Trump closed the route from Europe to the US today - but not from there UK. Why? There are a comparable number of cases in many European countries as there are in the UK. But because we are an island it seems that there is more confidence that we can resist the spread. I'm not sure I buy that but for some reason this got me thinking about boundaries and territory and how they are perceived by us humans.
We have a very nice obsession (which I have touched on before) of quite rigidly labelling and defining things, "that is mine", "this bit of land here is called Denmark" etc.But when it comes to boundaries it is actually very hard to define these unambiguously and with unilateral agreement. In fact I'd wager a large majority of the conflicts in history can be put down to the simple truth that two sets of people disagree about where they think the boundary is!
The map of the world as we know it is constantly changing, and it has been for centuries. There is always one area of the world looking for independence from another and there are always people coveting something that they may perceive as "rightfully" theirs.I think part of it comes down to the fact that it is very difficult to draw artificial barriers easily. Although the land is constant (within reason) it is the movement and relocation of people throughout history that has a significant effect.
This constant moving around means that it is very rare to find an entire area which is easy to "fence off", both in terms of the people who inhabit in and from a geographical standpoint. Take Great Britain for example, which is geographically very easy to define. Within this relatively small piece of land we have had more changes in definition than seems logical. Throughout history we have seen the Angles, Saxons, Vikings, Romans, Celts, Pics, Normans....well you get the point.
After the great Colonial period there seems to be a drive (certainly amongst the people) to move towards smaller territories, or at least territories where they are living with people they class as "their own kind". A large driver often appears to be that the majority of people consider themselves more like one set of people than another. The Partition of India drew lines based on religious majorities, and ended up displacing somewhere in the region of 10-12 million people who considered themselves to be on the "wrong" side.
Modern society is said to be multi-cultural and integrated but if you look in more detail then I think the opposite is happening. People are looking more to live within communities with a smaller diversity, one where they have a heritage in common and where they feel more connected.
I wonder whether this is a cyclical thing following a period of great expansion and domination from a small number of powers or whether there is something else at play here? Either way it is difficult to get away from the fact that, wherever the boundary is drawn, there is always likely to be someone who has a different idea of where it "should" be.
Till later, Tom
We have a very nice obsession (which I have touched on before) of quite rigidly labelling and defining things, "that is mine", "this bit of land here is called Denmark" etc.But when it comes to boundaries it is actually very hard to define these unambiguously and with unilateral agreement. In fact I'd wager a large majority of the conflicts in history can be put down to the simple truth that two sets of people disagree about where they think the boundary is!
The map of the world as we know it is constantly changing, and it has been for centuries. There is always one area of the world looking for independence from another and there are always people coveting something that they may perceive as "rightfully" theirs.I think part of it comes down to the fact that it is very difficult to draw artificial barriers easily. Although the land is constant (within reason) it is the movement and relocation of people throughout history that has a significant effect.
This constant moving around means that it is very rare to find an entire area which is easy to "fence off", both in terms of the people who inhabit in and from a geographical standpoint. Take Great Britain for example, which is geographically very easy to define. Within this relatively small piece of land we have had more changes in definition than seems logical. Throughout history we have seen the Angles, Saxons, Vikings, Romans, Celts, Pics, Normans....well you get the point.
After the great Colonial period there seems to be a drive (certainly amongst the people) to move towards smaller territories, or at least territories where they are living with people they class as "their own kind". A large driver often appears to be that the majority of people consider themselves more like one set of people than another. The Partition of India drew lines based on religious majorities, and ended up displacing somewhere in the region of 10-12 million people who considered themselves to be on the "wrong" side.
Modern society is said to be multi-cultural and integrated but if you look in more detail then I think the opposite is happening. People are looking more to live within communities with a smaller diversity, one where they have a heritage in common and where they feel more connected.
I wonder whether this is a cyclical thing following a period of great expansion and domination from a small number of powers or whether there is something else at play here? Either way it is difficult to get away from the fact that, wherever the boundary is drawn, there is always likely to be someone who has a different idea of where it "should" be.
Till later, Tom
1 comment:
So many boundaries are arbitrary. Dependent on the definition of what the boundary is required for. Who can play for a ‘local’ football team, what is the boundary of the UK, depends on if the answer lies within past events, current events or future ones. Or, put more simply “How long is a piece of string?”
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