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"Self Determination."

PaulMB

PaulMB

pfm Member
Self Determination of "nations", "peoples" and ethnic groups is one of those wonderful principles that one cannot but agree with, in theory. It was sort of applied after WWI with disastrous results, but then results might have been equally disastrous if other frontiers had been drawn.

But where does one draw the line? The Basques, Sardinia, the South Tyrol/Alto Adige, Wales, Catalonia?

I'm reminded of "Passport to Pimlico," or to take the principle to its logical extreme, that I and my family living on a farm in Yorkshire could declare ourselves independent from the UK. There is, actually, a town somewhere in northern Italy that claims to be a kingdom and coins its own money, although nobody seems to notice much.
 
"Self Determination of "nations", "peoples" and ethnic groups is one of those wonderful principles that one cannot but agree with"... its all fine until you realise its all made up...

There are no real nations, people and national groups. Most categories are artificial. We use the idea of categories to help in describing and separating groups or sets of objects and living things. It becomes dangerous when humans believe these groups and categories are real and fixed.

You could make groups of distinct people in various ways, all people with red hair, all people with moustaches all people who like one direction, all people born in a certain area at a certain time.

The only good reason for local governments is practicality in certain decision making issues where local knowledge is key.
 
But surely Basques speak Basque, Scots and the Welsh speak whatever they speak, Italians speak Italian while the majority in Alto Adige speaks German. Russians speal Russian and are prevalently of Russian Orthodox religion, while the Poles are Catholics and speak polish. Not to mention being ruled in the past by different kings and queens and sharing a social and political history. How can you say all this is artificial?
 
PaulMB said:
But surely Basques speak Basque, Scots and the Welsh speak whatever they speak, Italians speak Italian while the majority in Alto Adige speaks German. Russians speal Russian and are prevalently of Russian Orthodox religion, while the Poles are Catholics and speak polish. Not to mention being ruled in the past by different kings and queens and sharing a social and political history. How can you say all this is artificial?
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How about Belgium? Switzerland?

Half of Europe have at some point in history been ruled by at least Romans, Swedes, French and Spanish. Does that make them some sort of self determined units?
 
PaulMB said:
How can you say all this is artificial?
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In the sense that these National and Regional identities are Human constructs, they are artifice. This attitude was nailed for me over 30 years ago when a couple commented that the town I lived in wasn't the same anymore as lots of people have come in from outside. As an outsider myself, I saw that as a positive thing but for them it was profoundly negative. I got the feeling they would have been happier with City States with limited mobility between them.
 
PaulMB said:
But surely Basques speak Basque, Scots and the Welsh speak whatever they speak, Italians speak Italian while the majority in Alto Adige speaks German. Russians speal Russian and are prevalently of Russian Orthodox religion, while the Poles are Catholics and speak polish. Not to mention being ruled in the past by different kings and queens and sharing a social and political history. How can you say all this is artificial?
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Actually, Italians don't all speak Italian (try saying that to a typical Sardinian for example)... Italy is a very recently unified country, and it's languages pre-date this. They are many local languages which are collectively called 'dialects' but this is misleading, as they aren't variations of the same language (more commonly based on latin, but having gone their own way 2,000 years, affected by trading with different other countries).

What we think of as Italian is actually one regional language, well, actually it's a dialect of Tuscan. So it's more nuanced than that.

I'd have expected the picture in other countries to be similar. Remember, French was the court language in the UK for many hundreds of years, with English being just some language spoken by the proles ;-)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_Italy
 
Cesare said:
Actually, Italians don't all speak Italian (try saying that to a typical Sardinian for example)... Italy is a very recently unified country, and it's languages pre-date this. They are many local languages which are collectively called 'dialects' but this is misleading, as they aren't variations of the same language (more commonly based on latin, but having gone their own way 2,000 years, affected by trading with different other countries).

What we think of as Italian is actually one regional language, well, actually it's a dialect of Tuscan. So it's more nuanced than that.

I'd have expected the picture in other countries to be similar. Remember, French was the court language in the UK for many hundreds of years, with English being just some language spoken by the proles ;-)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_Italy
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Interesting stuff, thanks
 
Even the Netherlands has Friesland (Fryslân), now a province but in the past an independent region. Frisian is a separate language, related to Old English, not a dialect of Dutch.
 
PaulMB said:
But surely Basques speak Basque, Scots and the Welsh speak whatever they speak, Italians speak Italian while the majority in Alto Adige speaks German. Russians speal Russian and are prevalently of Russian Orthodox religion, while the Poles are Catholics and speak polish. Not to mention being ruled in the past by different kings and queens and sharing a social and political history. How can you say all this is artificial?
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People may speak what they wish, but this is no go reason to separate people. In many cases people hold onto languages as some kind of identity, but its often purely artificial, if they were born else where they would speak something totally different.
 
The principle of self-determination most often relates to those indigenous to a recognised country who are disenfranchised by not having a vote or whose vote is ignored by a totalitarian regime. Regional communities of interest within a country or countries are not normally described in the same way.
 
Cav said:
The principle of self-determination most often relates to those indigenous to a recognised country who are disenfranchised by not having a vote or whose vote is ignored by a totalitarian regime. Regional communities of interest within a country or countries are not normally described in the same way.
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OK, but that would rule out Basques, Scots, South Tyrol, Sardinia, Wales, since they all get to vote and are not victimized by a totalitarian regime. They simply see themselves as a historical and/or linguistic and/or cultural entity. Even the Ukraine, which was part of the Russian Empire and was only independent for about half an hour in twelve hundred and something.

What I'm trying to get at, is where do you draw the line.
 
Didn't quite work for that bloke in Oz, I think he's just been slapped with a massive tax bill after declaring independence and setting up his own currency.
 
Cesare said:
What we think of as Italian is actually one regional language, well, actually it's a dialect of Tuscan. So it's more nuanced than that.

I'd have expected the picture in other countries to be similar. Remember, French was the court language in the UK for many hundreds of years
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I would have once expected so, too, but I know that modern French is very homogeneous. There are accents, of course, but there are few dialects. English in comparison has hundreds of dialects and accents that can change from one side of town to the next. My ear is good enough to detect accents in French, admittedly not to the same degree that I can in English, but I am aware that while there is a generic southern French accent (and others) there isn't the degree of variation that you see in England.
 
The result of central government forcing standard French since at least Napoleon. France is also a fairly recent construction.
 
Hardly recent. From what I remember from history books, it gradually came together during the Middle Ages and was consolidated as it is today under Louis XIV (1638 - 1715). "England" is about the same age, but Scotland was only added on in 1603 or 1707, depending on how you look at it.
 
PaulMB said:
Hardly recent. From what I remember from history books, it gradually came together during the Middle Ages and was consolidated as it is today under Louis XIV (1638 - 1715). "England" is about the same age, but Scotland was only added on in 1603 or 1707, depending on how you look at it.
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England has had more or less the current boundaries in Britain since William I, only losing the French territory. Wales was added fairly soon after.

Germany is another very recent construct.
 
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