Decolonization as envisioned by the United Nations is (in real effect) little more than a self-serving Western propaganda ploy; assuaging ego where there is in fact little wider social consciousness of what (and what has not) been accomplished. To achieve de facto (authentic) decolonization, to begin, this should require the decolonization of the psyche of those ‘indigenous’ populations educated into Western way of thinking. This would be no mean task!
When the colonizing powers ‘withdrew’ and ‘lip-serviced’ (should sound like political fellatio) ‘the right of self determination of peoples’ … they left intact unnatural colonial borders that in any case DID NOT respect the purported right of self-determination, rather put in place multiple Western infected national psyches within so-called ‘indigenous’ leadership determined to (more often than not) behave like Whitemen (Western European mentality.) This has further created numerous cases of social friction across the globe, particularly concerning so-called ‘minorities.’
The related ‘meme of democracy’ has accomplished the following few examples of too many examples to list in one short article:
The largest stateless ‘minority’ in the world (5,000,000 compared to ‘sovereign’ Montenegro’s 500,000), that is the Kurds, are in (varying degrees of) conflict with Iran, Iraq, Syria and (not least) Turkey, due to persisting colonial borders. This leaves the Kurd population open (across several vectors) to murderous geopolitical (read intelligence agency) manipulations in endless iterations (most recently by the USA & Israel.)
In the so-called ‘international law’ (a Western developed concept) Azerbaijan is allowed an Azerbaijani majority exclave, Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic, separated by the territory of Armenia, but Armenia is NOT allowed an Armenian majority exclave, Nagorno-Karabakh, separated by the territory of Azerbaijan. Common sense calls this hypocrisy. Common people adhere to common sense and the Armenian common sense is cynically exploited in Ottoman imperial style geopolitical machinations:
So, what would be the point of common sense (a gift of our creator) in the view of those who propose to rule us? I doubt they could answer this question in any sensible (read honest) way for the fact there is no sensible or (especially) altruistic justification of the preceding. Any honest answer would have to take in account incompetence, greed & political-cultural narcissism (imperial arrogance) often prohibits the de facto right of self determination of peoples, any pretensions of decolonization at the United Nations notwithstanding.
In light of the preceding, just suppose (a laughable fantasy) the West were to take up Russia on an offer to repeat the plebiscite in Crimea with international observers; a plebiscite is the most democratic of all democratic principles. The obvious outcome would be (and why the ‘democratic’ West would never agree to this proposition) Crimeans would overwhelmingly (again) exercise their right of self determination to join the Russian Federation. Furthermore, the whole (majority ethnic Russian) East of Ukraine might then demand equal right to determine its own future and wellah, suddenly Putin’s Russian borders extend West to the Dnieper River. The Western states insistence Crimea remain a part of Ukraine is a case of the West maintaining a stance of ‘democracy for me, but not for thee.’
Meanwhile, the crude Spanish judicial system (dominated by judges aligned with the Popular Party, a political legacy of Franco) has jailed and continues to bring to trial those Catalan separatists who dared do what? They held a plebiscite (that most democratic of all democratic principles) to separate Catalonia from Spain (a state that has historically treated the Catalans as lackeys only fit to lick the Spanish boot.)
To keep this short, we’ll jump to Kosovo; where the Western states (NATO & the EU) has determined Serbia is not fit to govern a minority (of ethnic Albanians) on their own territory but the now purported (by the West) independent Kosovo is fit to govern a minority (of ethnic Serbs.) Never mind the inconvenient fact that recent Kosovo ‘leaders’ are being arrested and delivered to international tribunal for crimes against ethnic Serbs (includes organ harvesting), also not to mention the 250,000 Serbs driven from Kosovo in an ethnic cleansing pogrom following the NATO bombing of Serbia. Hey! Isn’t that just the sort of act the bombing was supposed to stop? NATO ‘just allowed’ that to happen when they’d grabbed control? Huh. Maybe that Albanian ‘majority’ wasn’t statistically big enough to justify an independent Kosovo (and secure Kosovo a ‘right’ to host Camp Bondsteel.)
All of this follows on a few historical facts overlooked by the Western propaganda machine; Eastern Orthodoxy’s majority Serbian population in the region of Srpska Krajina recently (90s Balkan Wars) ethnically cleansed from Catholic Croatia by “Operation Storm” (never mind the Serbs have been made the boogeyman for everything that went wrong with the breakup of Yugoslavia), as well the fact unnatural ethnic borders have been enforced in relation to Republik Srpska, ensuring there will be ongoing tensions within Bosnia on the border of Serbia and not least, the remnant Serb majority region in the North of Kosovo is denied their right of self determination to join with Serbia, ensuring perpetual inter-ethnic conflict that serves only to weaken the institutions of state via ongoing radicalization of both populations, Orthodox Christian Serb and Muslim Albanian. Europe couldn’t do a better job of promoting a war of civilizations if it had actually tried, if one were to presume it is mere incompetence derived from ego-narcissism has birthed this circumstance into the present. But maybe it is more than that, a weakened state with artificial borders is ‘low hanging fruit’ posing possibility of consolidating control over a region culturally tied to Russia (as well historically coveted by the Catholic headquarters at Rome.)
Finally, it must be noted that, similar to the Sioux Indians had founded their culture upon a spiritual relationship to the Black Hills of South Dakota from which they had been expelled, Serbia’s relationship to “Old Serbia” (Kosovo) is little different; but imperial ambition had seen the Serbs ethnically cleansed by the Albanians on multiple occasions, first under the ‘patronage’ of the Ottoman Turks, then the Albanians were backed in further pursuing pogroms against Serbs by the fascist Axis powers of World War II (similar to Croatian Ustasha persecution of Serbs during the war) and finally a coup de grace of sorts was delivered by communism under Tito, who forbade ethnic Serbs to return to their homes in Kosovo following 1945. [1]
The epilogue to all of this would be the colonizing of Serbia by the European Union at the point of a gun:
^ Ursula von der Leyen
Maybe the title of this piece should have been ‘Recolonization.’
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“In any democracy, ethics, self restraint, tolerance & honesty will always take a second seat to narcissism, avarice, bigotry & persecution, if only because people who play by the rules in any democracy are at a disadvantage to those who easily subvert the rules to their own advantage” (Ronald’s Maxim)
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Ronald Thomas West 