Thursday, September 17, 2009

In Defense of Armed Rebellion Part 2

Blah! I feel like such a chump. Sometimes I can just go on and on about something without ever seeming to make much sense.

Anyway, tribalism itself is a loaded word these days. For some reason the word still conjures up images of primitive hunter-gatherers and projects the notion of a backwards people still living in the caves. This is all nonsense. Tribes, or ethnic groups, are bound together by a common language and a common culture. Just think about Germans living in Germany or Spaniards living in Spain. These various groups of people have set up borders that generally enables people bound by custom and language to inhabit the same territory. Now, this is not to say the system is perfect, or that everyone is happy with it, but this arrangement - small, homogeneous political states bound by language and custom - has contributed significantly to Western prosperity.

This brings me to the Third World. The violence we see today coming from these regions stems from a society or ethnic group's inability to declare independence - REAL independence! - from colonial policy and tyrannical rule. Remember, the Marxists who violently seized power kept the colonial boundaries intact! This was done so that Marxist policy could be carried out more effectively. Oh, and remember, the colonial boundaries were not drawn up randomly, for the Europeans had to work hard to conquer Africa, and the intentional division of ethnic groups between the colonial powers was designed to keep the African tribes/nations/kingdoms/confederations from regaining power.

All too often the West is quick to condemn rebellions, offer military aid to totalitarian governments, and sometimes even resort to putting troops on the ground and "maintain or restore order" (in an ironic twist of fate, most U.N. troops are composed of soldiers hailing from former colonies, while the commanding officers generally come from the West) for the sake of preserving a certain failed state. This is a mistake. Most of the rebellions that continually flare up are based upon rational calls for self-governance and liberation of tribal land from a (in the rebel's point of view) colonial government.

A policy of the West towards the Third World may do well to begin to officially recognize separatist movements as legitimate, and cease providing arms and aid to totalitarian governments abroad. In the meantime, do yourself a favor and decide to fully support an armed rebellion in some part of the world you may never had heard of!

3 comments:

Pamski said...

Curious...how long does it take you to post on your blog? I am so impressed by your seemingly easy way you have expressing yourself. If I were to post something this deep and intense, it would take me days to compose!!

ProspeKtor said...

Very impressive. Did you know you paraphrased what Michael Savage has been preaching for years; what defines a country? Borders, Launguage, Culture!!!

You wrote, "These various groups of people have set up borders that generally enables people bound by custom and language to inhabit the same territory."

What do you propose would help peoples better their whole community?

The Crackshot Crackpot said...

Wow! I'm late on this one. Pam, I can usually type these up in a short amount of time, but I do spend lots of time thinking about such things.

Old man, the best thing a society can do to better their situation is open up their culturally-defined borders to the global marketplace and keep the government from restricting immigration into the nation. The benefits of such an arrangement will manifest themselves almost immediately. Just look at the United States.

Michael Savage (and those who actually listen to him) confuses cultural and linguistic borders with bellicose nationalism, a strain of socialism that has had drastic consequences for world peace and prosperity wherever it rears its ugly head.

Again, borders are merely linguistically and culturally defined, and any attempt to define borders beyond that is usually a political attempt to socialize an economy or protect powerful business interests in a particular center of power.

The world would be a much more peaceful and prosperous place if countries declined to recognize political boundaries any longer. This would allow people to move about and participate in the market freely; also, people need to recognize that language and culture are always changing, and that nothing can stop that - not even draconian laws issued by governments to prevent people from pursuing life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.