Students gather as they demonstrate against the position of the Spanish government

Politics

Secesión: el quién, el dónde y el cuándo

Sep 29, 2017 Joseph S. Nye, Jr.

CAMBRIDGE – Esta semana, una aplastante mayoría de los kurdos del norte de Irak votaron por la independencia del Kurdistán iraquí. Hay unos treinta millones de kurdos repartidos entre cuatro estados (Irak, Turquía, Siria, Irán), y los nacionalistas sostienen que merecen el reconocimiento del mundo. En España, unos 7,5 millones de catalanes hicieron el mismo planteo.

¿Importa que las encuestas muestren que los catalanes (a diferencia de los kurdos) están divididos a partes casi iguales en torno de la cuestión? ¿Importa que los estados vecinos del Kurdistán iraquí tal vez resistan la secesión con la fuerza?

El principio de autodeterminación nacional entró a la agenda mundial en 1918 a instancias del presidente estadounidense Woodrow Wilson, y suele definirse como el derecho de los pueblos a formar un Estado propio. Pero ¿quién es el sujeto que se “autodetermina”?

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0 Comments on this paragraph, 16 Comments on this article

Vladimir Struk Oct 28, 2017

Unfortunately, the statement is not completely right. Croats had fought 5 year war for independence against the yugoslav (Serb) army, and Muslims in Bosnia and Herzegovina were not subjected to a campaign of etnic cleansing by Croatian forces. In Srebrenica Muslims were mass murdered by bosnian Serbs and their comander Ratko Mladic and liberating the city of Bihac Croatian forces prevented another Srebrenica. There is no doubt that Croats did fight against Muslims also but the statement about participating in ethnic cleansing is not correct.
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Manas RS Oct 8, 2017

There is also the question of WHAT FORM the new state will take. Pakistan was demanded by rioting, consolidated by ethnic cleansing of non-Muslims and is an Islamic State now, whose army's official doctrine is jihad against non-Muslims.
Where as capture of Tibet by Maoist led to destruction of their culture and wholesale murder of Tibetan monk leadership.
India's Kashmir Valley's Sunni Muslim leaders seeking freedom from India are against democracy, as it is not Sharia compliant. Already they have carried out ethnic cleansing of minorities to establish an Islamic state which can be merged with Pakistan
Liberals should stand for liberal and humanist principles. Political freedom should not be against individual freedom and dignity.
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Mauricio Duran-Loriga Oct 8, 2017

Self-determination is for colonies. It does not apply to Catalonia, a region that has never in its history been independent. Never ever. Before current Spain was formed, Catalonia was a province belonging to the Kingdom of Aragon, whose capital was Zaragoza.

Truly, there is no such thing as a Catalonian ethnic identity. The purity of the Catalonian race is a joke of Gargantuan proportions. The Catalonian territories have been invaded over History by North Africans, Romans, Barbarians, Musulmans, French...

There is a catch here. The region declared the Catalonian Republic in 1934. At a time were the big nationwide political parties were extremely weak, unable to form solid majorities. As it is the case now,

In essence, the Catalonian political elite is like a parasitical bug waiting to assault its carrier at the exact moment of the greater weakness of the latter.

So Spain will have to chose now between crushing (and humiliating) the parasite, which will generate greater hatred in the societty and likely triggering a civil war in the coming decades, or creating a specific environment for the long term in which the parasite will not have the tools to deploy its toxicity.

Either way, the Catalonian society is in to serve a prolonged term of deep frustration.

In the 5 days that have followed the vote, all major Catalonian businesses have left the region and transferred their headquarters elsewhere in Spain. The Catalonian GDP has sunk deeper than the Titanic, faster than the Concorde.

Independence with no income sounds pretty much as a non-starter.
It has been a botched job from A to Z.
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Brasukra Sudjana Oct 3, 2017

Great and timely article. It's about time someone challenges the notion of national self-determination as today too easily invoked by referenda. This issue goes directly into the broader issues of national identity and the limits of nations. The ethnic-based nations and nationalities as rolled out in Europe in the 17th-20th centuries hardly proved feasible outside of Europe, nor in a heterogeneous 21st century countries. The example of South Sudan, as described by Prof. Nye, also shows that once self-determination is accepted for certain people, it is difficult to know where to stop. Should South Sudan then hold another referendum to create separate Dinka, Murle, and Nuer republics? What are the minimum limits/criteria for a nation to be created and sustained based on (conflicting) identities?

As it turned out there are other bases of identities as foundations for nations - race (Japan), religion (Iran, Pakistan), profession (the Vatican), ruling clan (Saudi Arabia), and territorial legacy (ie. post-colonial Americas, Africa, and Asia). However, the most important element of nations and nationhood is shared history. This is why post-colonial countries choose to retain their colonial borders despite the lack of clear ethnic boundaries. It is also a compromise. An ethnic-based country would be difficult to sustain in the face of hundreds of years of cross-migration in the wider region, even before the arrival of the colonists.

