Conquering the Divide
Updated: Jan 16, 2020
I read a very interesting article on the BBC News App this morning: '10 Reasons Why We're Not a Divided Nation' by Lucy Rodgers. At a time when we're bombarded with messages of a binary divide - Remainer / Leaver, Republican / Democrat, Android / iOS (apologies, that's a debate my nephew and I continue to have) - it's great to see journalism that focuses on What Unites Us .
You see, in spite of its recent dominance of our newsfeed, to Divide & Conquer is not a new concept. Julius Caesar's "Divida et Impera" strategy sure did divide Rome "and all Gaul" itself. His fellow countryman and politician - Machiavelli - relied upon the art of manipulation to spread a narrative of fear and division. While an Old Testament example describes the exploits of Tukulti-Ninurta, who conquered and annexed the nation of Babylon, becoming the first ruler to use the title 'King of Kings'...
...maybe that's the key flaw in the implementation of Divide & Conquer; reigning an empire built on fear and bad faith seems an ambition of the individual or, at most, a select few. When Machiavelli wrote, “One who deceives will always find those who allow themselves to be deceived” surely, he understood that the deception only created a fictional reality...deluding himself that his empire was everlasting.