Forced Peace

In a reading for Law and Regulations, Charles Tilly affirms that capital creates cities, while coercion creates states. The emergence of a state or a city is said to be inevitable. Because humanity by nature is skeptical of trusting. Family, allies for generations expand territorial boundaries thus creating a city or a state, for the sole purpose of protection. Protecting the capital, the individual.

Stumbling on Lester B. Pearson's quote carved on the United Nations Peacekeeping Monument yesterday was by coincidence. It is no surprise, that Pearson's use of the word 'force' twice in the same statement conjured the notion of coercion subconsciously in the back of my head. Peace acquired through a legitimate force seems contradictory to me. What does 'legitimate force' even mean? Who pronounces its legitimacy? Yet it echoes Tilly's premise for a state and city, centering the notion of protection.

Somehow, the notion of peace weighted in as justification for force left a bitter after taste on my tongue....ironic, to say, this is my skepticism speaking.

Think Afghanistan.
Or what could have happened if the Suez Crisis went the other way.