23 ms·

> the borders do not reflect ethnic or religious loyalties. Wouldn't the diversity give them strength?

• dmix 7y ago
  Plenty of borders in Europe, Asia, and even Africa have mixed nationality and religions too and there isn’t constant violence and repression by the biggest tribe. There’s far more positive examples than not around the globe. I’m actually in favour in smaller nation states and redrawing lines as a solution to the failures of centralized mega states and old world borders, such as lack of representation and cultural differences which cause policy conflicts (the smaller stuff, not just violence which is atypical in most places). Plus smaller states = way more experimentation, which the US states were supposed to be with Federalism but has had that slowly taken away. But that’s another story which doesn’t help explain the contradictions of this common explanation used selectively in Africa.
  • cameldrv 7y ago
    There are a number of stable prosperous multiethnic states. In the specific examples of Iraq, Syria, and Libya though, part of the specific rationale for the U.S. moving in to overthrow the dictator was that the dictator and his ethnic group were oppressing the rest of the country. If democracy is instituted, and the ruling group was a minority, there will be resentment on the side of the majority for past treatment, and resentment on the side of the formerly ruling minority for their diminished status. This has a tendency to boil over into civil war. This is exactly what happened in Yugoslavia, and we solved it by breaking up the country, and it has been fairly peaceful for twenty years. The main place where there are still problems is in Bosnia, and specifically because we left Bosnia together and the Bosnian Serbs want out.