There are some rare occasions where I do agree with Shiv - and here he is spot
on.
srs
> -----Original Message-----
> From: [email protected]
> [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf
> Of ss
> Sent: Sunday, February 01, 2009 8:09 PM
> To: [email protected]
> Subject: Re: [silk] Bruce Sterling's State of the World chat
>
> On Sunday 01 Feb 2009 2:33:37 pm Udhay Shankar N wrote:
> > Sterling was claiming that the Westphalian System was (i) a form of
> > consensus reality that (ii) could cause global disruption if it
> unravelled.
> >
> > <q>
> > Let's consider seven other massive reservoirs of potential popular
> > dread. Any one of these could erupt, shattering the fragile social
> > compact we maintain with one another in order to believe things
> contrary
> > to fact.
> > </q>
> >
> > Do you disagree? Why? And what, exactly, is "getting better" in 2009?
>
> It's my pleasure to address these questions:
>
> First the Prelude: a little history..
>
> The Westphalian system sorted Christianity out good and proper and
> squeezed
> out the juice of secularism from the Christian states of Europe. These
> Christian states then had the reformation and the blossoming of science
> as we
> know it followed by the technological and military power to dominate
> the
> world.
>
> That ability to dominate set the stage for exploration, "discovery"
> and
> colonial occupation of much of the world. With the world having been
> colonized, dominated and old empires (such as the Islamic
> Caliphate) "defeated", religion was considered passe as a reason for
> conflict
> and the dominant (European) powers of the "world" (dominant powers) set
> about
> fighting a series of "secular" wars that got bigger and bigger until
> the
> world saw "World War 1" (Which was a "world" war only in name) World
> War 2,
> and the Cold war.
>
> In this secular phase of world history, Islam was still there, still
> unreformed and considered to be "defeated".
>
> The division of Bengal in 1905 was one attempt to maintain domination
> over
> restive colonies by creating two smaller states out of a larger state
> on the
> basis of religion - one state being predominantly Islamic and the other
> not.
> This was a prelude to a bigger partition in which Pakistan was created
> in an
> act of political sleight-of-hand that threw all Westphalian secular,
> democratic norms to the winds, but created geographical entities that
> were
> given honorable status as "nation state". This happened in 1947. It is
> not
> something new that is happening in 2009.
>
> Now let me come to the juicy bit and explain how Bruce Sterling is an
> underinformed and naive gringo American
>
> Afghanistan was a fairly stable monarchy until 1973. A coup in 1973 set
> the
> stage of making it a nation state on Westphalian lines, with the
> encouragement of secularism and womens' education and other signs of
> modernity. The Soviet Union was called into help, but this secularism
> was
> unpopular. These two factors, namely
>
> 1) Unpopularity of secular reform and
> 2) The presence of the Soviet Union got the US involved.
>
> The US did everything possible to support a military dictatorship and
> Islamic
> extremism in Pakistan in order to force Islamic extremism on previously
> stable Afghanistan in order to defeat the Soviet Union. The US even
> stood by
> while nuclear bomb designs were given to Pakistan.
>
> What we are seeing now is not some accidental failure of the
> Westphalian
> system, but the results of deliberate acts of bending the system in the
> first
> place to create a religion based state called Pakistan, and then using
> that
> state as a launching point to destroy a nascent Westphalian state in
> Afghanistan just to spite communism.
>
> Bruce Sterling appears to have no more information about Afghanistan or
> the
> region than Dubya gave him and fails to mention the key player in the
> region
> that is holding superpower America (and for that matter India) by the
> balls
> and squeezing them - Pakistan. With Bruce, ignorance is not a problem.
> The
> real problem is when the same ignorance soaks the entire governmental
> apparatus of the United States of America.
>
> What's getting better in 2009? The US is showing signs of understanding
> what's
> up - with even cold warrior Madeline Halfbright making the right noises.
> That
> may not nean much, but its a start.
>
> shiv
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