MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency
Unasur to achieve a “South American continent united and in peace by 2020”
Unasur new Secretary General, former Colombian Foreign Affairs minister Maria Emma Mejía is convinced that South America will be a united continent and in peace, in ten years time. Read full article
Comments
Disclaimer & comment rulesUnasur is on the right track, and it has all the resources to succeed as a new world power. No doubt about that.
May 11th, 2011 - 01:41 am - Link - Report abuse 0ha ha ha ha ha ..... made me laugh that! A 'united' South America ...... lol, pigs may fly but a united South America is likely to rarer than grilled pigs wings :-)))
May 11th, 2011 - 03:53 am - Link - Report abuse 0The above comment is from someone who knows nothing about the region, doesn't speak any of South America's main languages, has never read a book about the continent and its history, economics, politics, and so forth.
May 11th, 2011 - 04:07 am - Link - Report abuse 0Yet he feels confident enough as to predict our future. :)
Careful Redhot, you'll wake up the nurse.
May 11th, 2011 - 04:08 am - Link - Report abuse 0The older these Brutons get the more likely to bring up their decadent colonial mentality... “Divide Et Impera”.
You wish, old shit...
ForgeTit - you presume too much.
May 11th, 2011 - 04:49 am - Link - Report abuse 0For a start off, I've got 40 years worth of experience watching Europe and the EU experiment.
Now take a good hard look at the ego-maniacs most of you have got in charge of your countries !
Unity ! Yeah .... right on :-)))
So, by looking at Europe, you can predict South America's future. Way to go, Red hoe, now that's coherence.
May 11th, 2011 - 05:03 am - Link - Report abuse 0And I presume too much.
Forget, what does Brazil have in common with all the spanish speaking nations and what about with the two Anglo-Germanic speaking nations?
May 11th, 2011 - 05:11 am - Link - Report abuse 0The EU is a failure...red is right.
Fido, culturally and economically South American nations have more in common with one another than European countries do. In Europe there's extreme religious, linguistic and cultural diversity. In social development there's also great variability. Extreme cultural differences prevent greater social integration within Europe, while distinct development levels necessarily mean having different interests and needs. That the main European Union countries - Germany, France, the UK and Italy - don't ever get to agree on one single solution to any given issue of importance is probably due to that, to their social and cultural distinctness.
May 11th, 2011 - 06:16 am - Link - Report abuse 0In South America things are much more uniform. I'm not sure about a continent-wide integration project - but a union between Brazil and the Southern Cone countries (Chile, Argentina and Uruguay) could be interesting. They're all Catholic countries, three of them speak the same language whilst Brazil speaks a very closely related one, and they all have similar GDPs per capita (they're all in the 10-15,000 dollars range), which perhaps means that one country will not have to carry a greater burden in sustaining the union and helping its partners develop as has happened in the EU.
I know this all sounds superficial - but superficially at least, a South American union sounds more promising than the European Union.
“ ... In South America things are much more uniform ...”
May 11th, 2011 - 06:26 am - Link - Report abuse 0Yup, they do like uniforms in South America !
“ ... they all have similar GDPs per capita ...”
Now that is what in politics we call 'spin'. You know that Brazil is far and away ahead of the rest, the big boy on the block, but you try to 'average it out' .... are you a politician ForgeTit? You sound like one.
Brazil has higher GDP because it has a far larger population. But total GDP alone cannot be a measure of development - otherwise, Brazil should be considered as more developed than Netherlands, or India, as more developed than Denmark.
May 11th, 2011 - 06:34 am - Link - Report abuse 0GDP per capita is a far more accurate measure of social-economic development. And on this measure Brazil and the Southern Cone countries are indeed very close to one another.
Hmmm -
May 11th, 2011 - 08:31 am - Link - Report abuse 0http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lies,_damned_lies,_and_statistics
From Mexico ..to Patagonia all peoples' languages are same (Latino)
May 11th, 2011 - 09:49 am - Link - Report abuse 0BUT :
From Mexico...to Patagonia each officials' perceptional languages
are not same !!
Redhot is on a stupidity streak...
May 11th, 2011 - 10:27 am - Link - Report abuse 0I think countries in South America could compliment each other far more than they actually do in the present, this is probably what Ms Mejía was referring to.
Argentina and Brazil lead by example, no matter what the local “experts” say. Chile appears to have a self-inflicted policy of isolation in South America, they're irrationally defensive. However they have been making conscious efforts to promote trust and cooperation, especially with Argentina.
