"Western Betrayal" As A Myth
This "preoccupation with their historical sense of 'damaged self' has fueled resentment" towards the west generally and reinforced the western betrayal concept in particular, according to Ilya Prizel. Grigory Yavlinsky argues that damage to central European national psyches left by the Western "betrayal" at Yalta and Munich remained a "psychological event" or "psychiatric issue" during debates over NATO expansion.
At one point Colin Powell has stated that he doesn't think "betrayal is the appropriate word" regarding the Allies' role in the Warsaw Uprising. While complaints of "betrayal" are common in politics generally, the idea of a western betrayal can also be seen as a political scapegoat in both Central and Eastern Europe and a partisan electioneering phrase among the former Western Allies. Historian Athan Theoharis maintains betrayal myths were used in part by those opposing US membership in the United Nations. The word "Yalta" came to stand for the appeasement of world communism and abandonment of freedom.
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Famous quotes containing the words western, betrayal and/or myth:
“Signal smokes, war drums, feathered bonnets against the western sky. New messiahs, young leaders are ready to hurl the finest light cavalry in the world against Fort Stark. In the Kiowa village, the beat of drums echoes in the pulsebeat of the young braves. Fighters under a common banner, old quarrels forgotten, Comanche rides with Arapaho, Apache with Cheyenne. All chant of war. War to drive the white man forever from the red man’s hunting ground.”
—Frank S. Nugent (1908–1965)
“He that has eyes to see and ears to hear may convince himself that no mortal can keep a secret. If his lips are silent, he chatters with his fingertips; betrayal oozes out of him at every pore.”
—Sigmund Freud (1856–1939)
“The poet who speaks out of the deepest instincts of man will be heard. The poet who creates a myth beyond the power of man to realize is gagged at the peril of the group that binds him. He is the true revolutionary: he builds a new world.”
—Babette Deutsch (1895–1982)