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And in conclusion I would expect that Kosovo will join Albania in the not too distant future. Yes, may Catalonia, Basque Land, Scotland, Northern Ireland, Brittany and I don't how many other places in Europe be free. And there are innumerable places seeking independence outside Europe. Angela Merkel's statement about the acceptance of Kosovo's independence gave me laughing cramps: the course of events can't be taken as a precedent for future nationalistic conflicts (paraphrase). You've just got to love her for turning the U.S. repugnants twisted justification for the Supreme Courts declaration of Mr. G.W. Bush president in 2000 to her own ends. How very clever of her: we ignore existing international law (Kosovo was part of Serbia, after all) but no one else can do so after us, unless, of course, they just happen to want to and can get away with it.
by Quentin on Mon Feb 18th, 2008 at 07:12:27 AM EST
Will she have guts to support Tibetan independence or Sri Lankan Tamils?
by FarEasterner on Mon Feb 18th, 2008 at 07:26:33 AM EST
[ Parent ]
How about Kashmir?

We have met the enemy, and he is us — Pogo
by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Tue Feb 19th, 2008 at 07:09:08 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Yes, may Catalonia, Basque Land, Scotland, Northern Ireland, Brittany and I don't how many other places in Europe be free.

I declare the independence of my back yard!

No, I am serious. That's at the end of that road. No territorial claim is without ambiguous borders.

*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.

by DoDo on Mon Feb 18th, 2008 at 09:08:46 AM EST
[ Parent ]
I take it a step further and declare independence of my neighbours back yard! Then I will enforce a strict migration policy, can't have the neighbour running there all the time.

Sweden's finest (and perhaps only) collaborative, leftist e-newspaper Synapze.se
by A swedish kind of death on Mon Feb 18th, 2008 at 04:51:50 PM EST
[ Parent ]
During the first Spanish Republic the city of Cartagena famously declared itself an independent canton. It lasted for a few months, during which it threatened neighbouring cities with military action for real or imagined grievances.

We have met the enemy, and he is us — Pogo
by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Tue Feb 19th, 2008 at 07:08:31 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Well, why not? You should be allowed to declare the independence of your back yard. The country you secede from should then be allowed to impose duties on all food exported to your back yard and establish toll stations at the entrance to your house.

I suspect that you'd soon see the wisdom of living in a state that has a sustainable size :-P

- Jake

Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.

by JakeS (JangoSierra 'at' gmail 'dot' com) on Tue Feb 19th, 2008 at 04:53:28 PM EST
[ Parent ]
I wish that such an approach was used more, but I guess that where this is not the case (say Russia and Chechnya) the head honchos does not really believe that belonging to their state is a net gain for the secessionist.

But is the right to seceed based on property? What about my neighbours backyard? He only owns it because of the unfair laws of Sweden, while it would be nationalised and usable for all in the glorious new state of Askodonia.

Sweden's finest (and perhaps only) collaborative, leftist e-newspaper Synapze.se

by A swedish kind of death on Wed Feb 20th, 2008 at 08:11:44 AM EST
[ Parent ]
I wish that such an approach was used more, but I guess that where this is not the case (say Russia and Chechnya) the head honchos does not really believe that belonging to their state is a net gain for the secessionist.

Then I ask myself why they presume that they have the right to govern the would-be secessionists in the first place? Is the legitimacy of government not derived from the consent of the governed, after all?

OK, I'll stop smoking pot now and get back to the real world.

But is the right to seceed based on property?

Well, no, of course not. In fact, finding the right way to draw post-secession borders is arguably the big headache. And I don't claim to have an instant solution. On the one hand, there are strong pragmatic arguments against shuffling too much land and property around during a secession. On the other hand, there are strong principled arguments in favour of not permitting people to take unfairly acquired property with them if they wish to secede.

I guess my answer to your question would be that you get to secede your back yard and not your neighbour's because you happen to live in your back yard, and your neighbour does not live in your back yard. Of course, if you imagine for fun and profit that there was a trail through your back yard that had hævd, you'd get into all sorts of hilarious complications - your neighbour would be permitted to demand a corridor through your country which must then be secured against smuggling, etc. (a la Kaliningrad).

