EXTRACCIÓN MINERA EN EL ECUADOR
2.2 Marco doctrinario
2.2.1 Definiciones doctrinarias.
himself, through the agency of his torah (
hw"ßhy>-hr"êAt
) and word (hw"ßhy>-rb;d
>) will transform the world and guide the nations( ~yI)AGh;-lK'
) to seek the way of peace. The prophet encourages us to believe that peace can reign in the world in spite of the prevalence of conflicts and violence in various quarters. If humans lay aside all that engender war and conflict, the world will experience, to a great measure, the fulsome peace proclaimed by Isaiah (Bibb, 2014).The fact that true and unmitigated peace is an eschatological dream, however, does not mean that sustainable peace is not a value humans must strive for in the here-and-now. In 2:1-5, Isaiah paints an image of a peaceable world devoid of violence.
Isaiah’s prediction that one day the nations will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks, that one nation will not take up its sword against another nation, and that they will cease to learn to make war, is often taken as an imperative injunction for how God’s people ought to act right now.
Isaiah’s hope-filled oracle offers humans a prospect of peace in a world full of violence and threats of war (Gornik, 2002). Isaiah’s prophetic words are expressive of humanity’s deepest yearnings for a peaceful world. Isaiah’s vision of peace may not have been fully realized yet, but his message confronts every nation in the contemporary time. Though Isaiah’s vision of peace is projected to the future, it has the power to shape the society in which we live.
Isaiah’s vision of global peace has inspired some objectives that are actually being pursued as policy goals in our contemporary world. When Isaiah wrote these words at the beginning of the eighth century B.C., the northern kingdom of Israel had been lost, deported by the Assyrian conqueror, Sargon II, and the southern kingdom of Israel was under threat by the approaching tramps of the Assyrian forces under the Assyrian monarch, Sennacherib (701 B.C.). Isaiah spoke for a people longing for a universal peace in which nations would live in harmony under a divine system of justice.
According to Blenkinsopp (2008), such a dream is not as eschatologically future-idealised as it might seem. Westbrook and Cohen (2008) corroborate Blenkinsopp’s view. According to them,
The image of swords being beaten into plowshares, of weapons transformed into agricultural implements, is one of the most powerful metaphors in the Bible. For over 2, 500 years Isaiah’s prophecy of a peaceful, disarmed mankind has inspired Jews and Christians alike… The wish of a world without war has long been a dominant theme … in international relations… Yet a careful reading of Isaiah 2:2-4, the irenic vision, confronts us, even today, with a startlingly discrepant prescription for human affairs, quite at odds with the reality of state behaviour.
For the talk of disarmament … and outlawing war, the twentieth century, with two world wars…was the most barbarous era in human history. (p.1).
Isaiah’s call for peace is ad rem to the contemporary times so full of violence, terrorism, and the threat of war in some parts of the world. Isaiah’s call to peace has indeed inspired the United Nations in its drive towards global peace and harmony.
According to Brueggemann (1998), the image which Isa 2:2-4 evokes is something like an effective United Nations, where the nations can come in concert, drawn by a shared vision of peace and well-being, where war will become unnecessary and no longer an available practice of the nations.
Isa 2:1-5 has inspired many nations and peoples of the world to strive to work for international coordinated effort for peace and harmony in the world. Isa 2:4 has inspired some objectives of the UN in its efforts to work for a more peaceful world. In a bid to foster peace among nations, the UN uses Isa 2:4 as a motto (Kemp, 2000; McNamara, 1961): “They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation shall not lift up sword against nation; neither shall they learn war anymore.” The image below tagged P1 demonstrates this.
P1. The image tagged P1, is a textual inscription of the words of Isa 2:4 on a granite wall of the United Nations (UN) building in New York. It demonstrates the influence of Isaiah’s oracle of peace on the UN’s drive for global peace. This image was retrieved from wikimedia.org, September 20, 2017.
