Territorial pissings

A common practice used by animals of many species to demarcate their territory. Leave a scent of your piss around an area to tell other animals to keep away. Protect your territory. Territorial integrity. For humans, we have the law to uphold for us what is rightfully ours, entitled to us by the same law. But what about disputes over territory that the law is ambiguous about, to say the least, such as in the case of national boundaries? What about the cases where the law, whatever it may be, is thrown to the wind with as much care as using a sledgehammer to crack open a walnut?

Many of the modern nation states were often artificially created, whether carved out from larger areas or put together from smaller ones, and have been a problematic issue ever since they arrived on the world stage en masse. Three cases in this year have brought this matter to the fore yet again; Kashmir, Kosovo, and South Ossetia, all three with their unique-ish characteristic.

What strikes me most, at the level of international politics, about the recent 'war' between Russia and Georgia is once again the double standards of the usual hypocrites. Why was this notion of territorial integrity shown the proverbial door when Serbia made a hue and cry about Kosovo tearing itself out from the mainland? Most of the West welcomed the move almost, with arms wide open and the thinly veiled threat of refusal of EU membership to keep Serbian protesting to the minimum. The western countries can afford to do this because they have relative security in their own backyards, while they have spent decades sowing seeds of strife all around the world, wherever things were not the way they were comfortable with. From the days of the World Wars to Vietnam and down to Afghanistan, if you know the history of wars, I don't need to elaborate. Notable exceptions to the acknowledgement of Kosovo's independence were Russia, China and India (for reasons that could be called obvious), and the three countries also released a joint statement in the favour of Serbia and its territorial integrity that the west likes to tom-tom about, when of course, it is convenient to do so.

That is not to say that Russia, China or India behave any differently. But there is lesser dualism, so as to say. There is lesser overt tugging at the strings of the smaller nations, and rather, more overt display of things as they are. The West tries to appear, like its favourite sacrificial lamb from two millenia ago, the messiah who has good intentions towards all and sundry, even those who stone and curse him. And much like the so-called son of god, they also like to set the tone of what is morally right and whats abominably wrong. Now that I think of it like this, one can hardly blame them. They have been like that ever since that stupid carpenter became famous as the saviour among their ancestors. Countries like Russia and China on the other hand don't try to pass off as goody-two-shoes, and I think somewhere within their psyches, western leaders feel sort of impotent at not having the balls to behave the same way. Victims of their own self imposed notions of morality that they try to impose on others too. Fucking arse-wipes.

Since there is much too much to say about the ape otherwise known as George Bush, I will leave him alone for now. David Miliband makes a statement asking Russia to not start another Cold War. Since the first version of it ended with the collapse of USSR, will someone please explain to me the logic of not just maintaining but actually expanding NATO? What the fuck is that about? You tell the world to take it easy, to lay back, unwind, chill out, while you go on a cocaine-fuelled high speed adrenaline-pumping rampage all over the place. Sure, the world should just sit back and take it, because you are the descendents of the stupid carpenter/lamb who is just taking one for the gang, eh? If for every hypocritical act of the West, someone donated a dollar to alleviate hunger in Africa, all those malnourished black kids would probably beat the Americans at obesity. Hypocrisy served with a sense of absolute righteousness, and since its absolute, no one else can be right. Beats even mutual back scratching. Truly genius.

I am too pissed off to write any more. I think I will go take a piss.