The latest news in international media is the occupation of Talibani forces in Kabul, thus throwing away the Afghanistan government, leading to thousands evacuating the capital. This brings to highlight the various repercussions being felt in other parts of the world due to centuries of western occupation, a platform that has shunned in silence now.
The problem in Afghanistan didn’t trigger with the arrival of the American forces, but was mostly because of the Soviet involvement during the 1980s and 90s era. And even before this, the Great Game panic of the British while they were in India, leading to creation of a Wakhan strip, a corridor separating today’s India from Tajikistan. This strip also borders Pakistan’s Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa region and was created majorly because of the British anxiety of a possible Russian occupation in India. Interestingly, Russia had no such plans ever and today both Russia and India are allies and there is a totally different angle to Indo-Russian relationship that has nothing but support.
Africa is another example where the imperials wrecked every civilisation, leading to what its condition is today. Every country, be it Uganda or South Sudan or Ethiopia-Eritrea clash, the military regimes in the 1960s era, etc., all are nothing but repercussions of the centuries old European occupation in these lands. The way ‘Scramble of Africa’ took place between 1881 to 1914 that countries such as Belgium and Italy that had no other occupations in outside Europe also had their stakes in Africa. And today Africa is shown as a helpless, poverty-struck, barbaric continent with several countries lacking basic infrastructure. Who eliminated their resources in the first place? What was the need to divide the various African clans among blocks of European colonies where the boundaries were sketched insensitively without giving any attention to how it would affect in the future? The entire territory of Sudan was a cluster of Bantu-Arab tribes that is now divided into two warring nations – Sudan and South Sudan.
The entire border tension between India-China-Pakistan is because of the ill-treatment of treaties forged by the British when they were in India. The 19th century conquests and rapid annexation of territories such as Balochistan, Pashtunishtan, Wairistan in the west and Assam, Burma and various hilly tribes in the Shan valley in the east; only to keep an eye on the Russians, the French and the Chinese. What the British officers lacked gravely was a future eye when at the end of imperialism, the Asian powers would want to switch back to the pre-colonial era. All the border skirmishes in Kashmir and Arunachal Pradesh, are because of a deliberate gamble played by the British, ill-considering the Chinese monarchy and later, the rise of Hindu-Muslim chaos in the 20th century. The British did little to nothing for countering these rising havocs.
Philippines is another example where ethnicity is shunned by centuries of colonial expeditions – firstly the Spanish and then by the Americans. Even the name of the country has colonist lingering to it, including it in a list of several countries holding on to their imperial past. While nations such as Australia, New Zealand and others developed majorly because of eliminating the regional populace and dumping it with a European face, other smaller powers such as the Fijians or the Tongans or the Samoans were left unattended. Oceania is one such continent wherein every imperial power (including the Japanese and the Americans) used these islands solely as a naval base for fighting their proxy wars, that benefitted none but themselves. Every progressive country in Europe has a touch of non-European look in it, be it the United Kingdom or France or Germany or Spain, Portugal, etc.
Afghanistan was a flourishing power at one point of time, so much so that royalties would emerge from the valleys of Kabul to Kandahar and spread throughout the Indian subcontinent and the Arabian peninsula. Today, the country is reduced to shambles. Africa could have had stuck to its roots without losing touch with the foreign world, but alas, that option was destroyed by the imperials long ago. Can the history be re-written? Can we turn back the clocks? Can we wipe away the misfortunes of billions? That’s the reason why the words of western nations mean so little to every chaos they created in outside Europe.
Abnormally Perfect 