kids at the American war museum Ho Chi Minh City 2005
We are all familiar with that rising feeling of anger while being treated unfairly. Cut off in traffic? The feeling can show up quickly and unexpectedly even over a simple act of inattention! A few of these on the commute into work can set your mood in a bad place for a good chunk of the morning. The other driver was not playing by the rules, not being fair. Feelings of being cheated, being othered (treaded as less than human), or treated unjust must be as old as humanity itself. Boss problems at work, spouse problems at home, kid problems on the playground; if left unaddressed can cause tragedy down the road. This is the origin of conflict at all levels. At its core conflict is about unequal or unfair treatment real or even imagined. We are social animals and in groups these feelings become amplified. Unaddressed injustices toward groups, if left unresolved, can have dire consequences. Groups that have no representation in government are considered stateless.
There are a number of stateless peoples around the world; Palestinians, Kurds, Rohingya, Bidoon and any number of women and children who are seen as property, not people. In each case they are treated differently than citizens they live beside. They do not have representation or even a voice in government. Most live in extreme poverty with no economic opportunity for relief or improvement. This is a recipe for wars, acts of terrorism and other crimes. It plays out the same all across the world. Being stuck in a stateless twilight zone, mostly forgotten, breeds mountains of resentment and animosity. All too often the only way out is through a rebel or terrorist group that's more likely to enrich a warlord type than actually help a community.
A one-sided treaty at the end of World War I that tried to put all the blame and costs of the war on Germany led to the rise of Hitler and World War II. A more reasonable treaty like President Wilson wanted could have completely changed the course of the twentieth century. Wars for independence all over the globe have roots in how unfair colonizers treat the locals. The USA, India, along with nations all over Africa, Central and South America as well as Asia all had to fight off colonizers. The grievances were many from resource exploitation, racism, resource theft and countless others. At the heart of these conflicts we find unfair and unequal treatment. Those being colonized rarely, if ever, had any voice in how they were governed. Nor much say in how borders were drawn up by larger far away powers.
Resolutions look similar as we work our way up from micro to macro. The traffic aggressor holds up their hands to me acknowledging and apologizing for the error. I give a thumbs up acknowledging we can all make mistakes. A few minutes later the whole thing is forgotten about. States must recognize stateless peoples within its borders, see their suffering and bring them into the government or allow them to create their own government. Nation-states need to treat each other with respect according to international norms and war should only be declared in self-defense.
