I don’t usually talk on here about my political beliefs and my ideas to do with politics because this is a technology focused blog. This time though, I want my thoughts to go on public record rather than hiding them away in the depths of my LiveJournal account.
The world today is probably now at the end of what I call its border transition stage. I don’t expect that from now there will be any major changes in country borders or any new countries springing up. We have to face up to this fact and look to how we can mould what we have rather than trying to wipe it clean. There are many border disputes going on at the moment – from the more well known arguments like the Gaza strip and Tibet to the less well known like the fight for Transnistria’s official recognition as an independent state. Most requests for independence are quite illogical when you look at the requests. For example, asking for independence for a country whose size is less than a few kilometres is ludicrous. I will come back to this idea later.
We’re The Best
I live in the United Kingdom and I’m honestly glad that I was born here – the chances of it were astronomically unthinkable. In the last ten years, the domestic politics of the UK, England especially, has dramatically been changed – mostly due to Tony Blair and New Labour – for the good. We are of course, no where near perfect in our policies and implementation of them but I do think that the UK is one of the best places to live in the world (even if we do get crap weather). It is our international reputation and our policies abroad that needs to be revamped. We have participated in many wars and battles abroad in the last decade and I think this is why our attitude to politics both domestic and abroad have changed. Unfortunately, the battles we have fought as the UK have weakened our politics and made us look weak in the eyes of the international community.
One example I’m going to take is that of our ‘special’ relationship with the United States. For the most part it has been a prosperous relationship and we’ve both played nice but for a few years now it seems to me that we have the raw end of the deal. To name a few unfair situations in this relationship: we can’t extradite any of their citizens for trial here but our Government gave the okay to them to extradite any of our citizens. Another is that we directly invest ten percent more money into the American economy each year than they do ours. Those are just to name a few. Althought that may seen unfair, we do get protection from any impending attack via the American based missile defence system. Is all our sacrifice worth being protected by this system when it is highly unlikely that we’ll ever be attacked in this way?
We need to loosen our grip with the United States because our ties with them has had many negative effects on our international reputation and our independence is being eaten every year more we stay this close to them. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying we should sever ties completely with them; they are a force for good and another great country but they need to rely less on our support and know that they cannot fight us into submission with their words of terror and their promise of freedom.
International Reputation
We have to change our attitudes to a lot of situations if we are to gain the respect of the wider international community. Our stance in Afghanistan should be to talk with the Taliban and allow them to participate in the new country’s government rather than shunting them to the side. In the past, their human rights record hasn’t been that great to say the least but in the last few years they have done some good for some areas – even if it is just to win people over to their cause. Rather than fighting them we need to reach a compromise that still enables them to put into practise their traditional beliefs but conforming to ‘civilised’ modern standards. If they are ready talk, we should be ready to listen.
I’m not an expert on any of these subjects and to be honest most of my knowledge about this comes from my exploration of Wikipedia but I do know the Iraq war is a controversial and rather ugly point of discussion. My personal opinion is that we were right to remove Saddam from his dictatorship but the Americans led us in under false pretences and even our own intelligence services manages to corroborate the evidence give to us by the Americans. I’m not saying that the USA didn’t go in for the good Iraq because they did but they also went for personal gain. We cannot be associated with actions like this in the future. The UK has a good record of going to war to help other countries without helping ourselves to what is rightfully and lawfully theirs.
Future Policy Changes
I’m going to stray from the debate of whether it was right or wrong to go to Iraq, that’s an entirely different post for another day, and move ahead to what the UK can do in the future whether it be for the next general election or whenever. As I mentioned earlier, we can try to engage what some currently call the enemy to participate in their country’s new government. I believe I took the example of the Taliban in Afghanistan as an illustration. Now, since allied forced moved into Afghanistan a lot more women have become MPs even with fear of attacks. The Taliban are known to be the enforcers of the strictest implementation of Sharia law ever seen in the Muslim world but they can still have a country that complies with their beliefs whilst allowing greater freedom to their people – all they need to do (and us as well) is compromise.
Going back to Iraq, there was all this talk about governments giving money to ‘rebuild’ Iraq. As far as I’ve seen, allied troops have been destroying more things that they’re building! I believe we should distance ourselves from the American army and pull troops out of their current role there. Instead of going in there with guns blazing we should tell the people we, the British people, are there to rebuild housing. Builders and craftsmen should be sent in to rebuild houses out of bricks and mortar instead of sending armed troops in. Of course, the builders will need protection and absolutely we should send in troops only as peace keepers, not as occupation forces. Hopefully this change in tactic will change the view of us while still helping the Iraqi people. Saying this is much easier than putting it into practise.
Future Conclusions
To summarise my waffle above – I’m sorry if you felt I went off on a few tangents – I believe that the United Kingdom has experienced one of the best decades of international relations and politics in a long time and we’ve told the world that although we gave the empire back to the rightful owners we are still a world power. Hopefully we have been able to persuade the world we’re a power for good.
Our creepily intimate relationship with the USA needs to be toned down (if it isn’t naturally done so by the change of our Prime minister – I doubt Bush will take as easily to Gordon Brown as he did Blair) so we’re not seen as someone they can rely on for every action they take that affects the international community. Taking a more constructive role abroad with rebuilding programs will hopefully curb our losses.
I’ve read that the African Union (AU) has asked countries not in Africa to stay out of their affairs and I appreciate that. Some countries in Africa are really prosperous and most are dealing with their problems democratically and quite effectively but to set an example to the wider community we need to publically condemn undemocratic leaders like Robert Mugabe and say we will provide the AU with military and intelligence assistance if they need it. If you don’t want to trawl though the web for what the AU is, it is the European Union for Africa. Current members are all of the African states bar Morocco and they aim to have a single currency, just like the EU. This is something we must actively encourage while keeping our distance as it’s their project. We need to take a more active role in other international disputes like that between China and Tibet. China is becoming worryingly powerful in terms of their impact on our economy. We need to get them to leave Tibet, in my opinion, and tell them to sort out their country, their people and their politics before spending money on space travel and the likes. We can’t tolerate any forms of Communism and although they have made progress in trying to persuade the world they are not all bad by holding elections, they can’t fool anyone (especially when their name is the Communist Party of China).
This is generally more for my benefit that yours, to be honest, and I just wanted to share my views. I may be naive to do it and if I have anything wrong, you are certainly welcome to enlighten me.
