The Myth of World Peace — The North African Example

In the 19th century, precisely 1830, France invaded Algeria. What followed was the invasion of Tunisia in 1881 and Morocco in 1907. Three North African countries were taken by France after bloody wars. A few years later, the Austrian archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated. Austria declared war on Serbia and the first world war started.

The first world war continued and was contained by the interventions of western powers. World War 1 ended, and world peace was restored. Meanwhile, France still controlled North African territories. Moroccans, Algerians, and Tunisians carried on their resistance against the French colonial powers relentlessly. Thousands of resistance fighters were massacred by the French while the world enjoyed what was seen as the restoration of world peace.

The second world war started when Germany invaded Poland in 1939. After the Germans captured France, the western world intervened to rescue the latter. France was liberated. World peace was restored in 1945. The west rejoiced in their victory. Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia were handed back to the French while Germany was stripped from the territories it had seized during the war.

Almost 20 years after world peace was restored for the second time, Algeria finally managed to kick France out of its territories, precisely in 1962. Tunisia and Morocco preceded it in 1956 gaining what was called their independence. However, these North African countries were never dependent on France in the first place which is why I believe the word independence is a bit of a misleading term. These countries liberated themselves from French authorities who invaded their lands exactly as France was liberated from the invasion of Nazi Germany.

The facts above show that world peace as we were taught in history courses is a term that refers only to the peace enjoyed by first-world countries. The end of the two world wars was a celebration of the persistence of western control over the world. In fact, in 1946, a year after world peace was restored, France invaded Vietnam and killed over 6000 Vietnamese civilians in one afternoon. Israel occupied Palestine in 1948. Egypt was invaded by Israeli forces in 1956. The list goes on of war crimes in third-world countries which proves again that world peace was never restored.

In addition to this, the historical period labeled the cold war was brutal. The Soviet Union and the U.S both invaded several countries and caused wars across the globe in small countries like Cuba, Vietnam, Hungary, and Afghanistan. Most of these issues remain unresolved. However, the cold world ended in 1991 and the world was not at war anymore because the western forces were, without any potential competitors, the only ones doing the invasions. Iraq was invaded by British and American forces in the same year the cold war ended. The U.S invasion of Somalia and Haiti followed only in 1993 and 1994. There was no mention of a world war anywhere around the world ever since even after Iraq and Afghanistan were invaded against international law by the United States in 2003 and 2001.

Talks about a potential world war only started recently when Russian forces invaded Ukraine. However, does this invasion threaten the western economy enough for the world to be in crisis? Economists in western Europe and the United States are working so hard to figure out whether this war threatens the economy of their nations. In case it doesn’t, there will be no need to recognize that the world is in a state of crisis. In case it does, the third world war might start and peace will be restored once the western economy is moderately stable.

These facts establish the idea that world peace, as we have known it, is a myth. World peace can perhaps be restored when all countries are subject to international law without meaningless and insulting exceptions. First-world countries keep describing their ongoing illegal military interventions in the Middle East, Asia, and South America as mistakes that shouldn’t be repeated. The truth is that these countries must be punished with sanctions, just like Germany after world war 2, without exceptions for all the destruction they caused since international law was established. Until this happens, world peace is a misconception if not a manufactured first-world myth.