History shows that 'empires' fade and disappear, new empires take their place. Ten, twenty years from now South America will be a very different place, for the better. What Unasur has started can't be stopped.
“ ... I think ....”
May 11th, 2011 - 12:00 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Unusual that !
From Mexico ..to Patagonia all peoples' languages are same (Latino)
May 11th, 2011 - 06:11 pm - Link - Report abuse 0BUT :
Yul, it's better if you do more homework about the so called Latino name/language. Stop watching hollywood movies. Even wiki pedia gets it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romance_languages
I think the unifying force will be CFK. Of course her main appeal to male voters is that she will undoubtedly be conducting a tour where she will prove that she can take two at the front, two in the ass, two in the mouth AND she has two hands. And I'll bet she can keep it going for HOURS. And, at the end, be grateful. Since Nestor wasn't up to it! Well known that argentine women are keen on good shafters.
May 11th, 2011 - 06:14 pm - Link - Report abuse 0http://www.thenewamerican.com/world-mainmenu-26/north-america-mainmenu-36/7336-wikileaks-exposes-north-american-integration-plot
May 11th, 2011 - 09:54 pm - Link - Report abuse 0And god knows Unasur will merge with the north and create an American Utopia.
I have hopes the same as Forgetit and Martin for the evolution of Unasur, but I also have to experience of Red, and the pessimism of Fido.
May 12th, 2011 - 12:31 am - Link - Report abuse 0It would be really good to evolve towards a coherent democratic political union across the continent, but first I would like to see trading partnerships working across all bloc members, large and small, richer and poorer. This will show what hope we have for the more ambitious journey.
Geofftard, me pessimistic?
May 12th, 2011 - 03:17 am - Link - Report abuse 0take a good look at your own (whinning, like an old woman with bad teeth) comments and see who is real pessimistic, about Brazil.
You act as if you know it all, but over and over you prove you know nothing about the land nor state where you live. That south american countries work together and leave the past behind is a good thing, but becoming like the EU is will be a failure of all hard work they are doing right now. It was Simon Bolivar's dream, but he failed and by time he understood, a united south america (EU form) is not possible, not then, not today again. To many differences, but there you go again, the elites are pushing for something what the majority of the people have no clue about what they really want. The article what I posted explains it better. We are heading towards a bigger Tower of Babel, what in my opinion must be rejected for our own good.
Fido #19.
May 12th, 2011 - 11:17 am - Link - Report abuse 0You really do seem to agree with me, however hard you try to appear different!
Does it really, really hurt? ;-)
“however hard you try to appear different!”
May 12th, 2011 - 02:52 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Only in your head.
”Does it really, really hurt? ;-)”
It only hurts my heart, if decline my cucumber sandwiches made for you. ;)
Unasur is way too one sided regarding political background, and I don't believe it will withstand the test of time. The moment that states will ciclically come back to vote for non-leftist governments, it will be degraded to a “representatory” movement again (like many other failed ones in the past).
May 12th, 2011 - 03:58 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Martin writes in 13#:
“Chile appears to have a self-inflicted policy of isolation in South America, they're irrationally defensive. However they have been making conscious efforts to promote trust and cooperation, especially with Argentina. ”
What you perceive as “self inflicted isolation” from your point of view, is a result of 2 main conclusions:
1. of a certain dose of justified distrust accumulated during recent regional history. You are right, that relations between Argentina and Chile have improved dramatically to one of the best ever we had. Still there are some points which are still in mind when it comes to forge alliances and reliability, to mention the example of the “gas contract” Chile and Argentina made in the 90ies. Argentina had agreed an extensive contract with Chile to become the major (not to say unique) provider of gas, with obligations on deliveries. Chilean government back then had this euphoric “union thought” you are all talking about, and relied on this agreement. The whole energy structure of Chile was then planned to fit this contract. What happened then? After few years, Argentina failed to comply with this treaty, and started to stop contractually assured delieveries, causing HUGE energy deficits for a long time. It took years for Chile to re-organize the energy infrastructure and matrix.
Other points, which also cause distrust, is the repetitive attitude in Argentina regarding the yet non-delimited territories of the Ice Fields in Patagonia. Both countries agreed in 1998 to mark this region as “non delimited” , but Argentina does instantly publish official maps including the maximum pretension, even after official complaints.
“Unasur to achieve a “South American continent united and in peace by 2020” hell yeah! “2020” haha She's a better comedian than French and Saunders
May 12th, 2011 - 04:17 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Commenting for this story is now closed.
If you have a Facebook account, become a fan and comment on our Facebook Page!