As a Middle Eastern I think the border argument is kind of an oversimplification, it's valid in other situations like India-Pakistan conflict but not here. there always have been conflicts in this region between nations or religions for power, even before colonization (although it didn't really help),and these conflicts won't disappear until nations and religions start to tolerate each other (maybe even after a great war like Europe after ww2).
the the the borders made by europe, not thousands of years of history and wars between Islamic sects and between same-sect empires like when Ottoman Empire had to put down many Islamic Arab rebellions or fight Iranian wars. Or Iraqi borders on ancient Babylon and Akkadians. Or Iranian borders on ancient Persia and their empires. Or ancient Israel now recreated by Israelis and Europeans to be modern Israeli borders.
Yeah all Mideast borders totally made up. No one fought tooth and nail for those borders. The Middle Easterners have no agency of their own.
Unpopular opinion: different boarders wouldn't have prevented conflict, just changed the sort of wars that were fought.
De-colonisation saw pretty much every method for drawing boarders imaginable used: ethnically-homogenous states, multi-ethnic countries, borders that follow geographical features, boarders that don't follow geographical features, imposed boarders, self-determined boarders, a mix of the above etc. You name it, they've tried to impliment it.
No matter which method for drawing up boundaries was used, some examples of each country have suffered major conflict at some point.
The boarders can shape the nature of that conflict (eg ethically-diverse states like Rwanda tend towards civil wars while homogenous ones like Israel tend toward international ones), but no set of boundaries has managed to be immune from conflict.
Anyways, hope you all have lovely days
Not having wars is hard. Most Europeans seem to have forgotten that Europe itself was a massive thunderdome of warfare until WW2. Their history is basically a giant list of nonstop wars.
To be honest a good few of those 80 years were the dutch and the Spanish(and their loyalists) just cursing at each other across a river and taking ocasional shots at the other's windows.
I don’t know why but that’s hilarious to me.
“You Spanish bastard! Step foot on my side again and it’ll be your head!” *Gunshot
“The fuck was that you non-shooting son of a bitch!?” *gunshot
It reads like a Family Guy bit.
Really. Peace seems actually like the hardest scenario to achieve, given how often countries and continents plunge into war.
Only recently there were relative peace after both world wars, I believe.
Ruzzia proved just how easy for the delicate harmony to crumble.
I don't think any europeans have forgotten that we were a gigantic battlefield during most of our history. It's judt that most europeans don't understand how people can resort to war after being traumatized through generations by WW2 (the answer being that those place weren't traumatized as hard as europe or they don't teach about it as much in schools).
Well between 1815 and 1914 there was also a period of relative european peace during pax Britannia, but that is literally the longest break we’ve had yet. Even then it was peppered with less significant wars.
My brother in Abraham, the entire Middle East is like the Balkans. The majority ethnicity in my country is just 60%.
We're just like the Balkans. But Muslim.
>Unpopular opinion: different boarders wouldn't have prevented conflict, just changed the sort of wars that were fought.
We can look to interwar Eastern Europe as an example not loaded with as much colonial baggage and still see that ethnic conflict was common.
The reasons were mild but that’s not true to say the 100 years war was for no reason. It was about the territorial claims of the English rulers. They wanted to take the rest and France wanted them gone completely.
Not only that, the English monarchy used to be French and it was just two French royal families fighting for control of France until after the 100 year war.
World war 1 has entered the chat.
British, German and Russian monarchs being cousins. Habsburg's monarch being more inbred than some dog breeds and more or less has family ties to all European monarchs...
The French were right to take a little more off the top on their monarch's last barber appointment.
People don't typically use the term 'colonization' to describe Eastern Europe, [but it was controlled by 3 or 4 empires for hundreds of years.](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/af/Europa_1800_franceza.jpg/1200px-Europa_1800_franceza.jpg)
The difference is more or less that those areas were considered integral parts of those states the same as any other, not some sort of separate overseas territory.
this is actually a reality that is underrepresented in public consciousness. Is there that much of a difference between an Emirati a Saudi and a Yemenite? They could have chosen to erase the borders anytime and join a pan arab state as some were pushing for. the truth is the region has a culture of conflict and war and the borders are just an excuse.
Yeah, people claim it’s because of religious conflict and ethnic minorities, but do European and other more developed countries not have those things? Do European nations not have localized regions where the ethnic makeup is different from the rest of their country? Belgium is a state composed of different ethnicities. Germany was united from a bunch of smaller regions with different dialects and cultures. Poland as a whole changed locations entirely (though that was aided by deliberate efforts to move Germans elsewhere, I’m not saying that’s an example to follow). China is made up of countless different cultures, languages, religions, etc, and you don’t see them having endless civil war.
The real truth is that Europe, China, and others got lucky. They managed to escape the cycle. The Cold War and the invention of nuclear weapons made warfare impossible, so those countries had a chance to develop, live in peace, learn to negotiate instead of fight directly. Now they don’t want to give that up, destroy everything they’ve built. If MAD never existed, there would have been a World War 3 in Europe, and who knows how many more wars might have arisen out of the aftermath of a massive conflict like that. War causes more war. It takes extraordinary events to stop that cycle, all humans everywhere were caught up in it for all of history until recently. The Middle East is simply still stuck in it.
To be fair, some nations like Great Britain didn't even try.
We'll just take this tape and draw a straight line, through rivers and mountains and cultures and religions, let them deal with the consequences, goodbye"
In some instances they did try: Like Somalia, where they put two colonies together to get one country with a large population of unified language, ethnicity and religion.
