History, which is a record of human activities and experiences has a way of repeating itself. If past history has not taught us a lesson or one should say, if we have not learnt from it, then it will surely repeat itself again and again!
There are countries which have decided to put to good use valuable lessons learnt from their past history. These lessons or experiences are no different from the chaotic political and economic distress we see still bedeviling many countries today,and worst of all, for a long time running now for some!
These peaceful countries have the same political and economic challenges facing any nation today but have decided to tow an alternative path of peace towards addressing them. This is because lessons have been learnt from the past.
By lessons learnt from the past, I mean lessons personally experienced by these countries and also those which occurred in neighbouring ones too,which they have learnt as experience which might befall them if ignored. Many of these countries have gathered the pieces of the first and second world war experiences and internal civil conflicts within and around them and have decided to forge ahead despite counting their loss.
These countries have decided to focus on peace and economic growth rather than politics and they have drawn a line between governance and politics which is why all of these countries almost have one thing in common- economic development and stability.
Countries topping this list are Denmark,Norway,Finland,Poland,Sweden,Turkey,Belgium,Netherlands,Australia,Canada,New Zealand,Cyprus,Switzerland,Austria,Romania etc. These countries may be unknown to some persons because they do not make the news headlines of war,terrorism,nuclear threat, corruption and financial crimes, political tension and instability etc and surprisingly natural disasters(with the exception of Japan)!
After the end of the second world war and the atomic bombs in her two cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki,in which she suffered uncountable loss of human lives,properties and environmental degradation, the Japanese people reorganised themselves(agreed to accept low wages from the government) and set out to reconstruct and build their country thereby also denouncing any further military pursuit as a priority. Today, the evidence is this: Japan is among the leading first world nations and fully developed!
Other third world nations which have realised this are gradually coming out of the woods and competing in the global economic scene. Countries like Singapore,Malaysia,Taiwan,Indonesia,Sri lanka,Venezuela,Pakistan,india,Ghana are examples.
Nigeria as a country,I believe,has learnt a bitter lesson from her three year civil war and would do everything possible to avoid another from occurring-thanks to the just concluded National Conference where national pressing issues were dialogued and every one's opinion sought through their sectional representatives.
This is a better path to addressing national matters and we need more of this at all levels of government regularly not only in Nigeria but in all troubled countries of the world we see daily making the news headlines. All the peaceful countries of the world today did the same, with the resolve to live in harmony. Wars and fighting are all products of human decisions;a decision which can be very costly compared to dialogue!