- Religion serves as a force that infuses people with a war fervor - such were Islam's wars of conquest and the Crusades as well as the Moslem Christian war in Spain. Even in the modern age, after the purported separation of Church and state, religion when it is merged with nationalistic forces, serves as a particularly strong motive for war - eg. - in our days - the wars in Yugoslavia, Chechnia, Ireland, between the Arabs and Palestinians and the Jews in Israel, Kashmir, Iraq-Iran, civil war in Sudan, and in the distant past -Turkish wars to conquer Europe, and Serbian and other nations wars in the Balkans to kick out the Turks. One needs to distinguish between territorial wars, such as these, that are perceived as a religious mission, either to spread one's religion or to conquer 'holy lands' for one's religion, and between territorial wars that have no religious goals, such as the Roman conquests and establishment of the Roman empire, the Greek conquests during the period of Alexander of Macedonia, colonization in America, Africa and Southern Asia. Economic ends (economic hardship, the pursuit of war booty, slaves, and new peoples to tax, the quest for natural resources such as gold, the desire to expand one's trade borders and to gain control of new territory that would secure sea travel, etc.) were the primary motives behind these wars. What is striking is that all the wars that were religiously motivated were waged by 'advanced' religions whose God was not a deity specific to one nation but rather a God who had created and now ruled over the entire world. It was a religious imperative for those who believed in this God to act on his behalf, to spread his messianic message. This point sheds light on our comparison of India and Africa.: A religion that revolves around a God that rules over the entire world, who created the world or was involved in its creation, demands - because of its very essence - from its followers to aggressively seek dominion over the entire world - in the name of its God and to seek to spread the word of their God. Such was the primary goal behind conquest of Latin America, and the reason why the Indians in Latin America mostly survived conquest by the White man while the North American Indians did not. Therefore the religious struggle between Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs - according to the definition of God that each of these religions possesses - is a never-ending battle, as long as there are still believers left in the area where the war is being waged. In contrast - the primitive African religions are not essentially covetous. They don't believe in missionizing or in the supremacy of one religion or another. The totem or ethnic father spirit does not seek to expand the boundaries of his religious rule. Therefore any conflicts or competition between different African ethnic groups, each of which is connected to a different idol, is based on personal interests, and not on religious differences. It is a material, not ideological struggle. Therefore, it can be mediated and compromise is possible. This is in contrast to a conflict of deities - a spiritual ideological conflict over religious 'truth', which no 'payoff' or physical compensation can resolve. Therefore, rivalries and clashes between African ethnic groups should be more rational, more solvable. They should be, but in reality aren't, as evidenced by the Ibo tribe in Biafra, the Tutsi and Huttu tribes, and the Somalian Ethiopian clash which I won't include, because of its religious elements. The question arises, therefore, how is it that ethnic cleansing occurred in these wars, despite the fact that the lines drawn in this conflict were not drawn according to religious affiliation. In Biafra, perhaps people died mostly from famine and the Ibo tribe in Biafra was Christian with those opposing them mostly (though not entirely) non-Christians, yet we still have a conflict which prompted ethnic cleansing even though no religious-messianic lines separated between the oppressed and oppressors. Perhaps the explanation is that conflicts, in actuality, erupt based on a clash of interests. The dividing religious or ethnic line is only drawn later to justify the violence. Analogously, prejudice against Blacks in the South in America was an ideology advanced until the American Civil War, in order to justify slavery, a product of economic interests. Racial prejudice did not create slavery, but rather economic interests related to slavery created a racist ideology. Thus, an "ethnic conflict" can take place between two sides separated by ethnic, and not religious boundaries, who are really fighting over economic interests, and only after the fact defined their conflict as ethnic in nature. This may explain the Nigerian conflict revolving Biafra. The Ibo tribe lived in Biafra, a particularly advanced tribe, also democratically, yet Nigerian independence made them an insignificant political player. When oil was found in Biafra, the Ibo declared independence, hoping to keep their newfound source of wealth to themselves. This resulted in a civil war that caused the genocide of the Ibo tribe. The line that separated between the Ibo and the other tribes confronting it was ethnic, but the true cause of the conflict was economic. A similar occurrence with scriptural changes occurred in the conflict between the Tutsi, a minority that was considered an elite in the colonial period, and the Hutu who were the majority and who therefore wanted to assume control of the government after they got independence. Under these circumstances, the conflict acquired an ethnic character, even though it was truly a struggle for power, a struggle that turned violent and resulted in genocide due to the absence of democratic traditions. Therefore, except for seeing the relationship between messianic religions that are aggressive and territorial, and ethnic religions (including primitive religions, that always belong to a particular ethnic or tribal group) there is no definite clear answer to offer, and we will not venture to do so. It suffices for the purposes of our discussion, to see that religion, whether messianic or ethnic, is an important central force in shaping nationalism. In addition to violent struggles, there are economic ones. In Africa, according to Bates, tribal rivalry more closely resembles the conflict of interests between ethnic groups in the US rather than irreconcilable conflicts in India. The African conflict of interests resembles, somewhat the internal protectionism in Israel between groups of Jews from different places of origin. Confrontations both in the US between different ethnic groups and in Israel between Jews of different origin are not conflicts between deities. In the Indian federation the harshest conflicts are religious in nature, both between Hindus and Sikhs and primarily between Hindus and Muslims in Kashmir.