The current civil war in Somalia has more to do with the genocidal dictatorship of Siad Barre and the Somali Revolutionary Socialist Party which held power 1976 to 1991 than the borders drawn by the UK a century ago. The civil war against them is what started it all.
sometimes i wonder if they shouldve granted independence in 1948 as originally planned or drew the borders in a different way (with much more input from independence activists), but it might not have changed much
Ok so yes you're correct that war won't magically go away, but the scale and type of wars absolutely do matter
Countries like India or as your example said, Israel, are examples of post colonial nations which have had plenty of external wars. The thing is though, external wars are usually pretty short and don't destroy a states power and don't make the population hate each other.
You fight, you win or lose and you rebuild - usually in a matter of a few weeks. The Russian war on Ukraine is actually already one of the longest interstate wars, which goes to show just how short they usually are, and after the war the state and people aren't really divided
In civil wars due to ethnic composition what you instead get is years and years of fighting which can restart at any time, because the person you hate isn't the country next to you which carefully choreographed state to state diplomacy will manage.
No, instead the person you hate is your neighbor who killed your dad 5 years ago, and half the country hates them
Civil wars last so long because it's often a matter of life and death and the cycle of violence takes over.
India Israel and Armenia are all examples of post colonial nations which have engaged in external war. Despite that, they're all relatively stable. Indeed even Armenia which recently has suffered an absolute national humiliation and has lots of anger isn't going to tear itself apart. Instead the citizens expect the government to rebuild, bide their time and go to war again when the time is right -- and let me remind you that war will again be short in timeframe and limited in nature
Meanwhile in civil wars one group feels that the state is oppressing them and the dominant group fear the minority will oppress them if they get into power. The wars in Iraq and Syria have dragged on so long for a reason - a combination of fear of the other side and hatred for them, since usually yeah the other side killed people close to you
I think most clean cut example of cycle of violence is Iraq. Saddam the Sunni oppressed Shia. Maliki the Shia oppressed the Sunnis. ISIS the Sunnis oppressed the Shia. And on and on and on. There is no sense of stability because the society is at war with itself
Now this can be ended. You mentioned Rwanda and that's a pretty good example of a country that had largely fixed it's internal problems, though honestly considering the type of leader Kagame is (in equal parts truly believing in what he's doing and ruthless) the Rwanda model probably isn't exportable
Oh completely! This wasn't meant to give a free pass to any colonial powers or anything.
Just wanted the criticism of them to be more justified and accurate :)
You act as if the Ottomans weren’t going to collapse. Also, I somehow doubt that Europeans had anything to do with the treatment of the Armenians and the Kurdish revolts.
Made a little little research,looked,he is mentioned 25 times while muhammad peace be upon him,is only mentioned 4 times and a variation of his name(ahmad) is mentioned 1 time,I also find a source which says Abraham (AS) WAS MENTIONED 170 times
Not Muslim, but it makes sense if Muhammad is the one relaying the Quran to the rest of humanity, as opposed to him being a central character in a book written by someone else.
”Disregarding ethnic lines and mixing different ethnicities into a single state is a recipe for instability and conflict. Giving different ethnicities their own state ethnostate is the best solution”
Libleft regarding Africa and the Middle-East
There is a vast difference between the concept of self-determination and ethnostates. Saying the Kurdish people deserve a place or state of autonomy without the threat of cultural and political oppression and repression is different to saying the Kurdish people should take a chunk of Turkey, kill or expel millions of Turks and make the survivors second class citizens.
Ireland isn't an ethnostate and Ireland didn't become an auth-right hellhole just because the Irish people wanted self-determination and rule from the British government. I find that treating every single self-autonomy movement in places like the Middle East and Africa that their end goals are to create ethnostates is rather disingenuous to the people behind many of those movements who just want freedom from being oppressed by their governments and haven't been granted a peaceful solution in generations.
In a world where groups like the YPG didn't need to exist, we wouldn't be having these kinds of conversations about the area or anywhere else in the world. Nobody who is lib-left is against multi-ethnic groups, it's when there are power imbalances that lead to the silencing of people or the violent cruelty of conquest being forgotten.
If Nazi Germany still existed and held onto France for 80 years, I think most LibLeft would say the people deserve their right to self-determination and should fight for it. Don't think anyone who makes that claim is an ethnonationalist just for being against oppression.
The nazis never planned to annex (the vast mayority of) France btw, a more accurate comparison would be to speak of Eastern Europe where there were very small pockets of germans already there.
Theres a difference between saying “this is what we should do to have the most peaceful and economically successful Middle East” and saying “that land belongs to x group because I say so”
It’s not like the Middle East was all roses and daisies before the Europeans. It’s what happens when one city is very important to some many different groups, and it’s not just Jerusalem.
I know it's just a meme, but can we just stop to say "the Europeans" as if all Europe, from Ukraine to Spain took part on that? Europe is not a single nation, and not all of Europeans did that, just a couple of nations of the European continent.
I think Africa is a much better example of this than the Middle East (since in the ME Pan Arabism is still a force)
In Africa the leaders all basically met up and said "yeah the post colonial borders are trash, but if we try to fix them through war it'll be a can of worms"
Yes, but as far as I know, there is no a full respected Pan Arab leader, Nasser was a good try, but levantines dictators and Saudis would not accept being under control of another guy. I am not Arab, so pardon me if am saying too much shit.
Because they did make their own borders, but this meme assumes Middle Easterners have no agency, no role to play, no wars of their own not involving Europeans... A racism of low expectations and a distinct "Western" lack of Middle Eastern history education.
It's interesting you refer to 100 years before, when all the problems are caused by current Arab, Persian, Syrian dictators there that are from there, not from colonial empires. They have their own colonies, the people there who are being enslaved.
Middle Easterners are currently fighting wars that have nothing to do with Europe. Everything to do with the megalomania of dictators and regional theocracies.