Another argument against self determination and referenda is that there are alternative (legal) principles that can be used to determine the position of a people or territory within a country or a region. The principle of successor state is one example. By this definition, a successor state (usually a newly independent post-colonial state or territory) should receive and retain both the liability and the assets of the preceding state (a colony or a territory formerly belonging to home state). This could mean carrying forward the same territorial boundaries, as well as the debts of the former state/territory. There are other legal principles at play, too, as the Spanish state invoked. Unitary states, as opposed to federations, are built on the view that the state began as one indivisible unity, making self determination all but impossible. But, even federations are loathed to lose territories or groups of people.

But, within nations there are different solutions to questions of self determination, many of which may not need referenda, but requires understanding of the specific case-by-case contexts. In my own country, Indonesia, three different separatist movements were resolved differently. First, in 1998 East Timor was finally allowed a referendum and voted out of Indonesia. Although the two countries share an island (West Timor is Indonesian), they never shared a common colonial history - East Timor was colonised by Portugal, Indonesia by the Dutch. Second, in Aceh (in the western tip of Sumatra), the separatist movement and the Indonesian government agreed to a cease fire, a peace agreement, and an expanded autonomy, after the 2004 tsunami. As the biggest tsunami in history already caused widespread fatalities, both sides, fortunately, realised that carrying on a war in a disaster zone would have been inhumane to the people of Aceh. I need not say how this would be impossible to replicate in other cases elsewhere, not least because I wish no other place should have to suffer from such a huge natural disaster. Finally, the Indonesian provinces of Papua and West Papua (not to be confused with Papua New Guinea), with their own separatist movement (still occasionally active until now), were also given an expanded autonomy, with greater shares of oil and gas revenues. It would be pretentious for me to say all three cases were a success. There are still disagreements between Aceh and Papua and the national government. And East Timor referendum was, unfortunately, followed by a brief but deadly wave of violence.

But, these three cases underlined my above propositions: that there are alternatives to both self determination and referenda; and that each case should be resolved on its own merit based on their specific contexts. I suspect there is still room for Catalonia to negotiate some kind of an expanded autonomy within the Spanish state.
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Mervin Eyler Oct 2, 2017

Sir, the logic applied in your opinion piece sounds more like an apology for the status quo - so that the more/most powerful of a nation's ethnic groups can rule or that a neo-colonial power can benefit from its dominant position - than an even-handed treatise on the topic.
Who benefitted from not allowing the newly independent nations of Africa reshape themselves in the 1960s? It certainly did not prevent violence in them.
'First, do no harm.' But what if the region that wishes to secede is being harmed - having its culture oppressed or even extinguished? If an ethnic group is being repressed by it's government, has it no option but to suffer its consequences because the option of independence/more autonomy is inconvenient for the rest of the nation and/or a (more powerful) part of the international community?
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Morten Lynge Oct 2, 2017

If Rajoy want to preserve Spain, the brutality of his police against generally peaceful protesters won't help much...

Consider the truth in this, and where it fits Spain now...
"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win."
- Mahatma Ghandi
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Jesutimilehin Akamo Oct 2, 2017

This is a well informed critical view. Secession, in the prevailing global order, seem to have led to more harm than good.

The Biafran agitators in Nigeria have a lot to learn. The possible political and economic outcomes are not considered.

There is a yoruba saying that goes thus, "orí bíbé ko lògun orí fífó". This means, the cutting of of the head is not the medicine to headache. This applies to other parts of the body.

Why self determination?
Does secession solve the problem at hand?
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j. von Hettlingen Oct 1, 2017

