The End–game of Empire

Monday 13th May

Most of the wars in the last twenty years or so have been the end-game of Empire.  The European powers recklessly captured vast areas, continents in some cases and dutifully labelled them, especially in Africa, where no countries had ever existed.  There had been large empires in Africa, but by and large it is a tribal society, though time and the modern world have done much to mix this up.  Then along with the Empires came religious colonization, especially again in Africa, and there is now a more general war being pursued by the mostly Muslim North and the largely Christian South.  Hence the capture of the “Christian schoolgirls” by a Muslim “terror” group in Nigeria which is so exercising the media at present.

Similarly Russia which was originally centred mostly around Moscow expanded all over Asia and although with the fall of Communism many “new” countries came into existence.  One of these Ukraine was a mix of Russian and Ukranian and Tartar ethnic groups.  But they had been administered as one region called Ukraine and therefore gained their ‘independence’ from Russia as one very large but mixed population country.  We are quick, here in the West to condemn Russia for interfering, but we have also interfered, trying to woo the Ukraine into a European grouping (which some might consider Empire by a different name), and away from it’s old Russian ties.  Like many large ‘new’ countries Ukraine is probably going to break itself up, but whether large areas will be swallowed up whole by Russia or allowed to exist as semi-autonomous regions is still anyone’s guess.  But one thing is for certain, Ukraine won’t be the last war of the end-game of Empire.

My view is that self-determination should be our guiding principle, which in a way makes Europe the right way to progress.  It doesn’t matter if Scotland goes it alone or the Catalans or any other region with a distinct idea of their own culture, as long as they remain part of a strong Europe.