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Re: Redrawing borders

Posted: 2013-08-21, 18:03
by Yasna
mōdgethanc wrote:If Argentina takes back the Falklands before I'm 50, I'll buy you a Coke.

Thanks, but I don't drink soda.

Re: Redrawing borders

Posted: 2013-08-21, 18:22
by mōdgethanc
Yasna wrote:Thanks, but I don't drink soda.
Not even Coke Zero? Fine, I'll buy you a drink of your choosing. (Within reason, that is; I'm not made of money.)

Re: Redrawing borders

Posted: 2013-08-21, 20:23
by Michael
mōdgethanc wrote:
HoItalosPhilellên wrote:1. Liberate West Bank and Gaza from Israeli tyranny for an independent Palestine.
So they can live under Palestinian tyranny. Great!

That's apparently what they want, or'd rather have.

Now that's the only reasonable idea you've had yet.

Reasonability was a requirement? I must have missed that somewhere in the OP.

Re: Redrawing borders

Posted: 2013-08-21, 20:25
by language learner
Y'all know what's going to happen if I were to redraw some borders...


Image

Re: Redrawing borders

Posted: 2013-08-21, 21:17
by Ludwig Whitby
That got me thinking about Shopi of Western Bulgaria. I know very little of them but from what I gather they are quite similar to Torlaks of Southern Serbia (and by extension ethnic Macedonians as well) in regard to both language and culture. It would have been interesting to see what kind of historical development their hypothetical country would have had.

Eastern border - the yat border
Northern border - border of the Torlak dialects
Western border - Kosovo and Metohija
Southern border - Greece

including Gora region of Southern Kosovo

Re: Redrawing borders

Posted: 2013-08-21, 21:48
by Lur
linguoboy wrote:Wow, the Spanish must really care about protecting the Andalusian coastline!

I do!

linguoboy wrote:So where's the popular cry to annex Andorra?

I include it in Catalonia por no particular reason but nobody cares.

mōdgethanc wrote:OH NO NOT THE DUNES

I'm a geologist dammit!

That province has some gorgeous landscapes btw.

Re: Redrawing borders

Posted: 2013-08-22, 3:53
by Sol Invictus
Ludwig Whitby wrote:If there is anything good that Greece and Turkey did in the 20th century it's the Treaty of Lausanne and the population transfer. I would say that they should have had another Treaty of Lausanne after the Cyprus war. Have all Greeks in Greece and all Turks in Turkey. With no possibilities for ethnic conflict, the hostilities will fade away eventually.

Yay to crimes against the humanity :P

азъбукывѣдѣ wrote:Y'all know what's going to happen if I were to redraw some borders...

Well, that probably will solve Macedonian naming issues

Re: Redrawing borders

Posted: 2013-08-22, 6:23
by Michael
азъбукывѣдѣ wrote:Y'all know what's going to happen if I were to redraw some borders...


http://www.bulgarie.net/images/san-stefano-map.bmp

You'll might as well take Chalkidiki while you're at it. :roll:

Re: Redrawing borders

Posted: 2013-08-22, 6:26
by mōdgethanc
You two seem to forget that catholicism is the biggest religion in the Netherlands: even though our king is from a calvinist house, there are more catholics (and even more people without a religion, but okay). Brabant and Limburg in the Netherlands have always been catholic, there have been a lot of catholic villages in the rest of the Netherlands and they got more children, that's why there are more catholics. But in Belgium the situation is slightly different because there the whole country is catholic (apart from the people without a religion, again).
I already said that a) Belgium is Catholic and b) most Belgian Catholics don't care about their religion. I doubt the Netherlands is any different.
HoItalosPhilellên wrote:That's apparently what they want, or'd rather have.
I'm sure they do. What I'm doubting is whether it will improve anything for them.

Re: Redrawing borders

Posted: 2013-08-22, 11:23
by Ludwig Whitby
Sol Invictus wrote:
Ludwig Whitby wrote:If there is anything good that Greece and Turkey did in the 20th century it's the Treaty of Lausanne and the population transfer. I would say that they should have had another Treaty of Lausanne after the Cyprus war. Have all Greeks in Greece and all Turks in Turkey. With no possibilities for ethnic conflict, the hostilities will fade away eventually.

Yay to crimes against the humanity :P

Yay to helping people survive ethnic cleansing and avoiding genocide!

