Aug

11

I grew up in Italy during the Cold War between the US and the Soviet Union. In 1989 I was still living in Italy and I can vividly remember the impact and the excitement created by the fall of the Berlin Wall. On a particular day I was in my lunch break and I saw those historic images on TV when East Germans started climbing onto and crossed the wall, joined by West Germans on the other side. It really was the ushering of a new era for Europe. In the following year Germany was reunified in a process that seemed impossible even a few months before.

In spite of the importance of the US President Ronald Reagan in the process, I still think that the change was possible mostly because of the reforms of Mikhail Gorbachev in the Soviet Union. It was a lot harder for him than for Ronald Reagan to lead the change in his own country, where the opposition against reforms was a lot stronger and dangerous.

Now, the same day of the opening of the Olympics in China, Russia invaded Georgia. I was looking around in the news and I found this recent comment by Gorbachev: US could start new Cold War. Mikhail Gorbachev has accused the United States of mounting an imperialist conspiracy against Russia that could push the world into a new Cold War.

This is very interesting. We are now in 2008 and we got used to this new situation, post Cold War. However, Russia is still a major world power and even if many changes in Russia happened, it is still a very young democracy and very fluid, I would add.

According to Gorbachev,

“We had 10 years after the Cold War to build a new world order and yet we squandered them.”

“The United States cannot tolerate anyone acting independently.”

“Every US president has to have a war.”

I am not an expert in foreign policies, and I am not sure if I agree completely with Mr. Gorbachev. However, I remember President Gordon B. Hinckley – and before him many others, including President Kimball, warning against putting our trust in the arm of flesh or in the military, while at the same time forgetting that the real protection come from the Lord, who delights himself in protecting a just people, but does not respond to the pleas of an evil nation.

In the General Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormon Church), in October 2002, Elder Russell M. Nelson of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, gave a talk “Blessed Are the Peacemakers” where he said,

Peace is a prime priority that pleads for our pursuit.The commandments to love God and neighbor are interrelated. We cannot fully love God without loving our neighbor. We cannot fully love our neighbor without loving God. Men really are brothers because God really is our Father. Nevertheless, scriptures are studded with stories of contention and combat. They strongly condemn wars of aggression but sustain obligations of citizens to defend their families and their freedoms.

I am not sure what is the right things to do, and I am glad I am not in the position of making very difficult decisions in terms of war and peace, but I know that hatred, aggression, and war only create more hatred and more wars. Russia is now creating a difficult situation, and the day they choose to attack is quite troubling, but the response to their actions may make a big difference.

If people think that there are too many pages about wars in the Book of Mormon, they simply need to realize that that book was written for our generation. It becomes always more evident why.

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