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April 03, 2008
NATO's Colonial past and it's raison d'etre today
The talking heads are chattering again about NATO and what it's raison d'etre is in the 21st Century. It's both a legit and timely issue, what with the Cold War having been over for 20 years.
Some Europeans see the NATO mission as largely a humanitarian effort, while Bush and some others regard is a crucial element in the war against terrorism.
It seems to me that the debate over NATO's mission is far too myopic and self-centered. The answer to the question of it's raison d'etre was already given by JFK over 40 years ago. We're all familiar with the first line of his famous quote urging Americans to consider what they could do for their country. But the second line immediately following it gives us the answer to today's questions about where NATO ought to go from here:
"My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man." - JFK
Even the most casual scan of global hotspots today reveals that conflict after conflict has at least partial roots in the colonial past. A colonial past which can be traced directly back to many of the very same European nations which form the core of NATO.
Iraq, Afghanistan, Sudan, Zimbabwe, East Timor and others bear the mark of European colonialism. Cuba, Columbia, Venezuela, the Philippines and other second-tier hot spots bear the marks of both European and America colonialism. And then there are the myriad Indian Nations in North America which bear the marks of American, Canadian, British and French colonialism and, to some extent in the Southwest, Spanish colonialism.
I submit that the core NATO nations all bear an inordinate level of responsibility for the strife and conflict in the world today because of our respective colonialist pasts. Some might suggest financial renumerations, whether direct or indirect. But that makes little sense to me.
If I started your house on fire, whether deliberate or not, what good would it do you if I tossed bags of financial renumerations in to you while you stood in the midst of a raging fire? Even if you could spend it, the fire would still be a present threat after the money was gone. The situation around the world today is no different.
No, throwing financial renumerations at the problems won't solve them or necessarily even relieve them. History shows that that approach just enriches despots and multi-national corporations without really don't much for the citizenry. I don't know that there is a single, concise solution to the reverberations of our colonialist past. I rather doubt that there is. But that is no excuse for ignoring it.
It seems to me that with the Cold War long since over it is now the moral duty of the former colonialist powers to spend even a small fraction of the wealth we gained from our past colonialism to promote justice, peace and freedom for the people from whom we have taken so much. And by freedom I don't mean the kind of imperialistic freedom at the end of a gun which has passed for foreign policy for far too long here in America. I mean the freedom of self-determination, even, or perhaps especially, if that means a course other than what we in our arrogant wealth think should be taken. The very same freedom of self-determination that we celebrate every Fourth of July here in America.
"My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man." - JFK
Posted by Kevin at April 3, 2008 10:36 AM