Last week we saw "The India-Pakistan Border". It is not just a border between two countries, it is where the two halves of the world meet. This week let's review what I call "The Separation And Three Wars Rule".
This is in the compound posting on this blog, "How History Repeats Itself", November 2019.
What has long caught my attention is how the wars between Israel and the Arab countries parallel the wars between India and Pakistan.
Israel, India and, Pakistan all became independent at around the same time. India and Pakistan in 1947 and Israel in 1948. Each had a war immediately upon independence, and then two more wars since then. India and Pakistan fought wars with one another just after the independence of both, again in 1965, and again in 1971. Israel also had an initial war with surrounding Arab countries, again in 1967, and again in 1973.
This only refers to "national" wars, of one nation against another, even though war may not have been formally declared. There will also be skirmishes and battles with militias in between, but even here there are close parallels. Militias are a factor in both conflicts. Look at the similarity between the attack on Mumbai in 2008 and the Hamas attack on Israel in 2023.
Not only is there an obvious parallel between the two sets of wars but the time frame is close to being exactly the same. Israel gained independence one year after India and Pakistan but it's two subsequent wars are both delayed by two years from the counterpart war between India and Pakistan.
Why is there this close parallel between these two sets of wars, when there is no reason at all to believe that there is any direct relation between them? There is no sign of anyone in the Middle East saying "Hey, India and Pakistan just had a war, why don't we have one too"? It is almost as if these two apparently unrelated series of wars has some common root.
We know that history tends to repeat itself. We tend to reenact history, sometimes intentionally, but often without realizing it. We have seen in this blog how events such as the French Revolution have been echoed across the world.
Could there be some other historic event that was affecting what happens across the world, and leading to wars?
The first two European nations to begin building vast colonial empires were Spain and Portugal. These two countries have brought their languages, Catholic religion, and elements of their cultures to much of the world.
What I want to show today is that these two nations have also inadvertently brought their historic relationship with each other to much of the world.
There were four early European colonial powers, first Spain and Portugal, and later Britain and France. The relationship between Spain and Portugal is important because both originated from the same original entity, the Iberian Peninsula ruled by the Moors. Also, Spain and Portugal are the only two of the four that has a "direct" boundary between them. Britain and France have the English Channel between them and France and Spain have a range of mountains between them, which was a much greater barrier in times past than it is today. Spain and Portugal, in contrast, have only a minor river for most of their boundary.
Let's start with India and Pakistan.
Has anyone noticed that the flag of the party of former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan is very similar to the flag of Portugal, with identical colors? At bottom is the flag of Portugal. Credit to Wikipedia articles "Tehreek E Insaf" and "Flag of Portugal".
If you wonder why that should be important, remember that Portugal was involved in India for about 450 years. Goa is usually the place in India most associated with Portugal, but the meeting of cultures must have had an effect on the entire country. Portuguese explorers, beginning with Vasco Da Gama, were greatly surprised to find Christians in India, who traced their line to the apostle Thomas, and tried to force them into the Catholic Church.
(Note-These Thomas Christians of India were actually Nestorians, that we saw in "The House Of Holy Wisdom, Where The Modern World Began").
Notice the parallels between India, from which Pakistan was divided, and Portugal.
Portugal shares the Iberian Peninsula with Spain just as Pakistan shares the Indian subcontinent with India. The two sets of countries both arose out of an original entity.
Portugal, much smaller than Spain, defines itself against Spain just as Pakistan, much smaller than India, defines itself against India. Someone from Portugal might describe their country as "We are part of the Iberian Peninsula but are not Spanish", just as someone from Pakistan might describe their country as "We are part of the subcontinent but are not Indian".
Pakistan is to the west of India just as Portugal is to the west of Spain. The geographic relationship of Pakistan to India very closely approximates that of Portugal to Spain. The land area and population of Pakistan, relative to India, is almost identical to that of Portugal, relative to Spain.
