Empire, Ministry, Indigeneity

 My late colleague Samuel Huntington wrote of an impending clash of civilizations, but it might be more apt to consider the specter that confronts us as a clash of empires. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the threats that Putin has broadcast across the European theater; China’s massive military build-up and its projection of designs upon democratic Taiwan and much of the western Pacific; India’s rapid emergence onto the global stage as a nuclear power and its authoritarian turn at home, combined with its ever more invasive rule over its Indigenous peoples and even its expatriates; Venezuela’s authoritarian consolidation and its threat to invade Guyana; the jeopardy that Donald Trump, possibly re-elected President of the United States later this year, would deploy the American military in ways that regulate, police and attempt to “pacify” Mexico and, possibly after that, much of North America if not the western hemisphere – all of these developments and others remind us, not merely of the conflict of “major powers” but also the aspirations of these major powers to swallow up or ally with the other ones. To become even larger powers. To become empires.