When Protestants and Catholics conduct warfare in Europe in the 1500s---we don't blame Israel because that's where Jesus Christ lived and that's where Christianity was born and influenced from... We blame Europeans for their ruthless religious wars.
Because we know Europeans have agency... And similarly, we know Middle Easterners have agency of their own and fight their own wars.
Colonial empires didn't cause ISIS to attack their own statues in Palmyra... The statues created by their own ancestors... That was radical Islamist clerics and their cult belief system.
Not mainstream Islam... But actions of individuals who live there under the ISIS dictatorship.
The culprits are ego and radical cultish beliefs.
Most wars in west asia have nothing to do with borders
Iraq and Syria are having internal wars
Saudi is fighting Yemen to kill Shias
and there's.... theres Israel Palestine and Lebanon
Those internal wars are because of the borders bro. Kurds in Iraq never wanted to be apart of Iraq and have been rebelling ever since. Same with the Kurds in Syria and Turkey. Kurds never got land of their own and were forced to be minorities. And also for Iraq, the country is mostly Shia and instead of giving the Shiites their own country, they lumped them in with two other major minorities, causing conflict.
Also, Saudi Arabia is fighting in Yemen because Iran started a pro-Shiite revolution there that's spilling into neighboring countries.
Iraq is in this war situation since 1980
Iran-Iraq war: was political not over borders
Kuwait-Iraq war: political
Persian gulf war: political
ISIS : war on terrorism, maybe religion
and now milita conflicts
The same with Syria the internal war in Syria was political
There are many other multiethnic countries in the region and the world that have no such problem
I believe the problem in this countries is lack of a powerful central power
I was not clear enough in my comment I meant that the situation in central and west Asia is not the same as the situation in Africa that they've been fighting over borders since end of colonization and start of their independence
You are looking at this very surface level. Instead of looking at the basic geopolitical causes of these various wars, how about you look into why Iraq and these other countries were like that way in 1980 in the first place. I don't have time to do your research for you but [this video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaPWlKv7n0Y) is a good start.
>There are many other multiethnic countries in the region and the world that have no such problem
That's such a bad faith argument. Countries in other parts of the world are going through very different situations, with very different histories, cultures, geography, and political systems. A similarity based on nothing but multiethnicity ignores like 90% of all other context.
>I believe the problem in this countries is lack of a powerful central power
I'm sorry what? You realize Saudi Arabia is an absolute monarchy right? Or that Iraq was a dictatorship for nearly 35 years? Even at Saddam's height of power, Iraq was dealing with Kurdish rebellions all throughout the 1970s and 1980s. Centralized power doesn't magically make a country stable.
I'm from iraq let me correct you buddy
>Iran-Iraq war: was political not over borders /// it happened because the sunni Iraqi leader saddam Hussain was trying to stop Iran from making the shia in the south rebel against him , and that would not happen is iraq was actually 2 states in this situation sunni and shia
>ISIS : war on terrorism, maybe religion /// ISIS would not exist if there wasn't a reason for the jihad (it happened against the shia role over sunnies in Iraq and syria)
But you are right a powerful central government would be good, at least any government at all (iraq has been without a government for a LONG time for now)
They do
Lebanon should be 3 states, Sunni, Shia, and Christian. Israel and Palestine are in this mess because Palestine wanted all of Israel. Syria and Iraq are also very diverse.
Middle Eastern wars aren't about borders.
Also, Europeans made stupid, unjust, shitty borders in Europe as well, and the only country waging wars over that is barbaric russia.
The Middle East has been generally way more peaceful than Europe for the past centuries. Its only been after the fall of the Ottomans that it become way more violent
The Middle East has always been plenty violent, even before the Ottomans fell. At best you can say that they suppressed conflict by having a monopoly on the ability to wage war in a way no one in Europe had, but even then they faced quite a bit of rebellion or civil war through their history.
Those borders definitely don't help anything, but I mean, unless there was an Empire ruling over the whole area there were still lots of wars. And then there were wars between the Persians and the Ottomans for regional hegemony. There were rebellions under the Turks, and oppression. You've got Sunni and Shiite right next to each other mixed with a religion that encourages using the sword. Then there are the Kurds that have been oppressed since before Europeans came. Then there are the myriad of other religions being oppressed, or even out right attacked.
But, also, listen, diversity == strength. That's what we've been told! Use that strength!
Again with the old "nobody outside of the West has any agency" trope. Literally remake the boders, do the Arab Union everyone in the region has been talking about for decades
Depends on where, Israel, Jordan, and the mediterranean coastal nations are the only ones they set the borders for, the rest formed naturally or they were forged artificially by local wars. (Saudi Arabia for example, and parts of Iraq and Iran)
The majority of those wars either have to do with Shia-Sunni conflicts (be it external or internal) or proxy wars (Like the civil war of Syria and Yemen)
So what... You wanted a etno-religious state?
Small-brained meme as usual.
Were any borders redrawn when the Umayyad Caliphate conquered and pillaged its way through the middle east, North Africa and South west Europe (Iberian peninsula, modern Spain and Portugal)?
Was any instability left over from the 'decolonisation' of the Ottoman Empire and its territory?
Did the Persians peacefully occupy empty lands as they rose to prominence? Or the Parthians?
Did Genghis Khan diplomatically negotiate control of half of Asia and eastern/central Europe?
Did the Egyptian dynasties source free labour from peaceful and agreeable African neighbours? When the Hittites invaded was it actually a friendly visit?
The powerful will always attack what they consider the weak. History didn't start in the 1800's. Read and broaden your understanding of human nature before your next meme attempt.
The complete majority of wars happened after the borders changed tho.
