There are times when we think that the problems facing humanity are insurmountable. They are, in truth, more serious than many the species has faced in the past (but not all). On the other hand, humanity is also developing tools that are considerably more powerful than were ever available before. Students of world politics should consider working in all fields: artificial intelligence, for example, is giving us the ability to understand many problems that defied comprehension in the past.
The Gallup Poll conducted a poll last March that indicated that concern about climate change has reached the highest level it has ever recorded among Americans. Almost two-thirds of Americans worry about climate change. Interestingly, concern among Republican voters in the US appears to be steadily rising even as the candidates for the party seem reluctant to talk about it.
May 16th will mark the 100th anniversary of the Sykes-Picot Agreement, the secret treaty between France and Great Britain to divide up the Ottoman Empire during World War I. It is widely regarded as one of the most capricious treaties in the history of diplomacy, dividing up a heavily contested area with nonsensical lines. Yet those borders are largely responsible for the violence that we witness in the Middle East. Trying to imagine redrawing the lines without further violence is impossible. The legacy of imperialism is always present.
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I will use the article about Sykes-Picot Treaty in my blog tomorrow – your last sentence got to me. “The legacy of imperialism is always present.” This goes far in explaining the difficulties for Nigeria and to much of Africa today. The Berlin Conference that carved up Africa was several deades before the treaty you wrote about. It was equally deaf to traditional boundaries, religious differences, tribes, ethnic groups, languages. There was no consultation with the people involved. I have to wonder what we are being deaf to today!
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The legacies of colonial borders has been a nettlesome issue for the African states. When the Organization for African Unity was created in 1963, there were two groups: the radical “Casablanca” group wanted the political unification of all of Africa; the more conservative “Monrovia” group favored keeping the colonial boundaries believing that removing them would only lead to greater conflict. The Monrovia group won out but the Casablanca group has never gone away and seems to be gaining the upper hand in the more recent declarations of the African Union. Operationalizing the idea of a united Africa has, however, proved elusive.
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