Joseph S. Nye points out the hurdles that secessionists face when they contemplate breaking away from a country they once called their own, and declaring independence. "National self-determination" is nothing new - a principle that US President Woodrow Wilson launched in his 1918 international agenda, defining "the right of a people to form its own state."
But the author asks how much is the “self” that decides secessionists' destiny? As a principle, the idea of political self-determination evolved initially as a by-product of of nationalism. A group of people shares the same history, culture and identity, possesses a certain degree of national consciousness that urges them to form their own state and choose their own government. After World War I the Allies accepted self-determination as an aim to achieve and ensure peace. In his Fourteen Points - the essential terms for peace - Wilson listed self-determination as an important objective for the new world order following the breakup of the old Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman empires and Russia’s former Baltic territories into a number of new states.
After World War II when the UN was founded in 1945, some 750 million people - almost a third of the world's population - lived in territories that had been governed by colonial powers. The world body oversaw the decolonisation process, by promoting self-determination among subject peoples. The UN’s predecessor, the League of Nations, had also recognised this principle. In 1919 at the Paris Peace Conference Wilson urged leaders from France, Britain and Italy to come together with their counterparts from other nations to draft a convenant that would help countries to mediate conflicts before they went to war.
But it was in the UN that the idea of national self-determination received its assertion and affirmation.The UN Charter clarifies two meanings of the term self-determination. First, a state is said to have the right of self-determination in the sense of having the right to choose freely its political, economic, social, and cultural systems. Second, the right to self-determination is defined as the right of a people to constitute itself in a state or otherwise freely determine the form of its association with an existing state. With respect to dependent territories, the charter asserts that administering authorities should assume responsibilities for the administration of territories and ensure the political, economic, social and educational advancement; promote the development of self-government; and guarantee the well-being of the inhabitants of these territories.
The author says, "voting does not always solve problems of self-determination." There is the question of who votes, when and where. The voting party must justify its cause. A wrong timing could jeopardise the whole enterprise, and the venue could cast doubt on the legitimacy of the vote, that sometimes requires outside mediation to arbitrate the dispute.
History is littered with ethnic conflicts that had gone terribly wrong, and maps had been redrawn, as new nation states were built. History has also taught the world a lesson that "less than 10% of the world’s states are homogeneous, treating self-determination as a primary rather than secondary moral principle could have disastrous consequences in many parts of the world."
In general when ethnic groups can't coexist, "a degree of autonomy in the determination of internal affairs" should be granted. "Where autonomy is not enough, it may be possible to arrange an amicable divorce." As a result of irreparable differences nine new countries - South Sudan, Kosovo, Serbia and Montenegro, East Timor, Palau, Eritrea, the Czech Republic and Slovakia - had been founded in the last 25 years. There has been no easy path to statehood.
Of the nine states above, four - South Sudan, Kosovo, East Timor and Eritrea - were formed as a direct result of civil war. Five - Kosovo, Montenegro, Serbiy, the Czech Republic and Slovakia - were the result of the collapse of communism in Europe. A number remain troubled states: Eritrea has been dubbed the “North Korea of Africa.” The Swiss and Belgian examples show that "considerable cultural, economic, and political autonomy to their constitutive groups" help maintain social and political stability.
The author points out that "absolute demands for self-determination are more likely to become a source of violence, which is why they must be handled extremely carefully. Before invoking self-determination as a moral principle, one must heed the diplomatic version of the Hippocratic Oath: Primum non nocere (first, do no harm)." He says an "amicable divorce" is still possible in a world governed by self-interests - the breakup of the former Czechoslovakia into two neighbouring countries - the Czech Republic and Slovakia - that coexist peacefully.
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John Rawlins Oct 1, 2017

It is difficult to understand how various Spanish governments have failed de-centralise over the past four decades. Why are all of the national government departments, offices, and agencies based in Madrid - even the Navy? Much of the energy behind the centrifugal forces of nationalism would be lessened if (for example) the national broadcasting service was moved to Valencia, the ministry of defence was moved to Barcelona, the Bank of Spain was moved to Seville, and so on.
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Michael Griffin Oct 1, 2017

To what extent could you simplify this by eliminating cases where "self-determination" was a fig leaf for a desire to conquer or otherwise assume control? For example, to my knowledge, the Kenyan and Ethiopian Somalis weren't being offered independence, just a change in far-away overlords; the people of Somaliland, on the other hand, are seeking actual independence.
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P. Kamath Oct 1, 2017

I wonder if Han Chinese would ever sit and listen to these "silly" arguments with Tibetans about separation Vs Union. I am sure bayonets and tanks that crush the skulls of separatists would win the debate.
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Steve Hurst Sep 29, 2017

All a bit rich coming from somebody from a country that demanded independence in the 18th century. As far as Catalonia goes there is little against a referendum other than the rest of Spain and a Pm who has threatened from the start to use an army to coral indie voters
- Andrew (Andy) Crow Oct 2, 2017
  
  If there is no European court in which to adjudicate the case against the Spanish Government the EU is truly a flawed institution.
  
  Scenes in Catalunya today have been reminiscent of fascist, brownshirts/blackshirts of the 1930s. I thought we were done with this sort of nonsense, but apparently we are to revisit it.
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Ted Peters Sep 29, 2017

All human beings suffer to varying degrees from separation anxiety. We begin life without a self and struggle to form one in the context of our absolute dependence for everything on our mothers. If there are psychological traumas during this early stage of life, these anxieties are repressed in our unconscious mind and continue to influence our mental/emotional processes as adults. Political secession movements are merely reflective of our collective unconscious conflicts. This is why they persist eternally and are unresolvable.
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