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Photo Credit: James Alcock, International President, Federal Commonwealth Society via Wikipedia.org
FEBRUARY 2021
The British obsession with international borders seems inherent, and it continues even in the twenty-first century. Since the 1600s and until Brexit in 2020, the British government would have bungled many international borders across the world. Here are eight significant ones.
As a powerful player in geo-politics, successive British governments pursued complex political manoeuvres by redrawing borders, assuming they were tailoring smart victories.
This approach, though uprooted millions of ethnic populations across the globe, the majority of whom are still struggling with the permanency of ambiguity.
Over time, these borders have created armies of several million soldiers, bolstered cunning defence manufacturers, supplying highly-priced innovative weapons to those embattling countries, budded nationalist politicians harping on border issues, and, of course, moulded bloody wars.
The first known reputed bungle was with Scotland in the year 1660. Scotland, though independent then, joined the union with England. It is not fully independent now.
Scotland has allegiance to the British monarchy and ensures the free movement of people and business. However, retail Scottish Banks do issue banknotes of the Scottish Pound, but they are not legal tenders.
Since British Pound Sterling is Scottish base currency, it is regulated by the Bank of England from London. While Scotland participates in Commonwealth Games as a country, still it has no seat in the UN or Olympics. Such is the bungle.
In 1893, the Durand line made an incision through Balochistan and Pashtunistan, illogically splitting the Baloch and Pashtun community. After 126 years, to this day, Pakistan and Afghanistan are still engaged in a territorial dispute.
The seeds of ambiguity and irrational divide by then British civil servant Mortimer Durand continues germinating.
Afghanistan border was drawn by British colonial officials. It may be assumed to agree with then-Afghan leader Amir Abdul Rehman. But Afghans of today dispute that border as a “colonial imposition”.
The sole reason being that it has divided their ancestral homelands of Pashtun tribes between Afghanistan and Pakistan. They also insist that the agreement between the British and Amir Abdul Rehman had a validity of 100-years, which expired in 1993.
Pashtun territories on the Pakistani side of the border consists of parts of North-West Frontier Province and the former Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA).
In 1947, the British handed over the border; hence it is legally inherited by Pakistan when it was formed.
The border between India, Tibet and China is a characteristic bungle. However sharp the pencil was on the map, the McMahon line of 1914 translated into seven hundred miles of ambiguous border with a thickness of five miles.
One thing led to others. China and India, the two most militarized nations, have already fought a full-scale war, and skirmishes continue. As late as 2017, border hostility came to blows in Doklam.
Division of Poland by Curzon line in 1931 emboldens the British formula of viciously using the pencil on maps. The consequence of the Curzon line was visible during WWII.
Hitler and the Soviets fought a bloody war for their share of Poland, demarcated by the Curzon Line. Like the Punjabis, Bengalis, Pashtuns and Baloch, the Poles and Yiddish too, found international borders brazenly splitting their communities. Today, Poles and Yiddish have torn apart in four countries like Poland, Lithuania, Ukraine and Belarus.
Repeatedly, history has witnessed tragedies due to ill-conceived demarcation by British governments. Formation of Israel by Balfour Declaration of 1917 and Partition of India by Radcliffe Line are prime examples.
The partition of India saw the world’s largest unplanned mass migration. Eighteen-hundred-mile-long Radcliffe Line was drawn and implemented in a shortened transition of six weeks.
A splitting population of eighty-eight million led to civil war-like violence with the tragic death of millions. Similarly, Palestine is locked in a never-ending vortex of violence. As a result, both Gaza in the middle east and Kashmir in the Indian sub-continent are perpetual hot spots.
Yemen, UAE, and Oman borders under British rule have gone through changes with agreement and treaties. But conflict does pop-up from time to time.
The Buraimi dispute is a case in the deserts of the middle east. After three - and half-year long dispute, Saudi Arabia withdrew, and Oman regained control of Na'im and Al Bu Shamis, Buraimi and Hamasah.
The Emirate of Abu Dhabi consolidated its control of Al Ain. But consequently, it started Saudi Arabia – United Arab Emirates border dispute which stands unresolved even to this day.
The Falkland Islands, where Argentina locks horn with Britain and Gibraltar, the British rock in contention with Spain, are some more examples of the British’s blemished obsession with borders.
When Europe was barely recovering from the shock of the 2008 financial crisis, abruptly, then British prime minister started the Brexit fiasco.
Whatever had been the reasons to call for the referendum, consequently, in one of its kind democratic exercise, multiple borders are being simultaneously redrawn, chopped, and recreated in Europe, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
Depending on what the goal will be, Europe and Britain will have separate border for tariffs, movement of people, international policing, taxation, human rights, currency etc.
For the last three years, with uncertainty looming over the complexities of Brexit, prolonged debates and discussions, the wider population is mentally fatigued and already churning low productivity.
Northern Ireland, which quietly exists alongside the Republic of Ireland as EU, will soon be a battleground of borders. Brexit will divide the Island with a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.
Predictively, it would be inconvenient for the Irish population and against the Good Friday Agreement of 1998. Hence, it is proposed, the new border with the EU might have to move from Northern Ireland to the middle of the Irish Sea.
This would mean Northern Ireland, though part of the Kingdom, will not have any border with the Republic of Ireland, even after Brexit. In brief, these two Ireland nations will be one.
No surprises, in future, the British solution could also mean officially merging Northern Ireland with the Republic of Ireland, as one nation, reinstating their status of a century ago. Again, it was the British government then who drew the divide. Watch out, Ireland(s) and their borders will be pivotal to Brexit.
Undoubtedly, Brexit has pushed Britain and other EU nations into undebatable negative consequences. Ensuring global economic slowdown is one of them.
Unlike earlier instances of outlining borders, this time, it is the British home border itself that is under the pencil. Only history will judge whether Brexit was yet another British Border Bungling.
Photo: Public Domain, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5055773
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