THE PROBLEM WITH WHITE EUROPEANS - they get everywhere (from N America to outer space); they take everything; they want the lot, with no compunction but lots of warfare. Domination and, most regrettable, one-sided WMD arming of one country that just happened to be our top friend and ally in the Middle East.
John Major said in 1992 to Albert Reynolds, "that the IRA could possibly not be beaten." He began the peace process that Tony Blair took to fruition.
The file says that Mr Reynolds asked Mr Major directly: "Do you think we can defeat the IRA?"
The PM responded: "Militarily that would be very difficult: I would not say this in public, of course, but, in private, I would say, possibly no." The Mirror, 28 December 2021
In the 1990s, Major must be the first UK Prime Minister to have it officially recorded that he could envisage defeat for the British armed forces by a start-up group of rebels forming themselves into a terrorist organisation.
The next two decades saw defeat for the Western Powers after initial victories in so easily overrunning Afghanistan and Iraq. Rather than diplomacy, diplomacy was militarised. We failed to give military aid to the Syrians who were trying to overthrow their government and Russia did the job, instead to maintain the UN recognised and official government of the land.
All this empire building, under the guise of exploring/visiting new places to trade, started with our exploration/invasion of our near island neighbour and the wish to extend our sphere of influence - the euphemism for grabbing land and resources for our own benefit.
We are convinced that we can only keep the peace by preparing for war by modernising weapon systems and accumulating 40% more nuclear warheads in the face of Russian and Chinese aggression. These two enemies keep us on our toes, to make us have to so reluctantly re-arm and forcing us to accumulate a few more WMD. It is so good for economic growth. It now makes for a more serious climate emergency to sound off about and to help us to maintain our leadership role in the world, as an even Greater Global Than Ever Brexit Britain.
Never mind about our "disgraceful Opium Wars" that gave us Hong Kong for 100 years. Never mind our Jupiter rockets in Turkey near to their border with the USSR. Never mind, how this perhaps, gave Krushchev the idea to follow our bad example and to do the same with his missiles in Cuba. Never mind our depth charging of Soviet subs at the height of the Cuban missile crisis. Never mind the senior Soviet submarine officer who decided not to launch what he feared was an American attack on his vessel.
800 years of English invasion, interference and domination still bring division, disunity, and the two communities at each other's throats in violence from time to time. A legacy of misery and suffering from an inability of the English to stop invading, stealing, exploiting and killing.
It led to more colonialism/imperialism by the whites, coinciding with over three hundred years of white/Christian slavery that encouraged Arab/Muslim slavery, too. It finally resulted in the Western Great Powers, minus the USA, with their 19th-century scramble for Africa - and this:
Tutu said:
His wry assessment of the impact of their arrival in South Africa was: “We had the land and they had the Bible. Then they said, ‘Let us pray,’ and we closed our eyes. When we opened them again, they had the land and we had the Bible.” from the Guardian obituary, 26 December 2021
COMMENTS
It's a pity that this fine obituary makes no mention of Desmond Tutu's stand on Israel and Palestine, perhaps because its authors died some years ago Archbishop Tutu was uniquely well-placed to judge whether Israel's policies in the OPT amounted to apartheid. The fact that he said they did make an important contribution to the struggle for justice in Palestine. (pykebel)
It's a pity that this fine obituary makes no mention of Desmond Tutu's stand on Israel and Palestine. He was uniquely well-place to judge whether Israel's policies in the OPT amounted to apartheid. The fact that he said they did made an important contribution to the struggle for justice in Palestine.
Tutu made me think again about Israel; my sister-in-law, from a Lithuanian Jewish background, made me think some more. I don't believe that Israel is an apartheid state in terms of intention - but perhaps that makes little difference in terms of effect. Apartheid was a deliberate policy, whereas Israel's policy towards Arabs may in part be rooted in prejudice, but is also rooted in fear of and defensiveness towards the palpable aggression and violence from Arab states from the very beginning of its life. I have not resolved this issues in my own mind, and it's a matter of great regret to me that the political party I support has made rational and honest discussion of the issue so very difficult, even now sending letters of investigation to some who have expressed similar views - particularly, in fairness, if they are seen to be supporting patently anti-Zionist and anti-Semitic organizations. Even so - I doubt we can resolve these things if we cannot freely speak of them.
After visits to Israel and Palestine, Tutu used his moral authority to speak out and, despite abuse, refused to back down. He wanted liberation for everyone
- Chris McGreal is the former Guardian correspondent in Jerusalem and Johannesburg
- https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/dec/30/desmond-tutu-palestinians-israel
Even amid the torrent of praise for the revered former archbishop Desmond Tutu in the days since his death, the anti-apartheid champion is not being universally mourned. Alan Dershowitz, the renowned US constitutional lawyer and ardent defender of Israel, took a moment to brand Tutu as “evil” and “the most influential antisemite of our time”.
“The world is mourning Bishop Tutu, who just died the other day. Can I remind the world that although he did some good things, a lot of good things on apartheid, the man was a rampant antisemite and bigot?” he told Fox News.
Dershowitz accused Tutu of minimising the Holocaust and of comparing Israel to Nazi Germany – an extreme interpretation of the former archbishop’s statements that takes some convolutions to reach.
But Tutu’s real crime in the eyes of Israel’s most unrelenting supporters was to liken its rule over the Palestinians to apartheid and then refuse to back off in the face of an onslaught of abuse. On his visits to Israel and Palestine, Tutu would have immediately recognised echoes of his homeland in the forced removals, the house demolitions, the humiliations of checkpoints and systems of control on movement, the confiscation of land for Jewish settlements, and the confining of Palestinians to blobs of territory, reminiscent of the Bantustan black homelands. Above all he saw one people controlling another who, like black South Africans until 1994, had little say in their governance.
Tutu was not alone in his view. Former US president Jimmy Carter drew similarly vitriolic accusations from Dershowitz and others when he published his bestselling book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, in 2006. But Tutu was harder to attack. He not only had the authority of a Nobel peace prize awarded for his courageous stand against white rule in South Africa but he knew apartheid when he saw it.
