[untitled]
7 comments
I was really troubled and disappointed in the nation of Spain when I heard the sentencing today:
> Spain's Supreme Court has sentenced nine Catalan separatist leaders to between nine and 13 years in prison for sedition over their role in the 2017 independence referendum.
(sedition: "conduct or speech inciting people to rebel against the authority of a state or monarch")
I understand why it is in the interest of governments to punish these things harshly, but I don't think it's right. This is shameful.
> Spain's Supreme Court has sentenced nine Catalan separatist leaders to between nine and 13 years in prison for sedition over their role in the 2017 independence referendum.
(sedition: "conduct or speech inciting people to rebel against the authority of a state or monarch")
I understand why it is in the interest of governments to punish these things harshly, but I don't think it's right. This is shameful.
One of the things that stopped the Quebec referendums from getting even 50% + 1 is that once you bring up separation, there are seemingly endless ways you can subdivide regions. In Quebec you had English-speaking and aboriginal communities that threatened to leave outright or stay with Canada. You are most likely to end up with the tyrant of the (different) majority.
It is not "Earth"'s obligation to have mechanisms to support abstract human societal concepts like governments, countries and secession from them.
Geopolitics, country-scale policies, are a very different ballpark than civil politics, which deal with individual rights and freedoms. Just as civil politics require an individual's rights to be justified with respect to the rights of those around them, policies on an international level are tuned to work with the policies of surrounding nations. If the surrounding nations don't want you to exist, then you won't exist -- you have no obligation to have a country which represents your people. If you want one, you will have to fight to get and retain it's independence, and find ways to work with other countries on the international level to secure your legitimacy.
>What if 90% of the population desires to secede?
Doesn't matter. The only factor is whether or not the surrounding nations will allow your country to exist.
>Should there be a peaceful way that we encourage as an alternative to escalation & violent revolt?
No, because if there was, we wouldn't have a need for countries or borders. Countries generally exist because they represent a certain population. By fracturing a country, you are choosing to support one culture/population at the expense of another. This is an inherently violent act.
>Should this become some sort of right?
No population has a right to a country that represents them or their culture.
Note that none of these reflect my own belief or viewpoint on what the ideal situation would be, I'm just stating this is how the world works and having it suddenly upend itself so that we can all live peacefully and happy-ever-after is not a realistic outcome in the near future.
Geopolitics, country-scale policies, are a very different ballpark than civil politics, which deal with individual rights and freedoms. Just as civil politics require an individual's rights to be justified with respect to the rights of those around them, policies on an international level are tuned to work with the policies of surrounding nations. If the surrounding nations don't want you to exist, then you won't exist -- you have no obligation to have a country which represents your people. If you want one, you will have to fight to get and retain it's independence, and find ways to work with other countries on the international level to secure your legitimacy.
>What if 90% of the population desires to secede?
Doesn't matter. The only factor is whether or not the surrounding nations will allow your country to exist.
>Should there be a peaceful way that we encourage as an alternative to escalation & violent revolt?
No, because if there was, we wouldn't have a need for countries or borders. Countries generally exist because they represent a certain population. By fracturing a country, you are choosing to support one culture/population at the expense of another. This is an inherently violent act.
>Should this become some sort of right?
No population has a right to a country that represents them or their culture.
Note that none of these reflect my own belief or viewpoint on what the ideal situation would be, I'm just stating this is how the world works and having it suddenly upend itself so that we can all live peacefully and happy-ever-after is not a realistic outcome in the near future.
>- Should this become some sort of right?
It is a right under international laws, customs and norms. The same is even codified in Article 1 of the UN Charter.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-determination
It is a right under international laws, customs and norms. The same is even codified in Article 1 of the UN Charter.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-determination
Fortunately we already have it.
Unfortunately, most countries have denied arms to the peaceful in a preemptive move against the most basic of rights: self defense against tyrannical police.
Unfortunately, most countries have denied arms to the peaceful in a preemptive move against the most basic of rights: self defense against tyrannical police.
A Guardian article addressed this in the context of Crimea: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/mar/14/crimea...
But the real difficulty heading into this pivotal weekend for the crisis is more fundamental: the Russian proposal is based on an outdated theory of secession. Once upon a time, the right to secede was analyzed in terms of nationalist, linguistic, ethnic or religious homogeneity. Woodrow Wilson, for example, proposed redrawing the boundary lines in Europe to preserve the integrity of nationalist groups – Poland for the Polish, Serbia for the Serbians, and (now) Crimea for the Crimeans. This was thought to be the best way to promote self-determination and, therefore, democracy. If this is right, then all people living in Crimea should ideally vote to decide what to do. By this logic, the self-determination principle is the central consideration, and other problems – like intimidation – are just practical problems.
Does no one remember the former Yugoslavia? Using principles of self-determination to justify imposing ethnic homogeneity has resulted in genocide and ethnic cleansing. This brand of nationalism carried to its logical conclusion is ugly, plain and simple.