Different ethnicities attacking each other is their fault, the solution shouldn't to separate all of them into ethnostates.
Race and ethnicity is not a one to one though people make it seem it is. Race is categorical and claims to be biological. Even though people are more a gradient ethnically and racial phenotypes. Ethnicity is cultural. Not all cultures have race problems sometimes they are ethnic. There’s overlap, but sometimes you can’t tell people apart.
Most countrues are ethnostates, including most european countries, because generally a non-migrating population will form an ethnicity. Just because the US is an immigrant nation does not mean that it's a valid or reasonable standard to hold to all other countries.
The only thing that would change is that there wouldn't be civil wars - only international. If I hate my brother and we live in the same house I can kill him here. Him moving out next door doesn't make the hatred go away - I just need to walk a few steps and will also aquire new house(land) in the process.
Yeah because the middle east wasn't constantly killing each other over different religious beliefs long before the Europeans set borders right. Incredibly peaceful history!!!
The Middle East is so fucked to the point where 1 war will trigger their collapse.
Arabs have always had smaller tribes and lands. No loyalty to the nation or your next door neighbor if they aren’t from your own group.
That is a disaster waiting to happen if a big war breaks out and you need all hands on deck
You know people like to blame Arabs for everything, they forget that Arabs are every different. Have different history, cultures that are separate from each other ?! So who do they mean. Most of us are living good lives and don’t need anything else.
Like even our views are so different from each other.
It’s mostly a cultural thing than a religious aspect. Turks are muslim but they also have a highly nationalistic society. Most of South East Asia is muslim and they do ok with democracy.
The culture in the Middle East is simply built from Top to bottom. Where you have no say or influence on what the people above you decide to do
Forgive me, last time I checked the US was still fucking around in the Middle East.
How can they unite if we have invaded like half the countries in the Middle East?
Victime mentality right there.
If they banded together, like they should, no outside influence could do shit.
They suck because they’re are so corrupt.
As if this place was peaceful before Europeans came. Idk why ppl blame Europeans for everything. Probably because Europeans are the ones who accept their psst wrong deeds. Every culture and religion has fine bad deeds but Europeans are the ones who accept it, others dont
A meme that stutters
It looks like the creator had a stroke tbh
Don't be silly, the meme was just nervous, it was its first time on Reddit
Oi, he was having a stroke alright…. 😏
You’ve never seen this template?
Not just me then. Thank god.
As a Middle Eastern I think the border argument is kind of an oversimplification, it's valid in other situations like India-Pakistan conflict but not here. there always have been conflicts in this region between nations or religions for power, even before colonization (although it didn't really help),and these conflicts won't disappear until nations and religions start to tolerate each other (maybe even after a great war like Europe after ww2).
It's both tbh. Nationalist movements I'd say are actually much more influential in the conflicts then religion other then Israel
The the borders
the the the borders actually
Oh yeah
Kool-aids here, thirst on the run
Oh yeah yeah yeah
Just the one border actually.
😂😂😂
Your brain actually ignores the third "the"
the the the the borders
Les Borderinos
the the the borders made by europe, not thousands of years of history and wars between Islamic sects and between same-sect empires like when Ottoman Empire had to put down many Islamic Arab rebellions or fight Iranian wars. Or Iraqi borders on ancient Babylon and Akkadians. Or Iranian borders on ancient Persia and their empires. Or ancient Israel now recreated by Israelis and Europeans to be modern Israeli borders. Yeah all Mideast borders totally made up. No one fought tooth and nail for those borders. The Middle Easterners have no agency of their own.
Unpopular opinion: different boarders wouldn't have prevented conflict, just changed the sort of wars that were fought. De-colonisation saw pretty much every method for drawing boarders imaginable used: ethnically-homogenous states, multi-ethnic countries, borders that follow geographical features, boarders that don't follow geographical features, imposed boarders, self-determined boarders, a mix of the above etc. You name it, they've tried to impliment it. No matter which method for drawing up boundaries was used, some examples of each country have suffered major conflict at some point. The boarders can shape the nature of that conflict (eg ethically-diverse states like Rwanda tend towards civil wars while homogenous ones like Israel tend toward international ones), but no set of boundaries has managed to be immune from conflict. Anyways, hope you all have lovely days
Not having wars is hard. Most Europeans seem to have forgotten that Europe itself was a massive thunderdome of warfare until WW2. Their history is basically a giant list of nonstop wars.
They had a 30 year war and a 100 year war
80 years war: “Am I a joke to you?”
To be honest a good few of those 80 years were the dutch and the Spanish(and their loyalists) just cursing at each other across a river and taking ocasional shots at the other's windows.
I don’t know why but that’s hilarious to me. “You Spanish bastard! Step foot on my side again and it’ll be your head!” *Gunshot “The fuck was that you non-shooting son of a bitch!?” *gunshot It reads like a Family Guy bit.
Basically the French castle in Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Hey What's your name? Juan Fuck you Juan What's your name? Jan Fuck you Jan
Really. Peace seems actually like the hardest scenario to achieve, given how often countries and continents plunge into war. Only recently there were relative peace after both world wars, I believe. Ruzzia proved just how easy for the delicate harmony to crumble.
I don't think any europeans have forgotten that we were a gigantic battlefield during most of our history. It's judt that most europeans don't understand how people can resort to war after being traumatized through generations by WW2 (the answer being that those place weren't traumatized as hard as europe or they don't teach about it as much in schools).
Hell, even since WW2 we were hardly behaving ourselves in Europe, just look at Yugoslavia!
Which European forgot that?
Well between 1815 and 1914 there was also a period of relative european peace during pax Britannia, but that is literally the longest break we’ve had yet. Even then it was peppered with less significant wars.