I guess what I'm saying is that I support the right of an area to secede if the area is big enough that secession is practical, and I support aggressive intervention to prevent flag-of-convenience countries. The latter really follows from the former: If you allow Bill Gates to secede from the US, then the US should be allowed to make sure that he still pays taxes - otherwise secession would just become a tool for rich tax cheats rather than people who have legitimate grievances with their governments.

- Jake

Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.

by JakeS (JangoSierra 'at' gmail 'dot' com) on Wed Feb 20th, 2008 at 02:07:20 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Kosovo 'tool kit for separatists'

Kosovo's independence has provided a tool kit for secessionist movements in Europe and beyond, Serbian Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic has said. (...)

"By the actions of some European member-states, every would-be ethnic or religious separatist across Europe and around the world has been provided with a tool kit on how to achieve recognition," he said.

"Does anyone in this room think that the Kosovo Albanians are the only group in the world with a grievance against their capital?"
(...)

And he's dead right. Amongst others, Italy's racist-secessionist Northern Leaguers - the immigrant-kicking guys who wear anti-muslim cartoon-teeshirts under their suits and think Italians from north of the Po Valley are "racially" superior to all other Italians 'cause a higher percentage of Germanic genes got forcibly admixed into their gene-pool by Longobard invaders around 560 AD so they should now save taxes and avoid further gene-contamination by breaking off from the rest of the country and setting themselves up as a separate "nation" called "Padania" - are already jumping up and down in glee.  

From a speech made in Italy's parliament today by Northern  League MP Borghezio (my trans):

"[Kosovo's unilateral declaration of independence] is a concrete application of the principle of self-determination of peoples foreseen in the UN Charter", commented the Northern League MP, adding however that he is seriously concerned about "the creation of the first Islamist state in Europe, as already hailed by all the jihadist press,  and the fate of the Orthodox Christian Serbian minority". Nevertheless, he stressed, "it is and remains a legal and political precedent which cannot be denied, a very important precedent for all those who aspire to independence in Europe, from Corsica to Flanders, from Sardinia to Eusaki and to our own Padania, still Nations without a State".

....add Scotland Wales Brittany and Cornwall... add scientologists mormons and moonies.... add Capri, Ischia, Lipari and Lampedusa ... add my backyard and yours.

"Ignoring moralities is always undesirable, but doing so systematically is really worrisome." Mohammed Khatami

by eternalcityblues (parvati_roma aaaat libero.it) on Wed Feb 20th, 2008 at 02:29:12 PM EST
[ Parent ]
I'm not quite sure why we should object? If the crazies want to secede, why should we say anything other than "good riddance!"? Of course, some accord will have to be reached to protect those non-crazies who do not want to secede, just as an accord should have been reached in Kosova to protect those citizens who didn't want to secede.

And of course some measures will have to be taken to prevent people from seceding in order to not have to pay their fair share of taxes. But in the case of land-locked secessionists, that's pretty simple - after all, it's not like they're going to be members of the WTO, so we can trade-war them to bankruptcy if they act as flag-of-convenience countries for rich tax cheats.

- Jake

Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.

by JakeS (JangoSierra 'at' gmail 'dot' com) on Wed Feb 20th, 2008 at 03:16:03 PM EST
[ Parent ]

You mean like we do now for Liechtenstein? Not too convincing...

But a new country is unlikely to be a flag-of-convenience one for rich tax cheats right away. People like this perfer places with a reputation for stability, something you get only after many years of independence.

by gk (gk (gk quattro due due sette @gmail.com)) on Wed Feb 20th, 2008 at 03:54:36 PM EST
[ Parent ]
You mean like we do now for Liechtenstein? Not too convincing...

No, actually I was thinking something more along the lines of what the Israeli are doing to Gaza. Maybe sans the airstrikes, though.

- Jake

Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.

by JakeS (JangoSierra 'at' gmail 'dot' com) on Wed Feb 20th, 2008 at 06:10:22 PM EST
[ Parent ]

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