Ethnic cleansing in the Arab World

Civilizations
My basic assumption is that the big civilizations or high cultures on a large scale develop along the same lines with the same phases and durations but at different times in history.

But the civilizations all have their own identity. Some are more like each other than others. They all have their own conception of art, politics, religion etc.

Here  I will look into the concept of a nation with a focus on our case, The West, and what I here will term the Oriental civilization.

The Oriental civilization flourished from 0 to around 1300 from the Balkans to North Africa and the Middle East. It thus comprises Byzantium, the Parthians,the Sassanids, the Jews, the Arabs and many others. Also south Slavonic peoples and Greeks (since around year 0) and of course Turks and Iranians belong to the Oriental Civilization.  

The West flourishes from 1000 to around 2300 with focus in Europe and North America.



The concept of a nation in the two cases
The West
What is a nation?
At least since the end of the middle ages we in the West have developed a concept of a nation, where each nation is a "people" with an assumed ethnic homogeneity, which is most often more a shared  language than shared genes. Like people speaking French or German.

Geographical organization of nations
Each nation in the West covers a coherent territory of a certain area. The borders to other nations are clearly marked. In the West each nation ideally has a state.

We can term this macro- segregation.


The Orient
What is a nation?
Most often a nation in the Orient is a religion or sect in combination with a certain ethnicity. The combination of ethnicity and religion is unique for each nation.

Geographical organization of nations
The nations in this culture are often spread out between each other in a patchwork pattern. We see small enclaves between each other, and they are often so small that they take the form of ghettoes.

But each enclave is not the nation. The nation is the sum of all enclaves with the same people. All the Armenian enclaves in the Middle East and elsewhere together constitute the Armenian Nation.



This can be termed micro- segregation.

The Balkans 100 years ago is a good example. The map at the bottom of this post shows nations in a part of the Balkans under the Ottoman Empire.


The map may be imprecise in the detail, but it gives a vivid impression of the way many nations lived in small areas between each other within the larger Ottoman state. And remember that the map does not show the smaller enclaves and the segregations within towns and cities!


In many countries in the Middle East today Sunnis, Shiites, Druze, Alawis, Jews and different Christians like Armenians etc. live the same way. Ethnic maps of Lebanon, Syria and Iraq look much like the old map of the Balkans.

Also when Oriental people immigrate to other civilizations, they in the beginning form ghettos.

The Jews lived like that in Europe for centuries.
 Today many Middle Eastern immigrants live this way in Europe and North America in so called parallel societies.


The westernization of the Orient
As described elsewhere in another blog post, the Orient is now on the way of becoming westernized. This process concerns more aspects, also the concept of a nation.


As the westernization conquered and conquers the states in the Balkans and the Middle East, the Oriental nations are becoming transformed into Western nations. They now need larger ethnic pure territories. This is the deeper sense in ethnic cleansing.


Ethnic cleansing
Turkey, Armenia and Greece were involved in mutual ethnic cleansing already about 100 years ago. The two former countries exchanged people. All Greeks moved to Turkey and vice versa. The Armenians in Turkey had a far worse destiny: Extermination in a genocide.

Different parts of the Yugoslavian area had many early examples of cleansing, but the state was artificially held together till Tito died. In the 90-ies of the last century the brutal wars cleansed 100s of thousand people from their homes.

I assume that the Arab World will follow now. At least the countries with heterogenous populations.

In Iraq radical Sunnis are now trying to cleanse areas for both Christians and Shiites. In Northern Syria the same groups are already now attacking the area of kurds. The Christians and the Alawis could follow after the fall of Assad. It would be a nightmare if the christians would have to leave Egypt, which could happen under a revenge-full rule of the Moslem Brotherhood.

The disappearance of Tito, Saddam Hussein and Assad was and is the opening of a Pandoras Box. The nations fly out and cannot be put back into the box!


Three steps
As described there are two steps on the way to westernization:
1) Oriental micro-segregation.

2) Ethnic cleansing.

And what comes then? After this there are two  possibilities. Either the state is simply partitioned in territories, one for each now westernized and cleansed nation. Or somehow, maybe after some more time, a fully integrated Western type state develops, that is not segregated, a state with all former nations unified into one nation:

3) A divided nation or one integrated state.



What should the World do about states threatened by violent ethnic cleansing?

Ethnic cleansing in its ugly violent version should of course not be tolerated in any form for obvious humanitarian reasons. But a turn to macro-segregation on religious and ethnic lines may be unavoidable, as the nations within the states become Western nations with a need for territorial national states. It is probably not possible to force through in a short time the transition to a modern integrated state without segregation. So the partitioning of the territories of states like Syria and Iraq may have to be allowed in order to diminish bloodshed.

But the splitting up of states into fully independent smaller states cannot be permitted. The splitting up of Yugoslavia may already have gone to far.
This process if applied too many places creates precedence for instability in other parts of the World. Instead the segregated nations within the states should form a confederation like the Bosnian.