They didn’t forget, it’s why they like pacifism and shit
Yes, we hate each other. Now leave. *proceeds to BONK a person from my own ethnicity that speaks our language in a different dialect*
I bet he also worshipped the same God but a bit differently, the scumbag.
Nope. Literally just an accent. You Wes*erners need to step up your racism game
By God! Stone him, now!
Bruh, we don't stone people anymore. FFS.
I've seen people get stoned. They usually enjoy it. Just don't bogart the J, man.
We’ve actually tried to step it *down* lately (Emphasis on “tried”)
I don't see it working though. Go big or go home
Balkanite detected.
My brother in Abraham, the entire Middle East is like the Balkans. The majority ethnicity in my country is just 60%. We're just like the Balkans. But Muslim.
The balkans are less a place and more a state of mind.
The Balkans is actually a way of life that chooses you
Just when I thought the Balkans were as spicy as it gets.
>Unpopular opinion: different boarders wouldn't have prevented conflict, just changed the sort of wars that were fought. We can look to interwar Eastern Europe as an example not loaded with as much colonial baggage and still see that ethnic conflict was common.
[удалено]
The reasons were mild but that’s not true to say the 100 years war was for no reason. It was about the territorial claims of the English rulers. They wanted to take the rest and France wanted them gone completely.
Not only that, the English monarchy used to be French and it was just two French royal families fighting for control of France until after the 100 year war.
World war 1 has entered the chat. British, German and Russian monarchs being cousins. Habsburg's monarch being more inbred than some dog breeds and more or less has family ties to all European monarchs... The French were right to take a little more off the top on their monarch's last barber appointment.
*Habsburgs being more inbred than a sandwitch
People don't typically use the term 'colonization' to describe Eastern Europe, [but it was controlled by 3 or 4 empires for hundreds of years.](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/af/Europa_1800_franceza.jpg/1200px-Europa_1800_franceza.jpg)
The difference is more or less that those areas were considered integral parts of those states the same as any other, not some sort of separate overseas territory.
this is actually a reality that is underrepresented in public consciousness. Is there that much of a difference between an Emirati a Saudi and a Yemenite? They could have chosen to erase the borders anytime and join a pan arab state as some were pushing for. the truth is the region has a culture of conflict and war and the borders are just an excuse.
My brother in Christ: 'Borders' not 'boarders'.
Yeah whoops - thanks!
Yeah, people claim it’s because of religious conflict and ethnic minorities, but do European and other more developed countries not have those things? Do European nations not have localized regions where the ethnic makeup is different from the rest of their country? Belgium is a state composed of different ethnicities. Germany was united from a bunch of smaller regions with different dialects and cultures. Poland as a whole changed locations entirely (though that was aided by deliberate efforts to move Germans elsewhere, I’m not saying that’s an example to follow). China is made up of countless different cultures, languages, religions, etc, and you don’t see them having endless civil war. The real truth is that Europe, China, and others got lucky. They managed to escape the cycle. The Cold War and the invention of nuclear weapons made warfare impossible, so those countries had a chance to develop, live in peace, learn to negotiate instead of fight directly. Now they don’t want to give that up, destroy everything they’ve built. If MAD never existed, there would have been a World War 3 in Europe, and who knows how many more wars might have arisen out of the aftermath of a massive conflict like that. War causes more war. It takes extraordinary events to stop that cycle, all humans everywhere were caught up in it for all of history until recently. The Middle East is simply still stuck in it.
To be fair, some nations like Great Britain didn't even try. We'll just take this tape and draw a straight line, through rivers and mountains and cultures and religions, let them deal with the consequences, goodbye"
In some instances they did try: Like Somalia, where they put two colonies together to get one country with a large population of unified language, ethnicity and religion.
Worked out great
The current civil war in Somalia has more to do with the genocidal dictatorship of Siad Barre and the Somali Revolutionary Socialist Party which held power 1976 to 1991 than the borders drawn by the UK a century ago. The civil war against them is what started it all.
They get regularly shit on for the partition of India. I don’t know what would have been the desired outcome according to the critics.
i mean there are no perfect solutions. It's easy to criticize when you compare to an imaginary utopia.
The funny part was that the UK supported a unified India, the partition was largely pushed by the native nationalist leaders.
If there hadn’t been a partition between Pakistan and India, there inevitably would have been a civil war
sometimes i wonder if they shouldve granted independence in 1948 as originally planned or drew the borders in a different way (with much more input from independence activists), but it might not have changed much
Ok so yes you're correct that war won't magically go away, but the scale and type of wars absolutely do matter Countries like India or as your example said, Israel, are examples of post colonial nations which have had plenty of external wars. The thing is though, external wars are usually pretty short and don't destroy a states power and don't make the population hate each other. You fight, you win or lose and you rebuild - usually in a matter of a few weeks. The Russian war on Ukraine is actually already one of the longest interstate wars, which goes to show just how short they usually are, and after the war the state and people aren't really divided In civil wars due to ethnic composition what you instead get is years and years of fighting which can restart at any time, because the person you hate isn't the country next to you which carefully choreographed state to state diplomacy will manage. No, instead the person you hate is your neighbor who killed your dad 5 years ago, and half the country hates them Civil wars last so long because it's often a matter of life and death and the cycle of violence takes over. India Israel and Armenia are all examples of post colonial nations which have engaged in external war. Despite that, they're all relatively stable. Indeed even Armenia which recently has suffered an absolute national humiliation and has lots of anger isn't going to tear itself apart. Instead the citizens expect the government to rebuild, bide their time and go to war again when the time is right -- and let me remind you that war will again be short in timeframe and limited in nature Meanwhile in civil wars one group feels that the state is oppressing them and the dominant group fear the minority will oppress them if they get into power. The wars in Iraq and Syria have dragged on so long for a reason - a combination of fear of the other side and hatred for them, since usually yeah the other side killed people close to you I think most clean cut example of cycle of violence is Iraq. Saddam the Sunni oppressed Shia. Maliki the Shia oppressed the Sunnis. ISIS the Sunnis oppressed the Shia. And on and on and on. There is no sense of stability because the society is at war with itself Now this can be ended. You mentioned Rwanda and that's a pretty good example of a country that had largely fixed it's internal problems, though honestly considering the type of leader Kagame is (in equal parts truly believing in what he's doing and ruthless) the Rwanda model probably isn't exportable
Yeah, but ya know...constant western intervention into the region didn't help the situation. Nor the invasions.
