[lit-ideas] Re: Bad Borders, that monstrous legacy

  • From: "Lawrence Helm" <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Wed, 3 May 2006 21:27:04 -0700

No, no, of course I've come across this before, most interestingly from
David Fromkin's A Peace to End all Peace, the Fall of the Ottoman Empire and
the Creation of the Modern Middle East, which I read back in July of 02 and
commented upon at length.  I was giving Peters points for style.  Yes,
France and Britain were the prime players in the redrawing of the borders. 

 

Peters has a lot to say about Germany.   I haven't quoted everything.
Actually he wants the U.S. to get over Europe.  His term New Glory is
contingent upon our growing up, getting over continental Europe, and
choosing new allies.  India, Brazil, and the rest of Latin America, are on
his list.  

 

Lawrence

 

-----Original Message-----
From: lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
On Behalf Of Omar Kusturica
Sent: Wednesday, May 03, 2006 8:43 PM
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Bad Borders, that monstrous legacy

 

Lawrence,

 

If this is the first time you have come across such

ideas, you really need to refresh your curriculum.

Also, while the French and the Germans may carry some

blame (but the Germans didn't actually get to draw too

many borders because of their defeats in the WWs), the

current major conflicts in the ME and Central Asia are

a product of the British colonial legacy. They are:

Iraq, Palestine, Afghanistan and Kashmir.

 

O.K.

 

 

--- Lawrence Helm <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

 

> One of the books I got in the mail today was New

> Glory, Expanding America's

> Global Supremacy by Ralph Peters, 2005.  He is a

> retired Army intelligence

> officer and doesn't seem to be a great admirer of

> the continental Europeans,

> more specifically the "old Europeans."  For the most

> part he exempts Britain

> from his criticism.  Britain is our ancestor and

> though we may squabble, our

> squabbles are family affairs.  Britain has much more

> in common with us than

> with any nation on the continent.

> 

>  

> 

> On page 9 Peters writes, "The greatest obstacle

> facing the world isn't

> terrorism, but that monstrous legacy of European

> colonialism, bad borders.

> Terrorism is a manifestation of failure, not a

> cause.  Drawn in European

> capitals in the nineteenth and early twentieth

> centuries, the state

> boundaries the colonial powers forced upon so much

> of the world, from Africa

> through the Middle East to Southeast Asia, remain

> the leading source of

> friction and conflict between states - and often

> with them.  Borders

> demarcated to please kings, czars, and Kaisers took

> no account of the

> affinities or hatreds of local populations.  Now

> tens of millions who wish

> to live together are divided and hundreds of

> millions more who wish to live

> apart are forced to remain together.  Perhaps the

> greatest tragedy of the

> 'liberation' era was that none of the heroes or

> villains of the struggle

> could see beyond the world Europe had designed for

> them.

> 

>  

> 

> "Since the end of the Cold War every conflict in

> which the United States has

> been involved has been to some degree a legacy of

> Europe's colonial era -

> including the liberation of that Frankenstein's

> monster of a state, Iraq.

> We are cleaning up the messes left by Paris, Berlin,

> and even London, while

> Europeans chide us self-righteously.  We Americans

> may have broken from

> Europe politically as a result of our revolution,

> but we remain as miserably

> in thrall to European rules for diplomacy and

> concepts of international

> order as colonialism's victims do to

> European-imposed borders.  We need a

> diplomatic revolution.  Then we need to lead the

> world away from the failed

> European model of statecraft."

> 

>  

> 

> The above is from Peters' introductory chapter

> entitled "A Brief World

> Tour."  I shall presumably learn what he means by

> "diplomatic revolution" in

> subsequent chapters.

> 

>  

> 

> Lawrence

> 

>  

> 

> 

 

 

__________________________________________________

Do You Yahoo!?

Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around 

http://mail.yahoo.com 

------------------------------------------------------------------

To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off,

digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html

Other related posts: