In 2017, Nationalism is Considered Illegitimate

By Henry Srebrnik, [Saint John, NB] Telegraph-Journal

Though we like to think the world is becoming ever more integrated and “globalized,” the desire for “a state of one’s own” remains strong among many ethnic groups.

We have seen this with the recent referenda in Iraqi Kurdistan and Catalonia in Spain.

In both cases, the respective governments in Baghdad and Madrid were strenuously opposed to these, and the international community concurred. 

It seems that the territorial integrity of states has trumped the desire for self-determination on the part of ethnic, religious and linguistic communities, including those that were historically separate from those polities.

The Kurds of Iraq and the Catalans in Spain already enjoyed autonomy, controlling their own police, education, health care, schools, parliament and media.

Nevertheless, in both cases, their regional governments decided to hold referenda on full sovereignty, scheduled for Sept. 25 in the Kurdish case, and Oct. 1 in Catalonia. 

The referendum in the Kurdish region went ahead, since the Iraqi state had no control over the area, and its people voted massively to create an independent state.

But not only did the Baghdad regime refuse to recognize the vote, neither did neighbouring Iran, Syria and Turkey. They have all promised to reverse the decision.

In the Catalan case, the government in Madrid, backed by the European Union, did all within in its power to disrupt the scheduled Oct. 1 vote.

Thousands of riot police were sent to the region, and ordinary men and women were dragged from the polls by helmeted police. In this case, too, a majority of those voting supported an independent republic, though the Madrid government insists the vote itself was illegitimate.

Catalans and Kurds have their own histories, cultures, and languages. Until 1714 Catalonia was a self-governing polity within the Spanish Empire of the day, while the Kurds were promised a state after the First World War, but instead ended up under the rule of Arabs, Persians, and Turks. 

In both these cases, Ottawa and Washington oppose the formation of a new polity. But why have they, reflexively, come to oppose self-determination anywhere and everywhere? 

Spain and Portugal were one country for almost sixty years, until 1640, when the Portuguese regained their independence. The Portuguese are as similar, in terms of language, culture, and religion, to Spaniards, as today’s Catalans are.

Until 1922, Ireland was an integral part of the United Kingdom, and by that time all its inhabitants had the same legal and political equality as people in the rest of the British state.

So, had Portugal remained part of Spain, and Ireland part of the UK, would they be denied independence today, should their people have now wished it? 

Here’s another, perhaps more hypothetical, case: In the 18^th century Poland was partitioned by its Austrian, Prussian and Russian neighbours and disappeared from the map of Europe.

This remained the case until after the First World War, when the three empires disintegrated, and Poland was reconstituted as a state.

But what if the war had never happened, and those multinational states had evolved into liberal democracies? 

In that case, the Poles might have ended up as minorities in all three, but with full individual rights and freedoms. 

Would their desire to once again live in a free country of their own then be seen as something disruptive of the political order in Europe? No doubt Austria, Germany and Russia would have claimed as much, and many would agree.

But why can self-defined collectivities no longer form independent states if they want them? Does it all this simply come down to timing? As if the right to self-determination by nations ended arbitrarily at some point in the mid twentieth century?

For today’s liberal multiculturalists, the answer to separatism is a definitive no – it is something to be avoided, except in the most extreme cases of massive violence. 

They maintain that if people have democratic rights and personal freedoms, as individuals, there is no justification for collective ethnic nationalism -- now deemed atavistic and dangerous. 

They regard as illegitimate states which are founded on the basis of ethnic or religious nationhood, as opposed to the civic-territorial model found in present-day Canada or the United States. 

They have come to define nationalism itself as a variant of racist intolerance, indeed a political pathology that leads inexorably to the narrowest of so-called “tribalism.”

The New York Times correspondent based in Madrid, Raphael Minder, reflects this view perfectly. 

In a Sept. 30 article on the Catalan crisis, he blamed politicians for “awakening the demons of nationalism rather than solving more pressing issues,” as if national identity was something conjured up by unscrupulous troublemakers. 

This stance is both anti-democratic and ridiculous. Fortunately for the Irish, Poles, and Portuguese, they beat that liberal “deadline,” but it appears the Catalans and Kurds have not.