Man. What is it with this wave of nationalistic zealotry that seems to be sweeping most of the world? Has it just been long enough since World War 2 that it's already time to re-learn these lessons?
If you look to the past (1945-1980) the general situation was improving at an unbelievable pace by an absurd magnitude. Resources were abundant and there was a lot that needed to be done, life got better very quickly.
It is very hard to be antagonistic in such circumstances - what is there to fight over, really?
It is possible that resources are getting scarce again and old battle lines are rediscovered as nations, classes and tribes restart old squabbles. There is less cheap oil per capita, cities are getting cramped and the radical change technology bought in the 90s and 2000s is slowing down so it isn't obvious that there are easy opportunities still opening up on that front.
Only a (maybe tongue-in-cheek) theory, but perhaps the ruling classes see the writing on the wall in terms of economic/ecological/social collapse, and are starting to make preparations for large scale social unrest?
Even more recently, we saw the utter destruction brought by nationalists after the break-up of Yugoslavia no more than 25 years ago.
In Bosnia, nationalist zealots killed civilians and committed genocide. If you've forgotten, look up Sarajevo and Srebrenica. There were murder camps put up by "Make Serbia Great Again" type nationalists. Their stated goal: "to contain the spread of Islam in Europe."
Only 25 years ago... And today the President of the United States is a man who sounds just like Milosevic. This rehabilitation of nationalism is the greatest disappointment of my lifetime.
A response to the threat of global warming. Historically major climate events have been a strong indicator of wars. Researchers have been predicting this for a while.
We won the Cold War. Now everyone doesn’t have to pick a side for survival. Plenty of spare time for navel gazing and wondering who is keeping you down.
While the arrow of progress is forward, the blips can last for a millenia.
In india nearly 50% of the population is illiterate and even more are incredibly poor. If these people are expected to produce certificates of birth and others its just impossible for them. This NAA law is not about immigration its about stripping voting rights from a huge chunk of muslims and reducing their population from 200Million
> yes shooting on sight those trying to illegally cross is 100% OK
I'm old enough to remember the Berlin Wall and its extension across Eastern Europe, where the willingness to murder civilians who tried to cross it was regarded as an indicator of how totalitarian Communism was.
While i do not want to defend the position of anovikov, i have to note there is a big difference in border protection against entering a country and leaving a country. This is e.g. explicitly stated in UDHR, which recongizes a human right to leave any country, and only right to enter a country of citizenship.
The border situation with communist countries was significant not only it proves intent of these countries to shoot on those trying to cross borders, but mainly it proves that situation there was so bad that people trying to leave even if that means risking death in border crossing.
Big difference. They shot those trying to leave, not enter.
And yes, it was of equally paramount importance for them as for the U.S. to control who can enter: this is how Communism works. If you let people leave, they vote Communism out of existence, with their feet.
