are as confused in their intimate lives as they are in their politics." (This issue of The Good News contains a special series of articles showing the futility of adultery and promiscuity as a way of life—illicit practices that cause intensive suffering and seriously mar the marital happiness God intended for us.)
Not surprisingly, theft is on the increase as well. As one author put it, "The French crisis over law and order has already cost the prime minister (Leon Jospin) his political career."
Causes are not hard to come by. "Sociologists and criminologists attribute much of the rise of crime in cities and rural areas to youths who have dropped out of the education system and are unemployed. Unlike Britain, where the age profile is more even, France has more unemployed young." Young people with too much leisure time on their hands sometimes get into trouble with the law. The way out of many of these social problems is addressed in our free booklets The Ten Commandments and Making Life Work. (Sources: The Sunday Times, The Sunday Times Magazine (both London).)
(back to top)Not many years ago it would have been unthinkable, but now it's happened: Russia has become a NATO partner.
Russia will not have voting rights as a full partner, but a Russian representative will be present at NATO meetings, thereby all but eliminating the possibility of a conflict between NATO and its old enemy, formerly the linchpin of the communist Soviet Union. One Russian opposition member of the Duma, interviewed on the BBC World Service, interpreted this development as America losing interest in Europe.
After the NATO-Russia deal in Rome, the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, stayed on for more discussions with EU leaders to promote closer ties between the two. The European Union remains Russia's biggest trading partner and largest investor.
Although seen as a triumph for the West, the new security arrangements come at a time of increasing tension between the United States and its Western European allies over the war on terror, Israel, trade issues and other conflicts. (Source: Associated Press.)
(back to top)The following summary was included in a report from Maseru, Lesotho, to The Independent on Sunday: "The World Food Programme is warning that it may soon have to feed up to 8 million people in Southern Africa as famine stalks a region wracked by drought, floods, economic mismanagement and political instability." Malawi, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Mozambique, Lesotho and Swaziland are all experiencing a cocktail of crises, both natural and man-made. This includes much of the geography of Southern Africa.
When fact-finding missions report their discoveries affecting some six countries, the figure of eight million may soon double or even triple. Some estimate that at least 20 million people may be at serious risk from famine, and this may be the worst food shortage in some 60 years.
Starving children scavenge for berries in drought-ridden and politically chaotic Zimbabwe. Convoys of food aid have already been hijacked by pro-Mugabe thugs and distributed exclusively to their political supporters. In Malawi the average life expectancy is about 37 years, with a literacy rate of 56 percent. It is estimated that "in Malawi alone, at least two million of its 11 million population will die."
Truly the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse are already riding high in this area of Africa. However, U.S. officials are preparing a major response to cope with this huge food crisis. "What's unfolding in Southern Africa is very big," acknowledged one official from a U.S. agency for international humanitarian assistance. Thankfully, since God has blessed North America and the Western world with abundant food resources, these countries can help other nations in time of need. (Sources: The Independent on Sunday, The Sunday Telegraph, The Daily Mirror (all London), Reuters, USA Today.)
(back to top)AIDS continues to claim a devastating toll in southern Africa. Botswana, the world's worst-hit country, has an HIV infection rate of 38.5 percent. In neighboring poverty-stricken Zambia, dependent on its copper mines for 90 percent of its income, mining companies "have to train four people for each skilled job in the knowledge that three will die." Other nations in southern Africa are similarly affected.
Why is this region of the world suffering more than others?
One reason is its migrant-labor system. Many of the region's peoples have homes in their ancestral homeland but spend most of the year living in hostels near their places of work, leaving their families behind. Almost all of these workers are men who frequent prostitutes or have girlfriends, two groups with high rates of HIV infection. In this region of the world, AIDS is almost exclusively a heterosexual problem.
"A typical pattern is as follows. One of southern Mozambique's 40,000 migrants to the Rand (South Africa's mining belt) comes home on leave. He may have been infected by a prostitute (surveys suggest 80 percent of these are HIV-positive) or perhaps by a local girl in a nearby township with whom he has been having a longer-standing affair (60 percent infection rate). He probably knows about condoms; indeed, they are generally dished out free at the mine. But with his township girl he does not use one, nor with his wife. She then becomes infected. In due course a child is born who is probably infected at birth or, if not, through breast-feeding.
"The father is usually the first to die. Then, in Mozambique and Zambia, the father's brother will often step in to help look after the children. He will, by tradition, take the mother as a second wife. He will then be infected too. In due course, she will die"
Most poverty-stricken countries have no social-security system other than the extended family system. "The social security system is the family, and this is now in ruins." In some villages all the people of reproductive age (15-45) are dead, leaving elderly grandparents to raise young children, with little or no support.
Although intensive educational programs warn people of the dangers from HIV, and condoms are readily available, little progress has been made in dealing with the problem. Ignorance and superstition add to the problem, with many placing their faith in traditional witch doctors or taking a fatalistic approach to the problem. Others believe that sex with a virgin is a cure, resulting in babies as young as 3 months being raped.
The Bible shows that the only solution is for sexual relations to be confined to a couple in a committed heterosexual marriage. The Seventh Commandment sums it up: "You shall not commit adultery" (Exodus 20:14). Any sexual relationship outside of marriage is a sin. Simple obedience to God's laws in this area would soon stop the spread of AIDS in southern Africa and everywhere else. (Source: The Economist.)
(back to top)Concerns are growing about the inevitability of a nuclear conflict between India and Pakistan. In the 55 years since independence from Britain, the two countries have fought each other on three occasions. Now that both have nuclear weapons, another conflict would have serious international repercussions. At the very least the coalition partners fighting the war against al-Qaeda in the mountains of Afghanistan and Pakistan would have to be withdrawn.
This appears to be the intent of the Islamic fundamentalist terrorists who have operated from Pakistan in neighboring Indian-controlled Kashmir. Their aim is to stop Western moves against their terror network. They also seek the overthrow of Pakistan's military ruler, President Pervez Musharraf, who has sided with the United States against Islamic extremists.
The overthrow of Pakistan's government could also begin a modern-day version of the domino theory. Instead of one country after another falling to communism, a ripple affect could begin throughout the Islamic world, with the fall of governments to the forces of Islamic fundamentalism. The fall of Pakistan alone would give fundamentalists control of nuclear weapons, posing a grave threat to what remains of the peace and security of the world.
India has three quarters of a million troops massed on the border with Pakistan, which has only one third of that number opposing Indian forces. With a population much smaller than India's, Pakistan seems likely to be the first to use a nuclear weapon. Estimates are that a limited nuclear exchange would immediately kill or injure 12 to 19 million people, with millions more dying within months from the aftereffects.
"Wars and rumors of wars" certainly abound at this time, but Jesus adds that Christians should not be alarmed (Matthew 24:6), "for this must take place, but the end is not yet" (NRSV). Our focus should be on being spiritually prepared for Christ's return. "Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour" (verse 44, NRSV). (Source: The Telegraph (London)).
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Keywords: right-wing movement Middle East NATO HIV nuclear war wife-swapping Russia France
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