tweakabelle
Posts: 7522
Joined: 10/16/2007 From: Sydney Australia Status: offline
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Politesub53 My problem with all the quotes about history is this. How far do you go back in time, because if you look deeply enough few come out smelling at roses at some point or the other. Do we set time limits on who done what and when, and if so, what should they be ? Pertinent questions indeed. Historians still rage over the answers. I'd be the last to suggest that I have any definitive answers either. What we can do with some degree of certainty is identify current unresolved issues whose origins lie in colonialism. Border lines in the ME are largely the product of horse trading between competing Western interests, with little or no input from local people. This has left the Kurds completely stateless; created restive minorities, most notably in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and pre-invasion Iraq; exacerbated sectarian tensions in Lebanon and led to a complex difficult relationship with Syria; installed petty autocrats and tyrants in many States; and is a significant contributing factor to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. That's just a few of the negative effects of colonialism on the region. Please don't think that I'm suggesting colonialism is the sole cause of the dysfunctionality so common in the region. There are many significant local factors too. It is proper, it seems to me, that these matters are identified and addressed by locals, not outsiders. Prof. Kunar's scholarship is part of that project. Equally, it seems to me, it is proper for the West and Westerners to address those issues we helped generate. This requires re-thinking and a re-calibration of Western attitudes and policies towards the region to reflect local needs and realities, not imperial hangovers, commercial imperatives or the destabilising agenda of the pro-Israeli lobby.
< Message edited by tweakabelle -- 3/12/2011 1:46:42 PM >
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