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Russia/ the Caucasus
Region, Israel/ Palestine, USA/ Iraq :
Colonialism is a major threat to 21st
century peace
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by
Franck Biancheri:
President of TIESWeb and Director for Studies and Strategy
of Europe 2020.
02/09/2004 |
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Colonialism,
yes! A word everybody was thinking lost
in the past, and more precisely the
European past. Well today it is back
as one of the major threats to world
peace.
Today it is no longer Europe that is
the cause of such a danger. Europeans
paid a moral price too high for colonization
and went through a process of de-colonization
too painful to be willing to go for
it a second time.
Today the colonial powers are Russia,
Israel and the USA. Their journeys towards
colonialism is of course extremely different.
Russia is the only colonial empire from
the 18th/19th century to have survived
till the 21st century; most certainly
because it was a continental empire
with no ‘overseas’ territories.
The territorial continuity helped to
enforce domination and to prevent the
rest of the world from understanding
that geographic proximity was not a
reflection of a democratic will to belong
to a common political entity. The
Caucasus region is most certainly the
best example of this type of colonial
situation and Putin fully endorses this
colonial vision by refusing to look
at any solution other than complete
Russian domination.
Israel is even easier to define
as such as its present government fully
accepts and supports the very concept
of colonies and settlers. Sharon’s
government makes it a state policy to
colonize part of the West Bank and to
take away land, water and other resources
from indigenous populations (the Palestinians).
With the invasion of Iraq, G.W.
Bush decided to set the USA on a political
course heading towards colonialism.
Even within the US today it is difficult
to find people (the real people, not
those surveyed by the polls and who
are afraid to say what they really think
to an anonymous voice on the phone)
who believe that there were any strong
arguments other than oil leading to
the decision for invading Iraq. For
the rest of the world it is even more
transparent: as far as I know, nobody
believes there was ever any other reason.
So here we are, witnessing the classic
colonial pattern based on the classic
colonial pre-conditions: greed for another’s
wealth, and the ability to steal it
because of the other’s weaknesses.
Of
course some will claim that those powers
are motivated by great ideals, with
generous objectives: democracy, freedom,
development, … . And they will
remind us of some ‘realities’
which leave no alternative but action:
the fight against terrorists, the threat
to world security, … .
For
us Europeans, it sounds all too familiar.
During the entire 19th century and for
half of the of 20th, whether we were
English, French, Spanish, Portugese,
Dutch, or Belgian, … , we were
told exactly the same thing: we had
to bring the ‘flambeau de la civilisation’,
accept the ‘white man’s
burden’, teach them the ‘true
faith’ … or clean up
those seas plagued with pirates, those
territories with dangerous tribes…
and so on and so forth. In the end,
the goal was direct access to the Orient’s
spices, to South America’s gold,
to Africa’s ‘ebony trade’
and raw materials …. or to the
Middle East’s oil.
I
will not recount the entire history
of colonization; but we should know
that the era of colonization is not
yet over thanks to Putin, Sharon and
Bush. Not yet but soon, because we do
know how this several hundred year old
story ends. It ends in wars, battles,
deaths and finally the retreat of the
colonial power. My guess is, within
a short period, a maximum of 10 years
from now, we will witness the end of
this recent colonial adventure. But
how many dead and wounded between now
and then? This I know for sure: a lot,
far too many, and from all over the
world.
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