Some say the world in between 1991 and 2022 was a unipolar world, while prior to that time it had been a two-polar world, and after 2022 it has again become a two- if not or multi-polar world. Wrong. We have always had a bi-polar world and this bipolarity has always been viewed religiously. Surprised?
The world has always been divided – politically speaking – into us and them, into the in-group and the out-group, and – religiously speaking – the world has always been arranged along the axis of heaven and hell, Olympus and Hades, God and Satan. In the antiquity it was Greece and the rest of the world – the barbarians. Then it was the Roman Empire and the rest of the world – the barbarians. Then it was Christianity and the rest of the world – the pagans, the heathens. Starting with the the Enlightenment it was civilization against savages and cannibals. Today it is democracy against autocracy, despotism, fascism – you name it.
It has always been arranged along this religious axis: Mount Olympus, seat of the gods, the seat of those who are always right; at the foot of Olympus flocks of divine servants (quasi saints), demigods or heroes. And then, vertically opposite Olympus we have Hades or Hell, with Satan and his helpers – lesser devils or demons. In between we have the earth’s nations that are torn between the two.
Yes, you guessed it right. From the West’s perspective Washington is Olympus while the successive presidents are incarnations of Zeus, God himself, holding up a torch of all virtues with which they try to illuminate the world. Zeus is accompanied by helpmates – assistants – smaller gods and demigods or – to use Christian terminology – (patron) saints who are assigned diverse tasks. These are all the countries that make up the collective West: Europe, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Smaller gods, demigods or saints are not by any means equal in their clout and leverage: unquestionably France or the United Kingdom are higher up in the celestial hierarchy than Poland or Bulgaria. And there are – mind you! – individual nations that spend time in purgatory, individuals – nations – countries – that aspire to be admitted in the celestial circles but need yet to be cleansed of their sins. Serbia might be regarded as such an entity or Georgia.
Then we have hell, hades, the underworld of evil, wickedness and what not. Russia is present-day Satan while China impersonates Mephistopheles, with Belarus, North Korea, Iran and some others being assigned the roles of smaller princes of darkness, demons or moral counterparts of demigods or saints. The world is really arranged along the lines of this simple axial design of plus and minus, of good and evil, of the good ones and the bad ones, of saints and demons.
No need to add those who are viewed through the Western lens as demons and devils have an entirely opposite perspective in which the positive and the negative poles are reversed, in which the alleged Satan is God and the alleged God is Satan. There can be no reconciliation between the two. It is a struggle for life and death, a conflict of cosmic dimensions, with no compromise possible, no give-and-take attitude, with no middle ground. The feud is as cosmic as cosmic can be. There can be no rapprochement between God and Satan.
