Several thousand protesters from across the continent turned out today in the European Union capital city of Brussels. Several nations were represented, none of them currently recognized, and all had the same message: secession now.
Officials like to portray secession as a fringe tactic that comes up only in places like Crimea, and then only at the behest of a foreign power hoping to capitalize on it. That’s less and less the case, as secession grows in appeal across Europe.
Scotland aims to separate from Britain, and Catalan hopes to leave Spain. Even Brussels itself is in the midst of a major secession fight, as Flanders hopes to reassert itself as an independent nation, with Brussels as its presumptive capital.
Italy is the king of secessionist movements though, with three distinct major movements going on at once. Venice has already held a referendum on resuming its independence, while Tyrol is mulling a similar division, and Sardinia hopes to go the route of Crimea, ditching Italy in favor of Switzerland.
At the core of all these movements is a single question: is there an inherent right to self-determination, or is secession only acceptable when the major world powers feel it is convenient. It’s an argument that officials are likely to continue to bicker about, but which the secessionist movements see as obvious.
U-S-A is not America, is United States of America, which in reality the states are secessions, independent and ruled by elected governors, the federal government rule is to keep states united creating USA. The other thing for federal government is to collect taxes, which some of the collected taxes are given back to states, otherwise all of the collected taxes could be used for states development, as housing, free universal healthcare, free education, farming industry, industrial developments, the small business programs and other social matters.
Most of the collected taxes, if it was not used by federal government empowering its militarism, in one hand but in the other the poorly managed and functioned federal government social programs actually impoverishing people by the millions, perhaps is time for rich states to start thinking about their taxes paid to federal government demanding to know why federal government is at war with rest of the world.
"… is there an inherent right to self-determination, or is secession only acceptable when the major world powers feel it is convenient…"
The USG constantly says it believes in self-determination, except when it doesn't. The USG most likely doesn't believe in self-determination – just being able to use the phrase to justify some of their actions…but not the actions of those they are in disagreement with at the current time. Go figure. It's obvious that USG does not think the people of the world, the US included, are smart enough to catch the clumsy word misuse.
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The Declaration of Independence: A Transcription
IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
The interesting thing about these regional seccessionist movements is that they don't want to secede from the EU, they just wnat their regions to become full Member States. Obviously, as European integration advances, the regions of the larger Member States and the various ethnic minorities see no reason why they can't be independent Member States in their own right. And of course, they certainly can be and no doubt will be. Ireland did it, Finland did it, the peoples of ex-Yugoslavia did it. So can the rest. The Venice "referendum" was a private internet "vote in" and has been ignored everywhwre but in the American cloudcuckooland. The idea of Sardinai joining Switzerland is funny. It appears that it is in fact a Facebook campaign to have Switzerland buy (sic!) the island from Italy. Given the island's reputation for banditism, I doubt if the canny Swiss will be interested!
The key is — the lack of the advancement in international law. The reason? US unipolar moment was wasted. Instead of taking advantage of the general sense of exaustion in the world following the Cold War — US completely misread the opportunity. Instead of taking a lead in global affairs by pushing for stronger international law, especially in the contradictory arena of territorial integrity vs. rights of people to self determination, US succumbed to neocon Trotskyite ideology of "promoting democracy" via remaking regimes. The ideology is FAILING, but neocons are still in power. US had no dog in fight, and could have insured that the seccessionism is treated as a complex divorce, with the potential for violence, penalty for violence, potential for reconciliation, period of waiting, and if necessary, legal divorce after all the issues have been adjudicated, from property to people's rights. Instead, US has with Kosovo example proven to the world that the force is all that is necessary to split a country, and legal "explanations" follow selecting from the smorgasboard of existing laws and practices. No way to lead. And if we will not, somebody else eventually will.
When the US invaded the Confederacy, it proved for all time that it has no respect for self government.
We are told this is about 'nations' and 'nationalism', but what its really about is 'empire'. During the 17th and 18th centuries all of these European empires were trying to add as much territory as possible. They didn't care if people wanted to be a part of their empire or not.
Now, people are understanding that they are being robbed by the far-away national/empire governments and that they'd be better off on their own.
And, we see in the US that those who want to buy the government much prefer to buy one central government as opposed to many local governments. Thus, the big money in the world likes the idea that these people be forced to stay inside the corrupted 'national' governments.
“And if we will not, somebody else eventually will.”
That is exactly what Putin is doing. Thank God.
Is there an inherent right to self-determination, or is secession only acceptable when the major world powers feel it is convenient?Need to be solved.
As a European, from a poor region (NI) living in a wealthy region (London) there are two principle drivers fuelling secessionism.
1: History and political culture
2: Economics
Each of the regions identified in this article (there are many more) have both a strong sense of regional identity, history and political autonomy and could feasibly support themselves economically. They wish to remain part of the EU to guarantee access to EU markets.
The problem arises when the poorer regions of these countries, currently supported by the wealthier break-away regions are left to rot. Italy without the wealthy north becomes a basket-case. Same applies to Spain.
Personally I have no problem with secessionism but I do fear that many European's may get carried away with themselves. How many independent states can EU structures support? How long before regional rivalries between much more paraochial states erupts into low level conflict, domination etc.
If the break-up of nation states is not managed we will have chaos and history will rhyme (remember it never repeats).