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> My understanding is that partition was driven by the British, starting with the 1905 partition of Bengal. So... this is why I said "blindspot." There have e
by netcan 1y ago
> My understanding is that partition was driven by the British, starting with the 1905 partition of Bengal.
So... this is why I said "blindspot."
There have even been socio-political theories claiming that British rule created the Indian caste system. The modern (and understandable) bias is to find imperialism, colonialism, monarchy and whatnot culpable. To absolve nationalism, self determination and democracy.
Circa 2000, the idea that Rwandan tribal divisions were actually created by colonial era racism. Both this and the colonial origin of caste dynamics were widely accepted on very little evidence and took mountains of very strong evidence to debunk... recently decided by genetics.
Sykes-Picot and the demarcation of Africa are other "lines on maps" that yielded conflict. But... "The Great Sorting Out" occurred regardless of great powers drawing lines. Nation states have borders, and there is no "correct line" that could have been drawn to make them neat. Identities that became nations were all jumbled up.
No great power drew lines in Yugoslavia, Cyprus or Turkey-Greece. Conflict and expulsion occurred regardless.
"Lines on maps" started in europe, and these were an attempt to mitigate occurrences like 1994 Rwanda in the 1800s. The idea was borders that represented a feasible "nation."
"Nation states" is a new concept. It had precursors, but the world was not divided into nation states until recently... by nationalism. Napoleon created French nationalism by creating it. Deleting all the local dialects and identities (including his own). Generating a standardized French language and identity. He did this through totalitarianism.
The Osmans tried to do something similar. An Ottoman nation with distinct hats and whatnot. It failed because they did not manage to achieve "totalitarian" control over culture. The USSR, also inspired by Napoleon tried to create a "Soviet Nation." Here the problem was that the middle ages were over, even in Russia. Napoleon had widespread ignorance and illiteracy to work with.
The idea that colonial era sins created postcolonial strife is national-liberal cope, IMO. Individual examples can be argued... but, these tend to be weak, hyper-local theories. The alternative is that nationalism is the cause of nationalist strife.
Most of the old world "nations" were mixed, and civic nationalism almost never emerged cleanly from this substrate.
Take Northern Ireland and Lebanon as examples. These countries cannot have "left and right wing" political dynamic, except as a euphemism for sect. In Lebanon, the political equivalent of "Democrat and Republican" is Sunni, Shite, Christian, etc. In NI, it's protestants and catholics. Alternatively (irish) nationalist and (british) unionists. They technically also adhere to left-right, but this is another euphemism.
A different line would have yielded a different conflict, different migration patterns and suchlike... but not sect-blind civic nationalism.
- defrost 1y ago> There have even been socio-political theories claiming that British rule created the Indian caste system. Can't say I ever ran across that in any serious context .. sounds more than a little fringe given the history of such systems pre-dating British rule. > Circa 2000, the idea that Rwandan tribal divisions were actually created by colonial era racism. More amplified by lingering colonial and post colonial influences .. but not created. > No great power drew lines in Yugoslavia, Cyprus or Turkey-Greece. Conflict and expulsion occurred regardless. The claim isn't that all divisions are created by great powers imposing arbitrary boundaries on third parties, the claim is that certain particular actions of that type had a significant impact on specific conflicts. We appear to agree that exact national boundaries (and passports also ?) are a relatively recent occurrence in world history, things that have appeared more and more and carried greater and greater weight in the past few hundred years. > The idea that colonial era sins created postcolonial strife is national-liberal cope, Interesting. Not a view held by the now 90+ year old that taught me Ham Radio, handled antipodean comms for NASA back in the day, defused lingering aerial mines in the Boy Scouts post (and during) WWII and fought (on the British Colonial side) in the Mau Mau uprising .. his opinion was that colonial rule left a long shadow on many African former colonies. Mind you, his opinion came from first hand experience rather than a modern anti-woke perspective. Again, the claim is not that colonialism was the root of all evil that followed .. that's as ridiculous as the notion that colonial era sins created absolutely zero postcolonial issues in all former colonies. > Take {X} and {Y} as examples. Why not the Congo's and Vietnam? As there is no claim of one sweeping rule, specific "counter examples" (if applicable) neither prove nor refulte the notion that colonialism created issues that varied in impact and magnitude in different parts of the world.
- sieve 1y ago> Can't say I ever ran across that in any serious context It exists. Invaders do not necessarily invent things out of whole cloth. You widen existing fissures in society in order to control it. The gotra-jaati-varna system has a complex history but the caste system in place for the past century or so in Indian society and politics is a gift of the British. They were the ones who started recording it during the census. A 2011 census found that people claim to belong to 4,673,034 different castes/sub-castes/gotras/clans.[1] Which is absolute insanity. Castes that are considered to be "upper" in one district/state move down the ladder in other districts/states. But all this complexity is thrown out of the window in ideological discussions. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Socio_Economic_and_Caste_Census https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Socio_Economic_and_Caste_...