Re: Redrawing borders

Posted: 2013-08-22, 18:13
by Hoogstwaarschijnlijk
@Ludwig Whitby: Read that novel by Louis de Bernières, Birds without wings. Seriously, that transfer was wrong. You can't and shouldn't tell people who have lived somewhere for centuries and centuries in peace with their neighbours that now they should move to another country, with the result that many of them die.


mōdgethanc wrote:
You two seem to forget that catholicism is the biggest religion in the Netherlands: even though our king is from a calvinist house, there are more catholics (and even more people without a religion, but okay). Brabant and Limburg in the Netherlands have always been catholic, there have been a lot of catholic villages in the rest of the Netherlands and they got more children, that's why there are more catholics. But in Belgium the situation is slightly different because there the whole country is catholic (apart from the people without a religion, again).
I already said that a) Belgium is Catholic and b) most Belgian Catholics don't care about their religion. I doubt the Netherlands is any different.

Yeah, now I read it again, I see I misinterpreted this: "Sounds to me like they would've been happier with France than with the Netherlands. Nowadays, though, I doubt being Catholic and French-speaking is all that important to the average Flemish person."
I thought you were implying that the Netherlands on contrary with Belgium isn't catholic, but you're just saying that both countries are highly secularised. Which is true, although each in its own way: in Belgium the culture is (still) more catholic than in most parts of the Netherlands. I've got the impression, but maybe I'm wrong, that in Belgium religion is for a lot of people/catholics something you can easily make fun of. Whereas in the Netherlands, religion is a very serious topic and even though lots of people think you should make fun of it, you also realise that it's something that could get you killed (Theo van Gogh). But that's probably because in Belgium people make fun of their own religion while in the Netherlands it's mostly people who are secular against muslims and protestants.
Even though the state and the mainstream way of thinking in the Netherlands is secular, there's also the Biblebelt, in Belgium they don't have that. I don't think it would be a problem when Flandern would unite with us though (on the contrary...).

Re: Redrawing borders

Posted: 2013-08-22, 19:56
by linguoboy
Hoogstwaarschijnlijk wrote:@Ludwig Whitby: Read that novel by Louis de Bernières, Birds without wings. Seriously, that transfer was wrong. You can't and shouldn't tell people who have lived somewhere for centuries and centuries in peace with their neighbours that now they should move to another country, with the result that many of them die.

The shitty thing about the population exchange (and about most large-scale transfers like it) is that people would have suffered and died either way. It's always tricky to second guess after the fact whether the suffering would've been less had a different solution been tried. I'd like to think that there would've been some way to prevent mass tragedy without having to forcibly relocate millions of people. But do you really think the political will to do that existed at the time? (Keep in mind that the treaty was signed less than a year after the Catastrophe of Smyrna and while the genocide of the Pontic Greeks was still ongoing.)

Re: Redrawing borders

Posted: 2013-08-22, 20:02
by Sol Invictus
Ludwig Whitby wrote:
Sol Invictus wrote:
Ludwig Whitby wrote:If there is anything good that Greece and Turkey did in the 20th century it's the Treaty of Lausanne and the population transfer. I would say that they should have had another Treaty of Lausanne after the Cyprus war. Have all Greeks in Greece and all Turks in Turkey. With no possibilities for ethnic conflict, the hostilities will fade away eventually.

Yay to crimes against the humanity :P

Yay to helping people survive ethnic cleansing and avoiding genocide!

How exactly what you suggest is not ethnic cleansing? If these people were willing to go out of their free will they would have already left. The most anyone should do is provide them incentives to move out of free will

Re: Redrawing borders

Posted: 2013-08-22, 20:18
by gomen
Minor Asia Greeks who were forced to relocate to Greece were hated and ghetto-ised by Greeks. It took many generations for the stigma of "turk-born" to fade away. Just a trivia.

Re: Redrawing borders

Posted: 2013-08-22, 20:31
by linguoboy
gomen wrote:Minor Asia Greeks who were forced to relocate to Greece were hated and ghetto-ised by Greeks. It took many generations for the stigma of "turk-born" to fade away. Just a trivia.

To me, the real tragedy of these disputes is that often no one involved is primarily concerned about the welfare of the refugees themselves. They become a political football or--worse--a stick with which to beat a rival. The Palestinians are a prime example.