The segregation on a bigger level probably should not be on the most macroscopic level. Dividing non kurdish Iraq between Shiites and Sunnis in the form of too large territories would mean that millions of people are moved. Unrealistic and inhumane! An intermediate level of  segregation may be the best way. Larger ethnic clean stretches of land between each other.


This process should of course be peaceful and guided to avoid violence.

Later then, we can hope, the confederated nations in a state could begin to mix to form non segregated nations.


Of course states with a very strong domination of one nation like Tunisia and many others are not in need of any separation of nations. Here the danger is the conflict between fundamentalists and modernists.




Al Qaida
Al Qaida and this type of people and organizations besides fighting the Western civilization are also already partly westernized. This follows from the fact that these groups openly advocate attacking Christians and Shiites. This is of course an ethnic cleansing and thus a Western tendency, that runs counter to the more than 1000 years of micro-segregated coexistence of these people with the Sunnis.


And Israel?
Logical for the present phase in the Middle East would be ethnic separation of Israelis and Palestinians in the form of the two states solution. Instead Israel is trying something like the first step, the old oriental micro-segregation. Jewish enclaves were established in the West Bank. They are then gradually growing together now leaving the Palestinians in enclosed enclaves.

This policy is running counter to history and is doomed to fail.



Notes
A third type of nation is the Greco-Roman city state, where the nation simply is the sum of inhabitants (or at least those with full citizen rights) of a city and its surroundings.

At the end of the Modernity phase every civilization is united by a universal state. This happened with the Roman Empire uniting all city states in one universal state 30 BC. And with the Seljuk and later Ottoman Empires uniting all the Oriental nations around 1100. We in the West may be approaching this phase in the end of this century.

US and EU

 

The American espionage against the EU and Germany and other countries in Europe disclosed by Der Spiegel and The Guardian if confirmed shows more things.

American arrogance and contempt for friendly nations.

Even though this contempt could be regarded as partially justified when looking at European indecisiveness  and bureaucracy, it is nevertheless a sign of deteriorating quality and falling  levels in international politics.

Between major friendly players such arrogance  is unseen and also points to:

The end fight for world hegemony is approaching. This fact makes the involved countries use methods, which if not involving direct warfare outside the 3. World, still gets more and more uncivilized as already seen in the American fight against terrorism and the Internet war between the United States and China .

Widespread electronic espionage is just a natural part of this.

The only surprising fact is that apparently the Americans regard the EU and European countries as very important competitors on the World scene keeping the weakness of Europe in mind!

Germany appears to be very closely followed by the NSA. As earlier stated Germany can be seen as the best governed and most politically mature state in the old modern world. If as the Germans would like, this quality of governing would get spread over the whole of the EU, then surely this Union would become a formidable power politically and economically. This could explain the keen American interest in spying on Germany.

But my dear Americans, I do not think you need to worry! The other countries in the EU will rather continue their misgovernment than submit to Germany.

As I have pointed out earlier, the world after more than 2 centuries of brutal wars, civil wars and other external and internal conflicts needs all this chaos  to be ended. Just as was the case in old Rome and old China in the years up to -30 and -221 respectively.

We are longing for our version of the Pax Romana or Pax Sinica.

This should just be reached in the most humane and democratic way possible. BUT even if these civilized conditions should be supported, it is also a fact that a Pax has never been achieved through eternal discussions and negotiations between countries each having the power to veto everything, certainly not if these countries have no common idea of means and goals.

The United Nations and the European Union are doomed to fail, if they are not reformed radically with very strong executives.

So who should bring Pax to our world? It must be a major player like America, Europe, China or Russia. Russia may be too small. Europe is too weak. China could be a possibility because of sheer size and economy.

But the Americans have something, which is not yet as clearly to be seen in China. The will to power. This, the Americans seem to have in large amounts as seen in amongst other things:

-          Belief in own values

-          Contempt for international rules and other countries

-          Will to dominate others

-          Willingness to use the means necessary

If we like this or not it certainly qualifies America to win the competition for hegemony.

And thus to bring peace. We must only hope and work for it that this peace is more of a benevolent type!

Even though the Europeans are right in being outraged about the spying, they should also be honored by the importance with which they apparently are regarded in Washington. I am not sure that the EU really deserves so much attention.

The EU reaction will show if the union has muscles enough to deserve the honor of being subject to massive US espionage!

Ils sont fous ces Americains!

Ils sont fous ces Americains but

Vor Paris steht Mickey Mouse

A free trade agreement is being negotiated between the US and the European Union. France has demanded that European countries should have the right to impose quotas for the amount of American culture, films etc. in TV and other media. This French attitude is being ridiculed in some circles. But seen in the light of extrapolations of the present trends in the World and in the light of historical precedents, the French demand is reasonable.

