Where's the evidence?My dictionary defines colonialism colonialism Control by one power over a dependent area or people. The purposes of colonialism include economic exploitation of the colony's natural resources, creation of new markets for the colonizer, and extension of the colonizer's way of life beyond its national borders. as 'the economic exploitation of weak or backward peoples by a larger power' or 'control by one power over a dependent area or people'. My eyes, therefore, were caught by Hannah Smith's article entitled 'Kosovo's other colonizers' (Currents, NI 410). Was she about to tell me some hidden truth? Was there a foreign power in Kosovo actively exploiting the backward people there for economic purposes? My impression was that the UN represented a broad swathe swathe 1 tr.v. swathed, swath·ing, swathes 1. To wrap or bind with or as if with bandages. 2. To enfold or constrict. n. A wrapping, binding, or bandage. of countries from the international community engaged in action to protect the country from being 'colonized' by its neighbour, Serbia. The piece produces no evidence that the UN has colonized Colonized This occurs when a microorganism is found on or in a person without causing a disease. Mentioned in: Isolation the country, merely that it has 'overseen policing and rebuilding' and 'imported' its own bits of culture with it--sushi restaurants, God forbid for·bid tr.v. for·bade or for·bad , for·bid·den or for·bid, for·bid·ding, for·bids 1. To command (someone) not to do something: I forbid you to go. 2. ! It devotes space to instances of where policing has visibly failed, rather than where it has succeeded and concludes from these isolated instances that the UN's performance is 'pitiful'. I hesitate to contemplate to what pitiful pit·i·ful adj. 1. Inspiring or deserving pity. 2. Arousing contemptuous pity, as through ineptitude or inadequacy. See Synonyms at pathetic. 3. Archaic Filled with pity or compassion. state this hapless hap·less adj. Luckless; unfortunate. See Synonyms at unfortunate. hap  less·ly adv. people might have been reduced had there not been an
international presence.
Smith has the grace to admit that 'international missions are only as good as the sum of their parts'. Well, quite, but she might have been a tad more understanding of the function and purpose of the UN presence there in a difficult, some would say impossible, area of cultural and ethnic conflict. Trevor Rigg Edinburgh, Scotland |
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