Re: Redrawing borders

Posted: 2013-08-23, 3:05
by mōdgethanc
Ludwig Whitby wrote:Yay to helping people survive ethnic cleansing and avoiding genocide!
The thing is that population transfer is usually a part of, or precedes, ethnic cleansing and/or genocide. So it's not surprising it doesn't have the greatest reputation after the events of the 20th century (Armenian Genocide, Soviet famine, Holocaust, Yugoslav Wars, etc., etc.).

Re: Redrawing borders

Posted: 2013-08-23, 3:31
by Ludwig Whitby
mōdgethanc wrote:
Ludwig Whitby wrote:Yay to helping people survive ethnic cleansing and avoiding genocide!
The thing is that population transfer is usually a part of, or precedes, ethnic cleansing and/or genocide. So it's not surprising it doesn't have the greatest reputation after the events of the 20th century (Armenian Genocide, Soviet famine, Holocaust, Yugoslav Wars, etc., etc.).

Yeah, but the Yugoslav Wars didn't have a population transfer. That's the problem. The refugees didn't get the state support the Greeks and Turks got in the Lausanne treaty. It was obvious from day one of the war that ethnic cleansing is going to take place and it could have been done much more humanely. I even met a refugee who suddenly found herself in a foreign country that is supposed to be her motherland, without an ID card, money nor anything else other than the clothes that she wore and no possibility to come home in the near future. A treaty such as this would have at least granted her rights such as being able to go back and get all of her possessions and a new home (of around the same value as the one she left behind) and citizenship, not refugee status.


The Armenian genocide was one of the reasons for the Lausanne treaty, though. It's better to move people than let them be slaughtered. Srebrenica could have been avoided with a population transfer if you think about it.

Re: Redrawing borders

Posted: 2013-08-23, 3:49
by mōdgethanc
Ludwig Whitby wrote:Yeah, but the Yugoslav Wars didn't have a population transfer. That's the problem. The refugees didn't get the state support the Greeks and Turks got in the Lausanne treaty. It was obvious from day one of the war that ethnic cleansing is going to take place and it could have been done much more humanely. I even met a refugee who suddenly found herself in a foreign country that is supposed to be her motherland, without an ID card, money nor anything else other than the clothes that she wore and no possibility to come home in the near future. A treaty such as this would have at least granted her rights such as being able to go back and get all of her possessions and a new home (of around the same value as the one she left behind) and citizenship, not refugee status.


The Armenian genocide was one of the reasons for the Lausanne treaty, though. It's better to move people than let them be slaughtered. Srebrenica could have been avoided with a population transfer if you think about it.
Okay, bad example. A better one: Partition of India. That was a more or less voluntary population transfer where tons of people ended up dying, but maybe there would have been large-scale ethnic cleansing if they had stayed in their countries. We'll never know. Anyway, I agree with linguoboy that dividing people is sometimes necessary when they want to kill each other, but at some point they have to learn to get along, if only as neighbours.

Re: Redrawing borders

Posted: 2013-08-23, 12:13
by Ludwig Whitby
Well of course. Greece and Turkey were not only neighbours, but best friends in the period from 1923 to WWII. What made them enemies again was Cyprus and ethnic minorities that were left behind, not being a part of the Lausanne treaty (like the Greeks of Istanbul who suffered a pogrom in the 1950s and eventually emigrated fearing for their lives). Mostly Cyprus, though.

With no issues remaining, nations forget their hostilities. My prime example for that is Bulgaria. Serbia and Bulgaria were in wars (not counting the Medieval period) in 1885, 1913, WWI and WWII. The issues were among others the territories of modern Southern Serbia and Republic of Macedonia. After WWII Macedonia was no longer Serbian and the people living in Southern Serbia (that Bulgaria had considered to be Bulgarians) were fully serbianized. With no unresolved issues remaining the two nations started living in peace as good neighbours. This could of course still change if people such as the guy that posted the Great Bulgaria map begin to seriously consider expansion. But I am sure that that is only harmless nationalistic daydreaming.

Re: Redrawing borders

Posted: 2013-08-23, 14:01
by gomen
Well of course. Greece and Turkey were not only neighbours, but best friends in the period from 1923 to WWII. hat made them enemies again was Cyprus and ethnic minorities that were left behind


Where did you get that? :shock: Greece and Turkey only (kinda) normalised their diplomatic relations in the 1990s.