Guardian: For a Pax Europeana

[Anarcho-Socialist]

For a Pax Europeana

Can we fold the remains of the Ottoman empire into a new European empire?

Timothy Garton Ash
Thursday April 14, 2005
The Guardian

How many years does it take to dismantle an empire? And how many wars? In the case of the Ottoman empire, the answer would seem to be about 400 years and at least 20 wars, including the world war that began in Sarajevo. And we may not have seen the last of them. According to a recent survey, three out of every four Macedonians expect a new military conflict in their country. So who's for another little Balkan war?

It is remarkable how many of the most pressing problems for today's Europe can be traced back to the tangled web of ethnicities, polities and religions that the Ottomans left behind. Superimpose a map of today's flashpoints on the outline of the 16th-century empire of Suleiman the Magnificent: it's a pretty good fit. His realm embraced what we now call the Balkans - a term that has become a synonym for war and ethnic conflict - but also today's Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine and Israel. It ran down the edge of the Red Sea to Yemen, and along the coast of north Africa, from Egypt to Algeria. For the problems resulting from Israel's presence in the Near East we have only ourselves and Adolf Hitler to blame, but for the rest: thanks, Suleiman.
Now a new independent commission, chaired by the former Italian prime minister Giuliano Amato, has come up with an answer for at least part of Suleiman's legacy. Noting that violence broke out between Serbs and Albanians in Kosovo only last spring, and that unemployment there runs at more than 60%, they insist that the present political limbo in the Balkans is unsustainable. We can't carry on with this patchwork of weak states and EU protectorates, with quasi-imperial viceroys like Paddy Ashdown in Bosnia and unresolved status issues, such as those around Kosovo.

(snip)

This is heady stuff. The European parliament yesterday gave the green light for Bulgaria and Romania to join the EU in 2007. With Croatia, Turkey and the rest of the Balkans, this would mean that in just 10 years' time the European Union would contain some 35 member states and perhaps 600 million people, of whom nearly one in six would be Muslim. And that's not counting east European aspirants, such as Ukraine after its orange revolution, and Belarus and Moldova after what we must hope will be their (yet to be colour-coded) velvet revolutions. Nor does it include any of the successor states of the Ottoman empire in the Near East or north Africa, although Morocco has in the past asked if it could apply. For them, the EU will have to develop a neighbourhood policy which does not depend on the promise of eventual membership.

[izzie]

1. When I lived in SA they still talked of the Turks but then------

we all carry baggage of what has happened to us before. Takes years to not have stuff like that handed down from father to son etc. I mean I had some Irish tell me they hated people like me because I was English which sort of took me back as my family came here near 400 years ago and only my name is English. I would find it hard to claim I am English but those people must have really hated them to say such a thing to me. Why would we think they would be any different than that crazy stuff they do to each in that part of the world?

[Anarcho-Socialist]

2. Wow

Most English, Scots, Welsh and Irish get on extremely well nowadays, so times have changed.

But you're right that long-standing greviances do get passed-down. A lot of Brits still dislike the Germans because of WW2. The Turks and the Greeks don't like each other much etc.

I find that people who have grudges about things that are beyond living memory (and so never happened to them personally) are losing the plot a bit.

[sweetheart]

3. You cheeky!

Most English, Scots, Welsh and Irish get on extremely well nowadays,

Hmmm... perhaps in missouri. ;-) I was actually quite suprised to see
the scottish/english animosity all over the UK, no matter it does not
exist as they're all getting along so well... wink wink, nudge nudge.

Indeed, old prejudices die hard. I'm sure in a thousand years, it'll
all be forgotten. Heck, i'm still getting used to being introduced as
"from the colonies".

In all honestly, i'm shocked at the class & social hatreds within the
UK. Its not impressive, rather small, but still a very going concern.

Rather i think that the american slavery, racism and imperial stupidity
is rather an offshoot of the inter-class hatreds they took from the UK
when they were driven off in the english civil war.

[Anarcho-Socialist]

4. Well, the English and Scots aren't killing each other at least...

...although there is animosity when it comes to sport: football, rugby and such. :) Maybe it's because I'm from Northern England and I never detected an anti-Scots bias?

I do so agree about class/social hatreds in the U.K. Especially in the Thatcher years. I think we'd have seen far more severe class conflict had Thatcher not been deposed by the Tory leadership.

Those class/social pressures do still exist though. We can see the evident "gypsy"-bashing in the RW media and xenophobia in general.

[sweetheart]

5. It makes me laugh

When i was first in the UK, my university toilet had graffiti on the
walls like "all welsh are sheep shaggers", or "the english are wankers"
and such.... and being one of those ignorant yanks who call the entire
island "england", i was amused.

Then, in london, i saw the anti scots and irish bigotry, as if london
has somehow been made without them? !

... and in scotland, i see the anti-english bigotry around "incomers" or
"white settlers" as they're called in the highlands... english folk who
come for the free elderly medical care without losing your home retirement. Locals complain that these folks have paid in to the council
taxes of english counties and then come up to scotland to suck their
benefits out of an underfunded council.... and were it just about "people",
i'd be less concerned, but as its about "english", i can't help but see
just another outcropping of this tory xenophobia. Its unsuprising
that the torys have no presence worth mentioning north of the border,
as they are increasinly the "small england" party of down south folks
dissaffected with the london/south-east economic cesspool.

Then again, many texans hate californians, and certainly, the nazi
republicans should be lynched if they visit decent areas of the USA,
so, indeed, the "love" has crossed the pond.