Land Invasions Since the Time of Moses

The blog article that I wrote yesterday called Are You a Victim of Shame and Guilt? led me to the topic of invasion. Throughout history people have been invading and colonising different parts of the world. This is also recorded in the Bible when, thousands of years ago, Jewish people moved into the Promised Land and God said not to make treaties with anyone who lived there and not to intermarry because it would cause problems for them (Deuteronomy 7:2). Romans invaded large scale areas starting 200 years before Christ was born and this continued for hundreds of years afterwards and Saxons and other nations invaded England starting in the 400s, when the Roman Empire disintegrated. Genghis Khan united Mongol tribes in the 1100s and then began large scale invasions and massacres of China and Asia. Muslim conquests occurred in India between the 1200s and 1600s and Wikipedia says even earlier invasions occurred during the 8th century in Afghanistan and Pakistan. African tribes moved down from Northern Africa and colonised Southern Africa as early as 2000 years ago and Shaka Zulu is an example of a more recent military ruler who arose and united his people and ousted many other African tribes. Then British and Dutch settlers moved to South Africa and elsewhere between 400 and 200 years ago and this gave rise to colonialism. Isn't it fascinating how cycles repeat, sometimes under the disguise of new terms? The pattern I see is that groups of people may repeat cycles of hurt when given the opportunity, yet feel aggrieved when they are unseated in turn, though may also do the same if a future opportunity presents.

I lived much of my life feeling guilty because I was white and a colonialist, but firstly, I never asked to be born where I did, and secondly, I was never responsible for colonialism myself, because this happened hundreds of years before. This was truly a breakthrough for me when I realised I was allowing myself to be shamed into feeling guilty by what people around me said about me purely because of what I looked like, based only on a stereotype.

Are boundaries settled around the world or will another invasion occur sometime? Large scale movement of people still happens under the banner of legal and illegal migration and movement of asylum seekers, but in these cases it is normally an assimilation of people into an existing nation, instead of a separate invasion. Hopefully we can work out how to live together. Perhaps the more that people feel part of their nation, the more we become at one with one another.


Jesus said, "Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye." (Matthew 7:5 KJV)

Jesus  also said,  "Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also." (Matthew 5: 38-39 KJV)