Arguments about ethnicity also overlook the central question: who owns the territory that constitutes Crimea? The answer is unambiguous: the Ukraine does. If people living in Crimea want to be Russian citizens, they can move to Russia – and that’s the right recourse. By voting for annexation to Russia, these would-be Russians are actually trying to take the territory away from Ukraine to give it to Russia. Their objective – and, of course, Russia’s, too – is not just to make these people Russian citizens but to take Ukrainian land, and it cannot be justified by a referendum about the preferences of those who live in Crimea today.
It’s a matter of international law: territory cannot be annexed simply because the people who happen to be living there today want to secede. If that were the case, then under international law, any geographically cohesive group could vote on independence. That would mean the Basques should be free from Spain and France, and the Kurds would have an independent nation; the large community of Cubans living in Miami could vote to separate from the United States.
If a referendum were the right way to decide these issues, Russia ought to be holding a referendum to determine the future of Chechnya. Of course, it isn’t.
International law is unambiguous on how countries should decide the fate of disputed territories like Crimea. Countries can acquire territory by discovering uninhabited land, signing a treaty – as with Khrushchev’s transfer of Crimea to Ukraine in 1954 – or occupying an area peacefully over a long period of time. The legal methods for resolving questions of sovereignty are founded on widely recognized principles of international law. These do not include, and have never included, a simple referendum of people living in a contested territory. That is why every successful secessionist movement has founded its claim on legal entitlement to the territory that they seek to “liberate”. Thus the Baltic states argued that they were illegally conquered by the Soviet Union; Tibet says the same about China; and Eritreans fought for decades to reverse their illegal annexation by Ethiopia.
What makes a secessionist claim successful in the eyes of the international community – indeed, in the eyes of the people fighting for secession – is the existence of a historical grievance over territory. No such legal claim can be made surrounding Crimea.
But the real difficulty heading into this pivotal weekend for the crisis is more fundamental: the Russian proposal is based on an outdated theory of secession. Once upon a time, the right to secede was analyzed in terms of nationalist, linguistic, ethnic or religious homogeneity. Woodrow Wilson, for example, proposed redrawing the boundary lines in Europe to preserve the integrity of nationalist groups – Poland for the Polish, Serbia for the Serbians, and (now) Crimea for the Crimeans. This was thought to be the best way to promote self-determination and, therefore, democracy. If this is right, then all people living in Crimea should ideally vote to decide what to do. By this logic, the self-determination principle is the central consideration, and other problems – like intimidation – are just practical problems.
Does no one remember the former Yugoslavia? Using principles of self-determination to justify imposing ethnic homogeneity has resulted in genocide and ethnic cleansing. This brand of nationalism carried to its logical conclusion is ugly, plain and simple.
Arguments about ethnicity also overlook the central question: who owns the territory that constitutes Crimea? The answer is unambiguous: the Ukraine does. If people living in Crimea want to be Russian citizens, they can move to Russia – and that’s the right recourse. By voting for annexation to Russia, these would-be Russians are actually trying to take the territory away from Ukraine to give it to Russia. Their objective – and, of course, Russia’s, too – is not just to make these people Russian citizens but to take Ukrainian land, and it cannot be justified by a referendum about the preferences of those who live in Crimea today.
It’s a matter of international law: territory cannot be annexed simply because the people who happen to be living there today want to secede. If that were the case, then under international law, any geographically cohesive group could vote on independence. That would mean the Basques should be free from Spain and France, and the Kurds would have an independent nation; the large community of Cubans living in Miami could vote to separate from the United States.
If a referendum were the right way to decide these issues, Russia ought to be holding a referendum to determine the future of Chechnya. Of course, it isn’t.
International law is unambiguous on how countries should decide the fate of disputed territories like Crimea. Countries can acquire territory by discovering uninhabited land, signing a treaty – as with Khrushchev’s transfer of Crimea to Ukraine in 1954 – or occupying an area peacefully over a long period of time. The legal methods for resolving questions of sovereignty are founded on widely recognized principles of international law. These do not include, and have never included, a simple referendum of people living in a contested territory. That is why every successful secessionist movement has founded its claim on legal entitlement to the territory that they seek to “liberate”. Thus the Baltic states argued that they were illegally conquered by the Soviet Union; Tibet says the same about China; and Eritreans fought for decades to reverse their illegal annexation by Ethiopia.
What makes a secessionist claim successful in the eyes of the international community – indeed, in the eyes of the people fighting for secession – is the existence of a historical grievance over territory. No such legal claim can be made surrounding Crimea.
Any population that is unhappy with the government of the territory in which they reside should be able to renounce citizenship toward that government in favor of one more congenial to them without having to move to another country.
However, every government should be required to uphold the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international baselines for good governance.
Yes, this would cause chaos. But that's OK. The world needs more chaos.