We can see how Portugal defines itself, relative to Spain, by it's flag. The narrower green area to the left represents Portugal, while the larger red area represents Spain. Although the green field is larger than Portugal's actual land area in relation to Spain. Credit to Wikipedia article "Flag of Portugal" and Google Maps.
The Pakistani flag shows how Pakistan defines itself, relative to India, in exactly the same way. The white fired to the left of the flag represents Pakistan, white standing for "The Land of the Pure", relative to India with which it shares the subcontinent. The crescent moon and star even resembles the circular medallion on the Portuguese flag. The black lines at the top and bottom of the Pakistani flag are so that the white field at left shows up. Credit to Wikipedia articles "Flag of Pakistan" and "Partition of India".
Pakistan and Portugal, although on opposite sides of the world, seem to have quite a bit in common.
Spain and Portugal are close allies and friendly neighbors today, but historically they have been rival colonial powers. One traveler once wrote something like "The Spanish and Portuguese are both warm and welcoming people to everyone except each other".
In fact, there are very close parallels between the past relationship between Spain and Portugal and the present relationship between India and Pakistan.
Like India and Pakistan, Spain and Portugal were jointly ruled by a colonial power before gaining independence. This we saw in "When The Moors Ruled Spain", on this blog.
The War of Portuguese Succession, which affirmed that Portugal was going to be a separate country from Spain, corresponds to the Partition of India and Pakistan in 1947, when it was established that there would be a separate Pakistan and Hindus living in what was to be Pakistan moved toward India and Moslems living in what was to be India moved toward Pakistan.
In the Eighteenth Century, Spain and Portugal fought three wars between themselves, not counting wars that were part of larger European struggles and involved other European powers. Just as India and Pakistan have fought three wars in the Twentieth century.
In common to the Eighteenth-Century wars between Spain and Portugal and those between India and Pakistan in the Twentieth-Century is that there were three limited wars, but never an all-out war where one had to surrender to the other. Between the three wars, there was lesser skirmishing along the border. Between Spain and Portugal in the Eighteenth-Century, this often took the form of rustling each other's livestock.
Not only that, but there is an area of Spain immediately north of Portugal, called Galicia, that historically spoke Portuguese but ended up being controlled by Spain. The difference between India and Pakistan is religion, rather than language, but other than that there is a virtually identical parallel in Kashmir. To the north of Pakistan, it is majority Moslem but ended up being controlled by India.
The following map shows Spain to the right, Portugal to the left, and the red region to the north of Portugal. This region is Galicia, which historically spoke Portuguese but ended up under the control of Spain. Notice how closely this map is mirrored today in that of India, Pakistan and, Kashmir. Credit to Wikipedia article "Galicia".
The third war between India and Pakistan involved not Kashmir but what is now Bangladesh. The third war between Spain and Portugal involved what is now Uruguay. Ironically, Bangladesh and Uruguay are similar in geographical size. Just as the Line of Tordesillas was mediated in an effort to keep peace between Spain and Portugal, the Line of Control was mediated in an effort to keep peace between India and Pakistan.
Plainly and simply, India and Pakistan are reenacting the historic relationship between Spain and Portugal, specifically that of the Eighteenth-Century, with Pakistan playing the role of Portugal.
There is another place that the historic relationship between Spain and Portugal emerges. It is in South America, involving Chile. Chile speaks Spanish but geographically corresponds to Portugal, along the southwest coast of the continent. Even though it is Brazil that actually speaks Portuguese. It does not seem to matter whether the primary influence on a region was from Spain or Portugal, it still brings along the historical relationship between the two.
Chile is, for some reason, the most disliked country by other South American nations. The most serious war since the independence of the nations of South America has been between Chile on one side and Bolivia and Peru on the other. Chile also tried to claim territory from Paraguay. More recently, a territorial dispute with Argentina brought the two countries to the brink of war. Chile is also the only South American nation to engage in a military conflict with Spain since gaining independence from it.
But one glance at a map tells us that South America is reenacting the historic rivalry between Spain and Portugal, the two nations that colonized it, but with Spanish-speaking Chile playing the role of Portugal due to it's geographical position. The conflict with Bolivia and Peru was along Chile's northern frontier, making it correspond with Galicia on the Iberian Peninsula and Kashmir on the subcontinent. Credit to Wikipedia article "Chile".
