I can accept China, Russia and the USA as potential superpowers for this century but have never bought into India emerging to straddle the Globe as a World power. It does seem a case of the Emperors new clothes with everybody else just toeing the line and nobody important saying 'India to be the Superpower?' and then trotting off to the Hospital to get there flabber re-gasted.
What India have been doing recently which all three of the aforementioned potentials have been doing with regularity though is killing innocent civilians. China has Tibet, Russia has Georgia and the USA has Iraq & Afghanistan and now India, quietly, have been shooting dead unarmed demonstrators in Kashmir.
In the latest incident, Indian security forces fired into crowds of several thousand unarmed peace demonstrators adding four more deaths to the many hundreds killed by Indian forces. Humans Right Watch released a 160 page report on human rights abuses in Kashmir by Indian troops three years ago and Amnesty International have been condemning "extra-judicial executions", "disappearances", and "torture" being performed by the Indians for as long as i can remember. Nope, not many other people have heard about it either although the barbaric slaughter of innocent civilians in the Kashmir Valley in 2000 by Indian troops did bring events in the region to our attention for a few days.
The Indian authorities are attempting to snuff out the protests against it's authoritarian rule in the area which has been disputed since 1947 and has caused two wars between India and Pakistan although thankfully not since both became the newest members of the nuclear club.
Hang on, extra-judicial executions, disappearances and torture? Sounds like Superpower behaviour to me after all.
4 comments:
Lucy,
It seems the current super powers haven't learned anything from hundreds of years of bad European behaviour and domination. Ooops, I take that back. They learned how to behave badly...
They say the fruit doesn't fall far from the tree.
Well, the US still has a way to go before approaching what the European empires did to Europe, Asia, North America, South America, India, Africa, and the Middle East circa 1400 thru 1944. Quite a legacy actually. let's not go back any further because we'd have to consider the Roman empire as well.
Should we leave the Australian and New Zealand "cleansing" out of this discussion? Yes, let's not mention that...
Dang it. Is any significant nation or empire untarnished?
Q
PS - you forgot to mention Euro involvement in both Iraq and Afgan... hard to break old habits.
Q - You won't get any argument from me Q, I have always maintained that the British Empire was probably the worst behaved and immoral empire ever. The way we acted and treated other nations in the past is indefensible and i have never tried to justify it in any way.
How the British acted as the worlds superpower is still reverberating today, and Kashmir is a perfect example along with events in Palestine & Zimbabwe. I have laid the boot into Britains past and present on many occasions so i agree with all you say above, would be ignorant of me to argue otherwise.
As for today's superpowers and potential superpowers, it seems business as usual.
Fruit doesn't fall far from the tree? Wot! Americans and their ever-multiplying armies appear to be spreading all over the world. They all too often bring death and destruction wherever they go and then elect subservient puppet governments.
If humans could think beyond the narrow, divisive, imperial, nationalist-capitalist paradigm, then peace might have a chance.
The Superpower Concept should have died centuries ago!
the research pegs india as world superpower (by far) by 2040/2050 overtaking china who would officially be world superpower by around 2030. indias growth rates are far less dependant on foreign markets than china. india has massive internal growth.
considering indias size and the conflicts they face i think theyre a pretty peaceful country. america doesnt have a prob with them having nuclear tech, they know they arent gonna go crazy and nuke someone.
india in superpower form is jsut what the world needs right now.
lettersa2z
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