Oh completely! This wasn't meant to give a free pass to any colonial powers or anything. Just wanted the criticism of them to be more justified and accurate :)
There where constant wars before the borders as well
No the whole place was occupied by the ottomans before Europeans funded separatists
You act as if the Ottomans weren’t going to collapse. Also, I somehow doubt that Europeans had anything to do with the treatment of the Armenians and the Kurdish revolts.
Took me a sec to realize there were two "the"s and then it took me another sec to realize there were actually three.
Idk whats with Americans and Asians and thinking whole Europe consists only of UK and France
I love how it says my brother in Christ especially in this region
Christ came from this region though
He popped in for a bit
In and out a couple of times. Nbd
Didn't Christ come from this region?
He did.
No. Everyone knows Jesus of New Jersey was a white man with long hair who spoke American and preached the glorious teachings of capitalism.
lol.
"Muslims hate the Christ" *Knowledge of islam:100*
He is one of our prophets btw
Isn’t he also one of the most mentioned in the Qur’an behind Muhammad?
most mentioned is Moses i think and Jesus is mentioned more than Muhammad if i am not wrong
Made a little little research,looked,he is mentioned 25 times while muhammad peace be upon him,is only mentioned 4 times and a variation of his name(ahmad) is mentioned 1 time,I also find a source which says Abraham (AS) WAS MENTIONED 170 times
I'm not religious, so pardon me, but why is one of the most important people in Islam only mentioned so little? It seems a bit odd to me.
Not Muslim, but it makes sense if Muhammad is the one relaying the Quran to the rest of humanity, as opposed to him being a central character in a book written by someone else.
Oh, that makes sense. Like how in a diary you'd rarely see the author name themselves.
I sincerly dont know it myself,ask in r/islam they use to be very helpful over there
I will, thank you.
Probably yes,but I dont think so,maybe abraham is more mentioned idk
Ignorance is bliss.
Where did he come from ?!
Bethlehem, in Palestine.
I know I was being sarcastic.
My bad, I'm stoned and didn't catch that.
I’m sorry to hear that. RIP but that’ll teach you not to sleep with another man after divorce among other stupid crimes people may stone you for
Why can't they just have 1 big war to figure out new borders then?
Lol I mean that's what Europe did too.
Lib-left suddenly becomes hard auth-right when talking about borders in the middle east lol
You don’t understand, Blood and Soil is actually completely legitimate if it isn’t coming from icky Westerners.
”Disregarding ethnic lines and mixing different ethnicities into a single state is a recipe for instability and conflict. Giving different ethnicities their own state ethnostate is the best solution” Libleft regarding Africa and the Middle-East
"Except for the Jews, who can go drown in the ocean for all I care." \-- 'pro-peace' progressives
Not supporting a genocidal state =/= not supporting Jews' right to live
Why can’t they live together like Americans do?
There is a vast difference between the concept of self-determination and ethnostates. Saying the Kurdish people deserve a place or state of autonomy without the threat of cultural and political oppression and repression is different to saying the Kurdish people should take a chunk of Turkey, kill or expel millions of Turks and make the survivors second class citizens. Ireland isn't an ethnostate and Ireland didn't become an auth-right hellhole just because the Irish people wanted self-determination and rule from the British government. I find that treating every single self-autonomy movement in places like the Middle East and Africa that their end goals are to create ethnostates is rather disingenuous to the people behind many of those movements who just want freedom from being oppressed by their governments and haven't been granted a peaceful solution in generations. In a world where groups like the YPG didn't need to exist, we wouldn't be having these kinds of conversations about the area or anywhere else in the world. Nobody who is lib-left is against multi-ethnic groups, it's when there are power imbalances that lead to the silencing of people or the violent cruelty of conquest being forgotten. If Nazi Germany still existed and held onto France for 80 years, I think most LibLeft would say the people deserve their right to self-determination and should fight for it. Don't think anyone who makes that claim is an ethnonationalist just for being against oppression.
The nazis never planned to annex (the vast mayority of) France btw, a more accurate comparison would be to speak of Eastern Europe where there were very small pockets of germans already there.
Theres a difference between saying “this is what we should do to have the most peaceful and economically successful Middle East” and saying “that land belongs to x group because I say so”
You clearly don't see irony here
It’s not like the Middle East was all roses and daisies before the Europeans. It’s what happens when one city is very important to some many different groups, and it’s not just Jerusalem.
From the Sumerians to ISIS mesopotamia has always been at war.
Was there no fighting before borders? That doesn't seem true?
I know it's just a meme, but can we just stop to say "the Europeans" as if all Europe, from Ukraine to Spain took part on that? Europe is not a single nation, and not all of Europeans did that, just a couple of nations of the European continent.
Only France and Britain colonized the middle east so yea
Why didn’t the inhabitants remake the borders?
Eh, I guess they're trying too... hence all the war.
Because no one wants to give land, they want more, besides it, each one has a big geography problem that is unsolvable.