Reynolds (2017) writes that the iconic heart of Isaiah’s vision of peace is demonstrated in the fact of the textual inscription of the words of Isa 2:4 on a granite wall of the UN building in New York: “They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.” Also within the UN building’s garden area is a statue representing this same image, a man beating his sword into a plowshare, as demonstrated below in the picture tagged P2.
P2. This statue of a man beating his sword into a plowshare is located in the North Garden of the United Nations Headquarters in New York. The image, which was
created by a Soviet artist, Evgeny Vuchetich, symbolizes man’s desire to put an end to war. This image was retrieved from wikimedia.org, September 20, 2017.
The bronze sculpture, titled “Let Us Beat Our Swords into Plowshares,” was created by a Soviet artist, Evgeny Vuchetich, and presented by the Government of the USSR to the United Nations on 4 December 1959. The statue depicts the figure of a man holding a hammer aloft in one hand and a sword in the other, which he is making into a plowshare. This is meant to symbolize man’s desire to put an end to war, and to convert the weapons of war into implements of agriculture for the benefit of mankind.
“Swords to plowshares” is a concept in which the innate human desire for war is transmuted into peaceful, productive activities. This image is inspired by Isaiah’s call for disarmament and peace in Isa 2:4. The conversion of military weapons or technologies into peaceful civilian applications is both a metaphor for, and a consequence of the desire for peace.
The Isaianic oracle of peace is of enormous significance to world peace if we consider the impact and implication of the message to the United Nations Security Council. This is demonstrated by the use of Isa 2:4 as a motto by the UN. The use of Isa 2:4 as a motto by the UN demonstrates the influence of Isaiah’s call to peace and message of disarmament to the contemporary times. This demonstrates the fact that Isaiah’s oracle of peace has inspired the UN, since 1945 when it was founded, in its effort to work for global peace and international cooperation. This statue demonstrates that within the heartbeat of the UN pulses this Isaianic vision of peace. The statue
symbolizes “man’s desire to put an end to war and convert the means of destruction into creative tools for the benefit of all mankind (Feid, 2013).
The UN is charged with global peace keeping and peace building efforts, and the artwork within the complex reflects the spirit of that immense undertaking. This sculpture of non-violence has enriched the consciousness of humanity with a powerful symbol that encapsulates the greatest yearning of humans for an enduring peace among nations. Isaiah’s message of peace continues to provide a tacit impetus for nations today to co-exist in accord and goodwill.
Since its foundation after the Second World War, the UN has continued to speak out against the use of violence, war and nuclear weapons and called for disarmament and the ban on nuclear weaponry. In spite of this good initiative, the proliferation of small, major and nuclear weapons remains the most pressing problem of today's world.
Reynolds rightly notes that while it is positive that since the Second World War (1939-45) and particularly since the days of the Cold War (1947-91) nations of nuclear capability have agreed to treaties preventing increases in the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, there has never been anything resembling the Isaianic will for complete disarmament.
True and wholesome peace can be achieved if all nations put in a straight forward commitment to peace. Commitment to peace always demands a personal and communal commitment to non-violent action. Any intentional attempt to follow the way of peace is part of the turning of a sword into a ploughshare. Though that alone may not stop wars completely, nor would it change the world overnight, but it is a step towards a peaceful world.
Though the UN takes Isa 2:4 as its motto, the inability of the UN to produce world peace points to the need for a supernatural work that will result in war being forever abolished (Harman, 2005). However, even with all the failures, the UN still represents man’s best-organized effort to come together to chart out the way to peace.
It may be stated that the realization of a fulsome peace in the world goes beyond mere human means. The attainment of a fulsome peace in the world requires divine intervention (Kari, 2014). This is implied in Isa 2:2-4. Secondly, the viability of Isaiah’s vision of peace depends on the nations accepting the meaninglessness of continuing to train for war or to continue to stockpile weapons of war. Global peace is endangered by the continuing proliferation of weapons.