"A Peace to End All Peace"

[squirrelmadness]

I just finished reading David Fromkin's A Peace to End All Peace, which examines the breakup of the Ottoman Empire after the First World War, and discusses how the Allies' messy handling of the process (primarily focused on turning the region into a collection of protectorates) helped form the Middle East that we see today. It's a very good read,

Comments

[morbid_curious]

It is a big question, and an important one. Also an old one: long before the Ottoman, when Alexander's forces took over the Persian Empire, they used the principle of homonoia to try to ease unrest and promote assimilation/integration of new territories into Greek culture. Of course, not everything went according to plan when it all fragmented after his death.

The only way I can really see of avoiding violence amongst groups that have been shoehorned together in a colonial situation is by adopting actively tolerant social and governance policy that respects and celebrates the rights of the various groups involved. If each of the various factions/groups feels like they're fairly treated and represented as full members of society, the unrest is likely to be a lot lower.

Said unrest probably won't be completely absent, though, and real stability and national identity may yet take a long time to achieve. Taking New Zealand as an example, I think we've done a reasonable job of managing our post-colonial situation. Some of our challenges were certainly easier to begin with than other ex-colonies, but the modern government has addressed Maori land claim grievances and holds the Treaty of Waitangi from 1840 as an important document whose principles are still relevant today, and our parliament still has seats specifically for Maori representation. Even now, Waitangi Day attracts small protests, however; race and culture relations in the country are still an open issue some 80-100 years after independence.

The other option would be to suppress your minorities hard enough that they don't feel they have any chance at all to fight back, but that's hardly the humane option - and could backfire very badly indeed.

[Disclaimer for anyone else reading: I'm not a political scientist or historian, so please forgive me if there's a certain degree of naïveté in my musings.]