The French comic book series Asterix about the fight of a village in Gallia against the Romans at the time of Caesar is interesting for more reasons:

- It points to many of the clear parallels between our present modernity and the Greco-Roman modernity. Like if we repeat many things from that certain part of the past with a time lag of 2 millennia.

- The books also show the European skepticism towards the Romans and thus transferred to our time the Americans. As Asterix' friend Obelix often says: Ils sont fous ces Romains! These Romans are crazy!

- but the books also show the admiration  and uncritical imitation of the Romans by other people in Gallia. And thus the same imitation in Europe today of the Americans. As the German group Rammstein sings "Vor Paris steht Mickey Mouse" ( before Paris stands Mickey Mouse). It points to Disney World standing outside Paris. But the wording also sounds like Mickey Mouse as representative of the whole American culture being an army ready to invade Paris.

What is Crazy about the Americans?

For a European more American phenomena seem very strange.:

The idea that America should be Gods own country.

Extreme superficiality.

The enormous focus on material richness and admiration of the very rich. Of course Europe also has a focus on attaining richness and indeed Europe has invented modern capitalism. But even a European capitalist is outraged when Paris Hilton takes showers in champaign.

And again I say to you, It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.

Americans seeing their own country as having special rights in the World. I have already pointed to things like the American use of the Swift computer system to follow money movements between Europe and the outside World, the illegal hunt for terrorists abroad including of suspects in Europe and flights with these suspects over Europe. Few have any doubt that the US governments electronic surveillance of its own citizens internet use also extends to the citizens in Europe.

A conceited belief in own values, being they puritan or the superficial World presented in films and other media.

The carrying of weapons seen as the right of everybody no matter the consequences and even no matter how lethal they are.

The cowboy mentality against other countries.

Social welfare seen as evil and unchristian.

Obama described as Anti-Christ. How can it be against Christ to aid the poor through things like health care? Have these people never heard of the Good Samaritan?

The unforgiving and uncompassionate condemning nature of American puritan Christianity.

The use of the brutal and indeed uncompassionate death penalty.

….. first cast out the beam out of your own eye; and then shall you see clearly to cast out the mote out of your brother's eye.

This all points to a a reading of the Holy Bible that stops early in the Old Testament and certainly never has reached Isaiah 53.

Taken over without any reflection

Europeans eagerly follow the Oscar awards staying awake at night to watch it live even though the often far better European films only fall into the category "foreign language films".

Super bowl is catching more and more interest in Europe.

Halloween has already become a European tradition for our children.

Valentine is also a new tradition in countries where it wad never heard of earlier.

Even the somewhat ridiculous phenomenon Cheer leaders is spreading here.

A very large part of films shown in European cinemas and TV channels are American.

This even seems to have been a part of official US policy. Part of the American aid to France after WW 2 was given with the obligation that it was to be spent on buying Hollywood films!

Also our children are exposed to this influence. Extremely superficial American talk shows and series with never ending canned laughter is dominating TV for children here as well.

Facebook… Used by everybody in this strange small Scandinavian country, where nobody seems to reflect on or question anything. Even left wing politicians and state owned radio and TV stations use Facebook instead of an ordinary homepage. Nobody give it a thought that Facebook is a commercial establishment and that users are at the mercy of the owners and indeed American surveillance. Only 2 percent of teenagers in this country do not have a Facebook account! Sooner or later I suppose the local government will make it mandatory to have an account! This invasion force is about to take the rest of Europe as well.

The demands of the Market mechanisms dominate the countries in Europe even more that the United States. I have already mentioned the American Rating Agencies. These market demands are carried out without reflection. Keynes is forgotten. Germany is acting as an agent of the market mechanisms and enforcing their demands over the rest of Europe.

Scandinavia used to be proud of its models in social welfare and the well functioning organization of the relation between the work force and employers. Now everything is with joy being broken down and the societies changed into places where everything is regulated only by market laws. All in the name of global competition and the Holy Markets.

Conclusion

For a true European the United States does not look like Gods own country. It more looks like the country of Pluto. No not the dog of Mickey Mouse, but Pluto, the god of money and the Underworld!

But

One can fear that even if many Europeans in our generation still may say as Obelix, the next generation is being brought up with American culture in the form of films, the Net and TV.

We in Europe would  rather have

Vor New York steht Obelix.

But our children’s minds may already have been invaded by Mickey Mouse.

In the Mediterranean World 2000 years ago Greek survived in the East. Here Latin did not win like it did in Gallia outside the village of Asterix and Obelix. A deliberate effort like the one advocated by France might be necessary if like Greek the European cultural languages of today shall survive. If nothing is done, then  in 100 - 200 years most of Europe will speak American English. Zee, not zed!

 .... the French language for centuries on Earth represented civilization.

Jean-Luc Picard.

Let us hope it will stay that way, also for the other European languages!

Ils sont fous ces Americains!!!