Insight on the News

Peaceful and Law-abiding

● The “Zambia Daily Mail” of July 20, 1976, cites Alexander Chikwanda, Minister of Local Government and Housing, as advising “Party officials on the Copperbelt to stop worrying about [Jehovah’s Witnesses] who do not attend UNIP [United National Independence Party] meetings as they are not members of the Party.” The newspaper further stated: “He warned that anyone infringing on their human rights will be breaking the law as enshrined in the country’s constitution because under the constitution of Zambia they have every right to conduct their religious affairs in any manner they deem necessary.”

Mr. Chikwanda also was cited as saying that he knew the Witnesses “to be peaceful people and law abiding citizens and it was wrong to molest them when they had not broken any law.”

This illustrates that fine conduct based on godly principles does not escape the notice of observant and informed men in high station. Moreover, such conduct may put an end to false accusations. The Christian apostle Peter told fellow believers: “For the Lord’s sake subject yourselves to every human creation: whether to a king as being superior or to governors as being sent by him to inflict punishment on evildoers but to praise doers of good. For so the will of God is, that by doing good you may muzzle the ignorant talk of the unreasonable men.”​—1 Pet. 2:13-15.

One may well wonder why the peaceful and law-abiding conduct of Jehovah‘s Witnesses has not prompted responsible men in Malawi to protest against the brutal persecution of these neutral Christians there.

“Getting Ready for Armageddon”

● The journal “National Geographic” for July 1976 quotes Buckminster Fuller, the inventor of the geodesic dome, as saying: “For the past 20 years, we have had the nations of the earth getting ready for Armageddon, taking the highest capabilities of man and focusing them on waste.” Furthermore, he declared: “Our greatest challenge today is not at all how we get on independently but how we get on together.”

Fuller viewed international cooperation along technological lines as being vital, as in the production and use of electrical energy. Doubtless many fear that unless people of all nations can “get on together” in such ways, Armageddon is inevitable.

Many persons think of Armageddon as a great, final conflict on a purely human level. However, the Bible states: “Expressions inspired by demons . . . go forth to the kings of the entire inhabited earth, to gather them together to the war of the great day of God the Almighty. And they gathered them together to the place that is called in Hebrew Har–Magedon [or, “Armageddon”].”​—Rev. 16:14, 16.

The nations are indeed “getting ready for Armageddon,” though they do not realize that fact. In Scripture it is identified as God’s war. Soon the Biblical Armageddon will rid this globe of the wicked who are “ruining the earth” and will open the way for lovers of righteousness to live here in peace, really ‘getting on together.’​—Rev. 11:18.

Lack of Gratitude

● “The world, much to our regret, is becoming less and less harmonious with more and more new conflicts cropping up almost every day,” commented Japan’s “Daily Yomiuri” editorially on May 5, 1976. It added: “Disharmony and friction we experience in our daily life can safely be attributed to our social misconduct. We as individuals have forgotten to be mutually accommodative and grateful to each other.”

Encouraging readers to express gratitude, the editorial further observed: “Much of the international distrust today arises from this lack of an accommodative spirit. Gratitude, after all, is not a shameful thing. It helps us ensure social harmony.”

Encouragement to be grateful and accommodating is not amiss. Yet, there is an underlying reason why such qualities are grossly lacking in our time. It is because we are living in the “last days,” when, as foretold in Scripture, people are “unthankful, disloyal, having no natural affection, not open to any agreement.”​—2 Tim. 3:1-5.