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[XXSockXX]

Nobody has ever been careful with these things before. Your "recent history" is the European powers dropping all their colonies and letting the borders fall where they will.

No no, I meant history since say 1990. Especially Yugoslavia. There are still massive problems there with different ethnicities in Bosnia and Kosovo. You could still divide that up endlessly and nobody is gonna be happy with it. Even the decision to have an independant Kosovo is questionable, the state can't sustain itself economically and the ethnic conflict is not solved.
In general, almost every decision of redrawing borders after WW2 has been made somewhat carefully, but it still did never really make the problems go away.

[misko27]

Nobody has ever been careful with these things before. Your "recent history" is the European powers dropping all their colonies and letting the borders fall where they will.

No no, I meant history since say 1990. Especially Yugoslavia. There are still massive problems there with different ethnicities in Bosnia and Kosovo. You could still divide that up endlessly and nobody is gonna be happy with it. Even the decision to have an independant Kosovo is questionable, the state can't sustain itself economically and the ethnic conflict is not solved.
In general, almost every decision of redrawing borders after WW2 has been made somewhat carefully, but it still did never really make the problems go away.

Brought this up earlier.
 
Besides, I remember that African colonies were dicide dto remain as is, for the alternative to colnialist lines is "Africa split into a a shattered continient."
 
The alternative is NO government.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Yugoslavia was a nation held together by one man: Josip Broz Tito

With such a lynchpin, it is no surprise that it all went to shit when he died.

[XXSockXX]

Yeah, it makes no sense to divide everything up tribally. Ironically, the concept of "Yugoslavia" (not the regime, the idea is quite a bit older than that) was kind of a good idea to make a state out of a really divided area. Serbs and Kroats could be a single nation easily, if there were not 1000 years of history putting them up against each other. Today, in the southern parts of former Yugoslavia you could probably make states on a village to village basis and still get things wrong. Same thing in the Caucasus, sure they all want to be independant, but they have a different language in every other valley, how do you divide something like that up?

[Owlbread]

Lots of small countries with autonomous regions and similar. Easy.

[XXSockXX]

Well, I emphasize the words "village" and "valley" in my last post . You have all these problems in Bosnia, with divided towns and such. I think that a bigger state, where all ethnicities have equal rights, is much more reasonable. The difficult part is of course to balance the different interests between ethnicities and religions, but it makes much more sense economically and relative wealth is definitely something to keep a country together. I mean, it's funny how much more approval separatists all over Europe get, now that the economy is going south.

[Owlbread]

Well, I emphasize the words "village" and "valley" in my last post . You have all these problems in Bosnia, with divided towns and such. I think that a bigger state, where all ethnicities have equal rights, is much more reasonable. The difficult part is of course to balance the different interests between ethnicities and religions, but it makes much more sense economically and relative wealth is definitely something to keep a country together. I mean, it's funny how much more approval separatists all over Europe get, now that the economy is going south.

Villages and valleys can be given limited autonomy or recognition. It is even more possible in these countries because the local identities are so strong.

[XXSockXX]

To kinda get back on topic (we're not going to solve all conflicts in the world anyway here), I think whatever happens in Syria and all the other middle eastern and north african countries, the key is the economy. All these dictators there were disposed because people were unhappy with the distribution of wealth in these countries. If people have a reasonable standard of living, and no ethnicity/religious group is cut off, they are content to live together peacefully. So ideally we would need some kind of Marshall plan. But since we will not be able to pay for this, every country in that region without oil is in deep trouble. In Egypt, where tourism is so important for the economy, this could force the islamists to get more moderate, if they don't, they will run out of money.
It's not that all the islamists there are some weirdo terrorists, they are popular because they do charity stuff and seemingly offer people justice on the base of islamic law. They are very well organized and established parts of society there, basically the closest thing to political organizations for many people. We cannot tell people how to vote, we can just carefully apply diplomatic pressure and hope that the moderates get the upper hand in the long run.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Given that there are currently Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood members advocating things like blowing up the Pyramids for being part of a heathen religion, I don't think you're going to find much room for moderation.

[misko27]

Well, I emphasize the words "village" and "valley" in my last post . You have all these problems in Bosnia, with divided towns and such. I think that a bigger state, where all ethnicities have equal rights, is much more reasonable. The difficult part is of course to balance the different interests between ethnicities and religions, but it makes much more sense economically and relative wealth is definitely something to keep a country together. I mean, it's funny how much more approval separatists all over Europe get, now that the economy is going south.

