by Kali Gwegwe

Created on: June 12, 2008   Last Updated: June 13, 2008

The emergence of nations as world powers is usually influenced by several factors such as culture, politics, commerce, science, technology, and religion. A nation without a strong culture cannot become a world power. The absence of a sustenable political, social, economic, and religious culture creates internal problems that weakens the foundation on which political and military leaders mobilise national resources to build- turn their nations in to world powers.

In the same vein, a country can be said to be a world power if only she has the capacity to support her polity, military, and economy. For a nation to be able to do so, she must have an edge in the areas of science and technology because, every world power needs a vibrant military to demonstrate her 'power'.

Rome and Germany lost their world power status because they failed to realise the true source of political power. The same thing happened to Russia. The United States too is making the same mistake. The result of this would be that sooner or later, Washington will no longer represnt the voice of the international communuty. The reason is very simple. The United States has given democracy a bad name. There is an unprecedented level of political awareness among American citizens who now turn blind eyes to the old culture of nationalism which was buried in the hearts of social, political, and commercial interests. Issues are now seen from a human angle. The message is no longer 'America First' but 'Humanity First'.

The angry reaction of American citizens around the world following the war against the Iraqi people is a clear testimony that the United State is heading for a fall in the leadership of the international community. This internal discontent will later lead to massive socio-political imbalance that would create room for the dissentegration of the United States. As soon as that happens, Washington's influence on world politics will wane just as it happened following the collapse of the Union of the Soviet Socialist Republic.

The political class in the former USSR ignored the feelings of the masses. They believed that all the Russian people were interested in was how to make socialist communism look more attractive than democratic capitalism. Before they could realise that Russians were not created because of the 'Cold War', the USSR was already in the grave.

God has not created American citizens only to take democracy to all parts of the world. As human beings and as nations, we all have a collective responsibilty to do only that which is good through an acceptable means. Democracy is good but the United State should force it on those nations that for cultural and religious reasons have not accepted it to be so.

The Arabs have a very strong culture and religion that has no place for democracy. It would take some time and not military force for their culture to adjust to accommodate demoncratic tradition. Though believing strongly in the ability of democracy to promote good governance, not many are im pressed with the way and manner Washington is going about spreading it to other nations. Unfortunately, London has supported every action that comes out of Washington.

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