![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Nov. 7th, 2004 05:08 pmSpent most of the day poring over Urvashi Butalia's The Other Side of Silence, about the violence around the separation of India and Pakistan. Up until that point, most of the people in the area had been living together very peacefully. It's scary how quickly things changed.
Why does dividing a country always seem to end (or begin) with carnage? Why do borders have such psychological power? Every time Britain did it, to be sure, it ended in disaster and human suffering -- Ireland, India, Israel.
Now there are some people (not the American government, but individual Americans) talking about partitioning Iraq into Sunni, Shi'ite, and Kurd sections. I can't imagine anything more dangerous.
Living in a province where they've been talking about partition for more than thirty years, I'm glad it's never happened here.
Why does dividing a country always seem to end (or begin) with carnage? Why do borders have such psychological power? Every time Britain did it, to be sure, it ended in disaster and human suffering -- Ireland, India, Israel.
Now there are some people (not the American government, but individual Americans) talking about partitioning Iraq into Sunni, Shi'ite, and Kurd sections. I can't imagine anything more dangerous.
Living in a province where they've been talking about partition for more than thirty years, I'm glad it's never happened here.
