Don’t Fuel the Embers of Sleeping Empires
On war and the endless dispute over ancient boarders.
War is again raging in central Europe. The background is a tug-of-war between East and West. West is blaming East for the unprovoked aggression on a sovereign state. East is blaming West for hybrid warfare and for the expansion of NATO.
Both parts blame each other for breaking old agreements and boarders. The further back you look into history, the more complex it becomes to prove who is right or wrong. Most states and regions of the world have experienced a tumultuous history where religion, culture, commerce, and politics are tightly interlinked.
The history of Israel and Palestine is one such example that goes back at least to the Iron Age, when the two related Israelite kingdoms, Israel and Judah, emerged. Later, the region has been controlled by various empires, including the Assyrian Empire, the Babylonian Empire, the Roman Empire and the Persian Empire.
The Israeli–Palestinian conflict has its roots in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with the birth of major nationalist movements among the Jews and among the Arabs. But the real history goes back thousands of years and if nationalists really want to dig into the past, there is an unlimited amount of religious, cultural and political conflicts to argue about.
When the UN Security Council debated Russia’s move to recognize the independence of two breakaway regions in Ukraine, just prior to the invasion, a speech by Martin Kimani, Kenya’s UN ambassador, caught a lot of attention around the world. He urged Russia to not stoke the “embers of dead empires”.
Kenya and almost every African country was birthed by the ending of empire. Our borders were not of our own drawing. Had we chosen to pursue states on the basis of ethnic, racial or religious homogeneity, we would still be waging bloody wars these many decades later. Instead, we agreed that we would settle for the borders that we inherited. But we would still pursue continental political, economic and legal integration. Rather than form nations that looked ever backwards into history with a dangerous nostalgia, we chose to look forward to a greatness none of our many nations and peoples had ever known.
Martin Kimani was praised for the speech but it couldn’t prevent the war. Nevertheless he put the finger on the spot. If we keep looking backward instead of forward there will always be something to fight about.
Historical patterns are easy to find and there is always someone that was disadvantaged or insulted before you. And if it doesn’t work you can always claim that the land was given to you by God Almighty.
In 1884–1885 the Berlin West Conference was a meeting where major European Empires such as Great Britain, France, Belgium, and Germany sat together like brothers to formally divide Africa into territories among themselves for exploitation and slavery.
The purpose of the conference was to claim ownership of African territories and its people and by that end the rivalry between Great Britain and France.
None of these Empires exist today but the nostalgia and remaining embers are always close at hand for people who want to gain advantage of historical greatness or God-given rights. That is why Martin Kimani made such an important point.
