I.
THINK ABOUT THE CONCEPT OF UNITY…
What have others said about unity?
“Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace
You may say that I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one”
― John Lennon, Imagine
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace
You may say that I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one”
― John Lennon, Imagine
“The Destiny of Man is to unite, not to divide. If you keep on dividing
you end up as a collection of monkeys throwing nuts at each other out of
separate trees.”
― T.H. White
― T.H. White
“I can do things
you cannot, you can do things I cannot; together we can do great things.”
― Mother Teresa
"There
is no room in this country for hyphenated Americanism. When I refer to
hyphenated Americans, I do not refer to naturalized Americans. Some of the very
best Americans I have ever known were naturalized Americans, Americans born
abroad. But a hyphenated American is not an American at all…This is just as
true of the man who puts “native” before the hyphen as of the man who puts
German or Irish or English or French before the hyphen. Americanism is a matter
of the spirit and of the soul. Our allegiance must be purely to the United
States. We must unsparingly condemn any man who holds any other
allegiance." Teddy Roosevelt
“We are only as
strong as we are united, as weak as we are divided.”
― J.K.
Rawling, HP and the Goblet of Fire
II. Czechoslovakia
A. The Velvet Revolution and National Unity
Vaclav Havel
"May truth and love triumph over
lies and hatred."
"Just as one-half of a room cannot
remain forever warm while the other half is cold, it is equally unthinkable
that two different Europes could forever live side by side without detriment to
both." -- Havel
"The transformation of the totalitarian system into
a democratic one is not only a matter of several parties replacing one ruling party
and the introduction of some democratic mechanisms. It is also a matter of a
great transformation of thinking because people must learn again to be
citizens, to rediscover the civic responsibility which the totalitarian regime
did not demand from them because it required mere obedience." --Havel
Plastic People of the
Universe
B. The
Velvet Divorce: Ethnic Unity Trumps National Unity
January
1, 1993=Czech Republic and Slovakia
"Two states have been established,"
Vladimir Meciar, Prime Minister of Slovakia. "Living together in one state
is over. Living together in two states continues."
III. OTHER EXAMPLES OF DISSOLUTION:
A. The Balkans:
Yugoslavia becomes Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina,
Macedonia, and Serbia…and in 2008, Kosovo.
B. SCOTLAND: 2014
“Scotland has long been a nation. We shall soon find out whether its
citizens now wish that nation to become a state.” Opinion piece http://www.lrb.co.uk/v36/n17/lrb-scotland/reflections-on-the-independence-referendum
Results in from all 32 council areas,
"No" 2,001,926
“Yes” 1,617,989
Implications elsewhere:
Spain: Basque Country
and Catalonia
(22%
in Pais Vasco support Independence)
The vote will be held in November, 2015 in Catalonia.
C. South Sudan
President Salva Kiir fired
VP Riek
Machar
Ethnic Tension: Dinka
versus Nuer
Sudan
People's Liberation Movement (SPLM)
IV.
DIVERSITY, UNITY, MELTING POTS, MULTI-CULTURALISM AND OTHER DANGEROUS
METAPHORS…
John F. Kennedy wrote in his 1958 book, A Nation of Immigrants, “A typical American menu might include Irish
stew, chop suey, goulash, chile con carne, ravioli, knockwurst mit sauerkraut,
Yorkshire pudding, Welsh rarebit, borscht, gefilte fish, Spanish omelette,
caviar, mayonnaise, antipasto, baumkuchen, English muffins, gruyère cheese,
Danish pastry, Canadian bacon, hot tamales, wienerschnitzel, petit fours,
spumoni, bouillabaisse, mate, scones, Turkish coffee, minestrone, filet mignon.”
Carl Degler. Out of Our Past: The
Forces that Shaped Modern America, a commonly used textbook. In the 1959
edition, he wrote, “Some habits from the old country were not discarded; in
those instances the children of immigrants even into the third and fourth
generations retained their differences. In view of such failure to melt and
fuse, the metaphor of the melting pot is unfortunate and misleading. A more
accurate analogy would be a salad bowl, for, although the salad is an entity,
the lettuce can still be distinguished from the chicory, the tomatoes from the cabbage.”
We
started with the concept of unity…and ended with a critique of
multiculturalism...where does this leave us?
What
might bind a country together but avoid the violence of earlier narratives? Or
does unity always entail violence?
