Time to fix the follies of colonialism
Re Canada ready to keep the peace, Editorial Aug. 28 The former British Empire maintained its hold by encouraging local rivalries so colonized groups would fight each other rather than uniting against their common foe. This worked so well that they used it again to divide up the former Ottoman Empire following the Great War. Nations were patched together not from common history but rather to divide peoples.
The Kurds are one victim of this tactic, split among three nations to help ensure internal conflicts. A century later they are still being used as pawns in global power struggles.
Perhaps the real solution isn’t military but rather to arrange an international conference to redraw the borders in the region. Only this time let the affected peoples do the drawing rather than having the great powers impose their ideas. Canada’s role could be to maintain the peace throughout the process, to prevent a recurrence of the sectarian violence that marked the partition of India.
The world powers of course would hate the idea, as would many governments that stand to lose significant territory and population. Turkey, Syria and Iraq won’t cede land to Kurdistan easily. The U.S. will be loath to see an enlarged Iran.
However the current state of affairs clearly isn’t working. Nations have for decades been held together by brutal dictators. Perhaps it’s time to fix the follies of colonialism. Gary Dale, West Hill While the Trudeau government deserves our support in renewing Canada’s mission as a peacekeeping power, it is important to understand that, to keep the peace, you sometimes have to create peace by force of arms. This is a global principle created by a previous Liberal government under ministers Lloyd Axworthy and Art Eggleton — the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) doctrine.
It is based on the noble idea that, when civilians are the victims of genocide by rogue regimes, or the likes of ISIS, democracies have a duty to intervene with force to protect human life. Raymond Heard, former communications director, Liberal Party of Canada
Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan recently admitted that what the government has in mind for Canadian forces in Africa is not really “peacekeeping.”
Taking part on one side of active combat is not peacekeeping. John F. Fagan, Willowdale