Villages and valleys can be given limited autonomy or recognition. It is even more possible in these countries because the local identities are so strong.

It ridiculous. Patenly, obscenly ridicluous. No one can be a country in the modern sense of "country" if only a village. I don't think every man who wants a country should get one, no matter how much he wants it.
 
We have to draw the line somewhere. And if you draw it at, say, 100 people, wha tabout 99 sized ethnicities? What about 3? Well perhaps there are 2 Black scottish Cyclops out there that want a nation.
 
The problem is that the line is so hazy you can make extremist statements like this, because a perfect line makes no sense, and without a line it can be abused to the point of non-existance.
 
Last comment

[Karnewarrior]

Given that there are currently Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood members advocating things like blowing up the Pyramids for being part of a heathen religion, I don't think you're going to find much room for moderation.

FUCK YOUR PYRAMIDS BITCH. LEARN TO LOVE GOD LIKE I DO AND BLOW THEM THE FUCK UP YOU LITTLE GIRL.

PEER PRESSURE PEER PRESSURE PEER PRESSURE

[XXSockXX]

Given that there are currently Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood members advocating things like blowing up the Pyramids for being part of a heathen religion, I don't think you're going to find much room for moderation.

Sure, but they're not the Taliban. They are a much bigger and much more diverse movement. I would be more than surprised if something like that happend. Most Egyptians are really proud of their pyramids. Not every weird thing some GOP MP says is something an US gouvernment would do. And I think it is a bit like that, there are huge ideological differences within the Muslim Brotherhood, it's not a small group of radicals.

We have to draw the line somewhere. And if you draw it at, say, 100 people, wha tabout 99 sized ethnicities? What about 3? Well perhaps there are 2 Black scottish Cyclops out there that want a nation. The problem is that the line is so hazy you can make extremist statements like this, because a perfect line makes no sense, and without a line it can be abused to the point of non-existance.

That is true indeed. To an extent ethnicity and nationality are just constructs and you just have to look long enough to find new distinctions and take it to an absurd level.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Sure, but they're not the Taliban. They are a much bigger and much more diverse movement. I would be more than surprised if something like that happend. Most Egyptians are really proud of their pyramids. Not every weird thing some GOP MP says is something an US gouvernment would do.

Maybe. But people do strange and fucked up things when they think god is endorsing them.

And I think it is a bit like that, there are huge ideological differences within the Muslim Brotherhood, it's not a small group of radicals.

You're right, it's a large group of radicals.

The Muslim Brotherhood aren't moderates, no matter what image they like to project. There are going to be more conservative and more liberal members of every large group, but the range that the Muslim Brotherhood occupies is still inside the "Islam must dominate the world and all things within it" spectrum.

[XXSockXX]

The Muslim Brotherhood aren't moderates, no matter what image they like to project. There are going to be more conservative and more liberal members of every large group, but the range that the Muslim Brotherhood occupies is still inside the "Islam must dominate the world and all things within it" spectrum.

Yes, but you shouldn't imagine them as a radical group that has taken over the country. They are deeply rooted in that country, and they have a lot of support in the population. Islamic scholars in Kairo were at one point the ones from whom one would expect some sort of "islamic enlightenment", or a more modern and liberal islam in general. I don't know how that all will turn out, and sure, for us any radical sounding language from islamists sounds dangerous. Still I think we will have to judge them more by what they are ultimately going to do. Certain people in Europe were freaking out and expecting WW3 when the US had an evangelical president, and that turned out to be slightly exaggerated. In all islamic countries there are moderate and radical forces and they all sound strange to us, but a lot of that is rhetoric. It's not going to be the end of the world if a few of these countries take an islamist turn for a while. We cannot do much about that anyway, we can't invade them all and diplomacy can only do so much.

[ChairmanPoo]

Right, in English it's "Catalonia", completely different spelling there  . They might go for independance soon too, even before the Scots.

..and in Catalonian it's "Catalunya", and in Spanish "Cataluņa". The Basque spelling comes close with "Katalunia", but it's an odd choice. Gainera, ez dut uste Euskaraz hitz egiten duzu.