[lit-ideas] Re: Rights ad infinitum
- From: Teemu Pyyluoma <teme17@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 23 Feb 2006 02:09:40 -0800 (PST)
--- Omar Kusturica <omarkusto@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> *These are interesting observations, especially the
> last one about the Soviets seeing it in their
> interest to have a strong neighbor.
It seems lost to many that the Soviet position really
wasn't that aggressive towards Western Europe. As a
general point, any peace at any cost may not be
worthwhile, but peace is still very valuable.
Ultimately, you have to get along with your neighbors
and if we are talking nations, your neighbors are not
going anywhere.
If we want to draw parallels between Finland and
Soviet Union and Palestinians and Israel, and as I
already said I am not sure we should as the situations
were in many important ways different, the pre-war
situation in Finland may be interesting.
Anti-Communist paramilitaries won the civil war
against the Communists in 1918 in Finland, but
effectively disarming them proved difficult. Many went
on to fight against the Communists in Russia (under UK
flag actually), and in 30's an Anti-Communist (I am
somewhat hesitant to call them Fascists, although some
definitely were) coup was avoided. While it in
retrospect it was unlikely to succeed, it certainly
didn't make the Soviets feel any safer. Given that and
close ties to Germany, German invention was crucial in
the civil war, Soviets had some reasons to fear that
Finland would be used as a base for a German attack.
The Finnish government would not have allowed it, but
the failure on Finnish part was to convince Soviets of
that and lack-luster efforts to suppress the
militaries.
Now to Palestine. Their weapon of choice, and not that
they have much choices, is suicide bombers. Tactics
like this are difficult for the Israelis as there are
few effective counter-measures, because the terrorists
are decentralized, act in small groups and keep
distance to Palestinian leadership. But controlling
this military wing is difficult for Fatah and Hamas
political wing precisely because of the same reasons.
This leads to a situation where the Israelis
reasonably ask whether talking to the political
leadership is useful at all, what is the point of
having peace talks with someone who can not deliver
peace? This would lead to the conclusion that the
Palestinian authority has to take control of the
militants before any progress is made. And I believe
this has to happen before Israelis see a healthy
Palestine as in their interest. The current Palestine
position as I understand is that the occupation has to
end first, and while it may be justified on moral
grounds it is politically unrealistic. Good politics
is about doing good, not being right in principle.
> And, Finland was
> still
> a fairly large country with a scarce population,
> which
> could absorb refugees, while the West Bank and Gaza
> are small patches of territory which are already
> heavily overpopulated.
Look at Singapore for example, there is in principle
no such thing as an overpopulated territory.
>
> There is also something of a moral difference,
> namely
> Finland made the mistake of joining forces with the
> Nazi Germany from 1941. to 1944. (though admittedly
> somewhat understandable given the circumstances),
> and
> so was forced to sign the Paris treaty accepting the
> loss of territory.
>
Choosing between Stalin and Hitler that is, the
leadership at the time was pretty much resigned to
their fate. Personally, the military commander
Mannerheim despised Hitler. For another moral
compromise, the small Finnish Jewish minority fought
(and by all accounts well) in the Finnish army. Yes,
they were torn, but the Finnish state wasn't
anti-semitic and ultimately they chose the country no
matter who much they hated its allies.
And the border issue is dead and buried, it not like
we lack land here.
Cheers,
Teemu
Helsinki, Finland
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