I hope to visit Dresden and then the spas of rural Saxony for my lumbago if I can ever raise the cash. Would be great if the ROK's Sunshine Policy was able to entice the hermits of the north into a unified Korea. The world needs more unification and less political disintegration and breakup.
http://www.ibtimes.com/german-unity-day-2015-facts-history-about-berlin-wall-germanys-25th-national-holiday-2123100
http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Europe/2015/1003/Germany-marks-25-years-of-unity-in-the-face-of-new-challenges
Both unification and disintegration are useful, some places simply won't come together before they have parted ways.
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Sahel zone - pointless conflict between Muslim Tuareg north and black Christian south, made worse by desertification
Kurdistan - needing national independence
Puntland - they got their act together, and have a better working state than Somalia itself
Other places should unit already, examples
South Africa, Lesotho, Swaziland
Carribbean islands pointlessly divided despite common (French or English) language
Much of Central America pointlessly divided despite common language and similar ethnic composition
S O:
ReplyDeleteI won't argue with your basic premise. Not sure though that your examples will ever happen, Especially in Central America. The language may be common but the ethnicity (or more properly the mixture of ethnicity) remain far apart. Two of those countries fought a war over a soccer match for God's sake, and the bad blood between them is still there 40 years later. And most all of them hate the Guatemalans, whose own civil war lasted over 30 years.
I would add Tibet to your list as needing breakup from China, but that will probably never happen either.
I was there of course twenty-five years ago . . . We (US, UK and German military intelligence officers and families) were in a double-decker London bus courtesy of the British Army in Berlin served by British Army squadies . . . there was a bar in the back on the lower deck. We drove through Potsdam and Berlin that night . . . did make it to the Brandenburg Gate just in time to see the end of the fireworks . . . then walked on foot to Alex . . . quite a night . . .
ReplyDeleteSeydlitz - It must have been great to see that history. I am a bit surprised though re the Brits celebrating. I thought Maggie Thatcher was against German unity?? But I suppose there were naysayers even in Germany at the time, even in Germany itself. It does seem to have done well so far.
ReplyDeleteMaggie and John Major weren't in the bus with us, just military intel types and we were all happy about what had happened. No one knew exactly how the thing would turn out in October of 1989 . . .
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