The
main thing is that they don't want to cede territory........
Not a surprising response -- land for peace isn't a popular concept these days. <g>
Just a point of clarification, am I not right that Bangladesh didn't secede from India, but that it was originally part of Pakistan (I seem to recall drawing maps in school of West Pakistan and East Pakistan) and that got so cumbersome that they went their own way?
I haven't studied the history of that region, so though I'm of course familiar with the fight for independence from Britain, I didn't follow all the partition stuff.
In generic terms, the idea of nationhood seems to be no less fluid today than it was in the time of the Germanic empires and the French, Spanish, and British conquests of the "primarive" peoples of Africa, South America, et. al. Russia breaks apart, while Europe draws closer together. Various peoples battle for statehood -- Palestinians, Kurds, Kashmiri, and many others -- colonial empires continue to crumble (how long can Britain really retain ownership of the Faulklands, and will Argentina start the war up again to take the attention of the people off its economic troubles and give the military something to occupy themselves other than trying a junta)? |