The pattern is the same, wars and skirmishes but never an all-out war where one has to surrender to the other.
Spain's first colony in the western hemisphere was the island of Hispaniola. Today the island is shared by Haiti and the Dominican Republic, in a way very similar to the Iberian Peninsula being shared by Spain and Portugal. The relationship between Haiti and the Dominican Republic is very similar to the historical relationship between Spain and Portugal.
Now we are beginning to understand the Israeli-Arab Wars, and why they so nearly-exactly parallel those between India and Pakistan. Even though neither Spain nor Portugal had a direct involvement in Palestine, their historic relationship is such a powerful influence in the Mediterranean that Israel and it's Arab enemies fell into reenacting it too. Like the three wars between Spain and Portugal, the Israeli-Arab Wars do not include the 1956 Suez Crisis, which was a wider power struggle.
The issue of occupied territory by Israel, which geographically corresponds ideally to Portugal and is close in population, revolves around the north of the country, the Golan Heights, West Bank and, formerly southern Lebanon, which corresponds to Galicia between Spain and Portugal, Kashmir between India and Pakistan and, formerly the southern part of Bolivia between Bolivia and Chile. The Sinai Peninsula, which Israel occupied after the 1967 Six-Day War, is, in contrast, to the south of Israel, and maybe that contributed to Israel relinquishing it. The Hebrew and Arabic languages are related in roughly the same way as Spanish and Portuguese.
What about the "Iron Curtain" during the Cold War? That was a non-friendly separation of eastern Europe from western Europe. But we see that this rule applies very clearly. There were three times that the Warsaw Pact "sent in the tanks" to quell an uprising. There was East Germany, in 1953, Hungary, in 1956, and Czechoslovakia (the Prague Spring), in 1968. Even though not directly related to Spain or Portugal, the rule had such an effect on the world that it applied here.
Which state of the United States is talk of separation most often heard? The answer is California, whether is is talk of northern California forming a separate state, Californians voting on whether to split into three states, or even of California becoming independent altogether. But if we compare a map of the U.S. with a map of Europe, we see that California is in the geographical role of Portugal.
Then we have Eritrea, the region of Ethiopia along the Red Sea coast that split away to become a separate country. The geographical relationship between the two countries mirrors very closely that between Spain and Portugal. The two countries fought a thirty-year war of Eritrean independence, then there was a war from 1998 to 2000, then there was a battle along the border between the two countries in 2016.
Indonesia was a Portuguese colony for a long time. After Indonesia became independent, the eastern half of the island of Timor wanted to be a separate country. But Indonesia seized control of it, until finally relinquishing it in 1999. But Spain is to the east of Portugal, on the Iberian Peninsula, and this seems to reflect Spain being independent of Portugal, since Portugal became a nation first as the Moors were withdrawing. Notice how the majority red field on the flag of East Timor parallels the red field that represents Spain on the Portuguese flag.
Germany and France have even followed this Separation And Three Wars Rule. Both were originally part of what were known as the Franks, but which were separated into eastern and western halves. There have been three wars between the two since Napoleon's military campaigns prompted the many German-speaking states across central Europe to unite. But there is no geographical comparison with Spain and Portugal and the three wars, unlike the limited wars between Spain and Portugal, have been all-out wars, the Franco-Prussian War and the two world wars, requiring the surrender of one side or the other.
So here is the rule: When one country is separated in a non-friendly way from another, there will be initial conflict upon separation. There will be three limited wars, over several decades and with plenty of skirmishing and lesser conflicts in between. But then there will be peace. It only applies to nations sharing a land border.
Keep in mind also that this is not including wars involving outside powers. This can change the formula. Spain and Portugal actually had more than three wars during their period of rivalry, but only three that were not part of a wider conflict involving outside powers.
The good news is that the border between Spain and Portugal today is completely open, marked only by speed limit signs. Two images from Google Street View.
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