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Subject: 
Re: La belle province
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.off-topic.debate
Date: 
Wed, 23 Apr 2003 14:06:01 GMT
Viewed: 
3011 times
  
In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Pedro Silva writes:
In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Larry Pieniazek writes:
Consider yourself lucky you're "stuck" with a country that would probably at
least let you secede without too much of a fight if you ever marshalled the
votes for it. Many people, oppressed far far more than you guys are, are not
that lucky by a long stretch. Consider the Nigerian/Biafran war, consider
the breakup of Yugoslavia, consider Ethiopia/Eritrea.

I noticed the examples you gave were from nations where democracy was
inexistent at the time of the breakup. So I ask: is a democratic nation
immune to separatism?

Not sure what you mean by immune in this context. Some democratic nations
have resisted mightily. The US Civil War was at least partly about
separatism. Other democratic nations have not resisted (Czechoslovakia seems
to have peacefully decided to separate into halves without any major strife
I am aware of).

I mean, not the sociological phenomena in itself,
rather the effective secession of lands.

More: can a democratic nation use repression (in the sense a dictatorship
does) to crush separatism?

I think some *have* but I don't think it's justified.

Under the argument that "a democracy is not
violating the rights of the separatist community", can one State claim that
a nation belonging to it has no real reason to secede, and then proceed to
crush separatist movements as common criminals?

Again, I'm not sure I agree with that as being valid.

The general track record of nations is that they are very hostile to the
notion that people can decide they don't want to belong to the larger part
and form their own government in a smaller part. That's too bad, really. I
tend to support the rights of self determination and feel secession ought to
be allowed.

I agree with your assessment of the historical background, indeed few
nations ever alowed peaceful secessions; what should then be the criteria to
judge the fairness of a plead for secession?

I don't know! What do you think?

But on the other hand, I'm usually not so keen to see countries fracture
along ethnic lines, myself as the formerly oppressed minority that is the
new majority in the smaller part has this nasty habit of turning on the
former majority.

A very valid point indeed (I'm remembering the Baltic States and Russian
communities).
But what if the ethnic community wishing independance is dominant (say,
95%), and presents no real threat to the "leftover of the former majority"?
To be precise, on what kind of information would you base your stance
regarding a nation like Catalonia, for instance?
And what if the State has promoted "colonization" of the secceding nation to
the point of supplanting the natives? In this case, please consider the
example of Euskadi/Basque country as a possible case-study.

Can you give some english links to more information on that situation? I
only peripherally know what's up with it.

If Quebec got its way, what would you do to ensure the rights of the new
English speaking minority? From what I hear it's not very pleasant to be an
English speaker in Quebec (relatively speaking, mind you... I haven't heard
of any ethnic cleansing, thank goodness) as it is.

Then the English-speaking Quebecans would seccede themselves... ;-)

This is the classic separatist problem and one that the LP (which is pro
separatism) has not come to grips with... what if they are interspersed? If
the neighborhoods are intermingled? Do we want to force ghettoization? Can a
nation be non territorial? Can two or more nations coexist in the same
territory, each with their own citizens?



Message has 2 Replies:
  Re: La belle province
 
(...) True, but the US was hardly even partly democratic at the time (except on paper)! Dave! (22 years ago, 23-Apr-03, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
  Re: La belle province
 
(...) Well, in a democracy the people get to self-determine already - so one can argue about the use of having two states in similar circumstances taking similar decisions, when this only works to double institutions. The more states there are, the (...) (22 years ago, 23-Apr-03, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)

Message is in Reply To:
  Re: La belle province
 
(...) I noticed the examples you gave were from nations where democracy was inexistent at the time of the breakup. So I ask: is a democratic nation immune to separatism? I mean, not the sociological phenomena in itself, rather the effective (...) (22 years ago, 23-Apr-03, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)

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