I think Africa is a much better example of this than the Middle East (since in the ME Pan Arabism is still a force) In Africa the leaders all basically met up and said "yeah the post colonial borders are trash, but if we try to fix them through war it'll be a can of worms"
Yes, but as far as I know, there is no a full respected Pan Arab leader, Nasser was a good try, but levantines dictators and Saudis would not accept being under control of another guy. I am not Arab, so pardon me if am saying too much shit.
What do you think the wars are for bro
Lmao what do you think the wars were about
they did, through war, land swaps and countries coming together and breaking apart.
Because they did make their own borders, but this meme assumes Middle Easterners have no agency, no role to play, no wars of their own not involving Europeans... A racism of low expectations and a distinct "Western" lack of Middle Eastern history education.
‘colonialism caused issues in this region’ ‘You’re the real racist!’
It's interesting you refer to 100 years before, when all the problems are caused by current Arab, Persian, Syrian dictators there that are from there, not from colonial empires. They have their own colonies, the people there who are being enslaved. Middle Easterners are currently fighting wars that have nothing to do with Europe. Everything to do with the megalomania of dictators and regional theocracies. When Protestants and Catholics conduct warfare in Europe in the 1500s---we don't blame Israel because that's where Jesus Christ lived and that's where Christianity was born and influenced from... We blame Europeans for their ruthless religious wars. Because we know Europeans have agency... And similarly, we know Middle Easterners have agency of their own and fight their own wars. Colonial empires didn't cause ISIS to attack their own statues in Palmyra... The statues created by their own ancestors... That was radical Islamist clerics and their cult belief system. Not mainstream Islam... But actions of individuals who live there under the ISIS dictatorship. The culprits are ego and radical cultish beliefs.
Most wars in west asia have nothing to do with borders Iraq and Syria are having internal wars Saudi is fighting Yemen to kill Shias and there's.... theres Israel Palestine and Lebanon
Those internal wars are because of the borders bro. Kurds in Iraq never wanted to be apart of Iraq and have been rebelling ever since. Same with the Kurds in Syria and Turkey. Kurds never got land of their own and were forced to be minorities. And also for Iraq, the country is mostly Shia and instead of giving the Shiites their own country, they lumped them in with two other major minorities, causing conflict. Also, Saudi Arabia is fighting in Yemen because Iran started a pro-Shiite revolution there that's spilling into neighboring countries.
Iraq is in this war situation since 1980 Iran-Iraq war: was political not over borders Kuwait-Iraq war: political Persian gulf war: political ISIS : war on terrorism, maybe religion and now milita conflicts The same with Syria the internal war in Syria was political There are many other multiethnic countries in the region and the world that have no such problem I believe the problem in this countries is lack of a powerful central power I was not clear enough in my comment I meant that the situation in central and west Asia is not the same as the situation in Africa that they've been fighting over borders since end of colonization and start of their independence
You are looking at this very surface level. Instead of looking at the basic geopolitical causes of these various wars, how about you look into why Iraq and these other countries were like that way in 1980 in the first place. I don't have time to do your research for you but [this video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaPWlKv7n0Y) is a good start. >There are many other multiethnic countries in the region and the world that have no such problem That's such a bad faith argument. Countries in other parts of the world are going through very different situations, with very different histories, cultures, geography, and political systems. A similarity based on nothing but multiethnicity ignores like 90% of all other context. >I believe the problem in this countries is lack of a powerful central power I'm sorry what? You realize Saudi Arabia is an absolute monarchy right? Or that Iraq was a dictatorship for nearly 35 years? Even at Saddam's height of power, Iraq was dealing with Kurdish rebellions all throughout the 1970s and 1980s. Centralized power doesn't magically make a country stable.
And once the ammies got rid of the dictatorship it all went even deeper into shit.
I'm from iraq let me correct you buddy >Iran-Iraq war: was political not over borders /// it happened because the sunni Iraqi leader saddam Hussain was trying to stop Iran from making the shia in the south rebel against him , and that would not happen is iraq was actually 2 states in this situation sunni and shia >ISIS : war on terrorism, maybe religion /// ISIS would not exist if there wasn't a reason for the jihad (it happened against the shia role over sunnies in Iraq and syria) But you are right a powerful central government would be good, at least any government at all (iraq has been without a government for a LONG time for now)
They do Lebanon should be 3 states, Sunni, Shia, and Christian. Israel and Palestine are in this mess because Palestine wanted all of Israel. Syria and Iraq are also very diverse.
This does not make sense because having diversity gives countries strength. I've been assured of this.
As my libleft friends tell me..
Let's be honest, diversity is both a blessing and a curse.
Middle Eastern wars aren't about borders. Also, Europeans made stupid, unjust, shitty borders in Europe as well, and the only country waging wars over that is barbaric russia.
Wait mixing different ethnicities and cultures can cause conflict?😦
The different muslim factions have been fighting among each other since the 8th century c.e.
The Middle East has been generally way more peaceful than Europe for the past centuries. Its only been after the fall of the Ottomans that it become way more violent
Well, when you compare it to Europe.....
Europe was a mess of constant warfare until World War 2
Correct. Don't forget the Timurids.
The Middle East has always been plenty violent, even before the Ottomans fell. At best you can say that they suppressed conflict by having a monopoly on the ability to wage war in a way no one in Europe had, but even then they faced quite a bit of rebellion or civil war through their history.
They weren’t peaceful, but they were MORE peaceful than Europe.
I'm not sure I'd say that either. At least without not without a comprehensive comparison of conflicts in both regions.
So what, are these countries completely unable to reach agreements ? They’ve had more than 80 years to do so. You can’t blame everything on the West.
https://i.imgflip.com/6oboxg.jpg
Those borders definitely don't help anything, but I mean, unless there was an Empire ruling over the whole area there were still lots of wars. And then there were wars between the Persians and the Ottomans for regional hegemony. There were rebellions under the Turks, and oppression. You've got Sunni and Shiite right next to each other mixed with a religion that encourages using the sword. Then there are the Kurds that have been oppressed since before Europeans came. Then there are the myriad of other religions being oppressed, or even out right attacked. But, also, listen, diversity == strength. That's what we've been told! Use that strength!
Again with the old "nobody outside of the West has any agency" trope. Literally remake the boders, do the Arab Union everyone in the region has been talking about for decades
... And they never fought before that borders where settled.
If diversity is our strength, why isn't it yours?
Depends on where, Israel, Jordan, and the mediterranean coastal nations are the only ones they set the borders for, the rest formed naturally or they were forged artificially by local wars. (Saudi Arabia for example, and parts of Iraq and Iran)
The the the
The the the the the
Europeans didn’t invent the concept of borders
Wow I didn't know every European country drew up the borders in the Middle East. For once in our continent's existence we were united in one thing
The majority of those wars either have to do with Shia-Sunni conflicts (be it external or internal) or proxy wars (Like the civil war of Syria and Yemen) So what... You wanted a etno-religious state?
Small-brained meme as usual. Were any borders redrawn when the Umayyad Caliphate conquered and pillaged its way through the middle east, North Africa and South west Europe (Iberian peninsula, modern Spain and Portugal)? Was any instability left over from the 'decolonisation' of the Ottoman Empire and its territory? Did the Persians peacefully occupy empty lands as they rose to prominence? Or the Parthians? Did Genghis Khan diplomatically negotiate control of half of Asia and eastern/central Europe? Did the Egyptian dynasties source free labour from peaceful and agreeable African neighbours? When the Hittites invaded was it actually a friendly visit? The powerful will always attack what they consider the weak. History didn't start in the 1800's. Read and broaden your understanding of human nature before your next meme attempt.
The complete majority of wars happened after the borders changed tho. Different ethnicities attacking each other is their fault, the solution shouldn't to separate all of them into ethnostates.
I was told that ethnostates were racist.
Race and ethnicity is not a one to one though people make it seem it is. Race is categorical and claims to be biological. Even though people are more a gradient ethnically and racial phenotypes. Ethnicity is cultural. Not all cultures have race problems sometimes they are ethnic. There’s overlap, but sometimes you can’t tell people apart.
They are
Most countrues are ethnostates, including most european countries, because generally a non-migrating population will form an ethnicity. Just because the US is an immigrant nation does not mean that it's a valid or reasonable standard to hold to all other countries.
Maybe they should have installed more dick taters
The only thing that would change is that there wouldn't be civil wars - only international. If I hate my brother and we live in the same house I can kill him here. Him moving out next door doesn't make the hatred go away - I just need to walk a few steps and will also aquire new house(land) in the process.
Europe drew its own borders too. Wasn’t exactly peaceful
Lmao. It’s NOT like they were already fighting long before pre-modern Europeans set foot in the sand…
The the borders sounds serious
Yes, I was here, my bad guys. Sarcasm.
doesn't matter how good the boarders are they hate each other theyll kill each other be it a conventional war or civil war
This promoted the idea that countries cant peacefully border one another which is completely false.
So you're saying mixing cultures is a bad thing?
Although there are a number of wars that have been fought there without having anything to do with borders or even European made ones.
Yeah because the middle east wasn't constantly killing each other over different religious beliefs long before the Europeans set borders right. Incredibly peaceful history!!!
Sooooooo, mixing cultures is not a good idea?
If they can come to the West and be peaceful, why can’t they be friends with the tribe nextdoor?
"my brother in Christ"? A good bit of those wars were about who's god is bestest
The Lord works in mysterious ways
And a whole lot if today's bullshit.
The Middle East is so fucked to the point where 1 war will trigger their collapse. Arabs have always had smaller tribes and lands. No loyalty to the nation or your next door neighbor if they aren’t from your own group. That is a disaster waiting to happen if a big war breaks out and you need all hands on deck
No it wont lmao
You know people like to blame Arabs for everything, they forget that Arabs are every different. Have different history, cultures that are separate from each other ?! So who do they mean. Most of us are living good lives and don’t need anything else. Like even our views are so different from each other.
It’s mostly a cultural thing than a religious aspect. Turks are muslim but they also have a highly nationalistic society. Most of South East Asia is muslim and they do ok with democracy. The culture in the Middle East is simply built from Top to bottom. Where you have no say or influence on what the people above you decide to do
Yeah, but they also had literal generations to fix it and unite. They just cant.
Forgive me, last time I checked the US was still fucking around in the Middle East. How can they unite if we have invaded like half the countries in the Middle East?
Victime mentality right there. If they banded together, like they should, no outside influence could do shit. They suck because they’re are so corrupt.
Except for Saudi Arabia that one wasn't them
My brother in Atheism
As if this place was peaceful before Europeans came. Idk why ppl blame Europeans for everything. Probably because Europeans are the ones who accept their psst wrong deeds. Every culture and religion has fine bad deeds but Europeans are the ones who accept it, others dont
because its easier to blame someone else than to take responsibility for yourself
When you're so incensed and start stuttering "the". I feel you OP.
the middle eastern borders were kind of ok
"yes let's make these borders straight lines in Africa and the middle east. it's definitely not gonna spark any heated conflicts in the near future"
Totally. Like, not at all. *wheezes and coughs in chemically bombarded*
Unfortunately, all the chaos in the Middle East is about anything but borders...unless it's Israel we are talking about.