Look Around at the De Facto States by "Stealth"

Henry Srebrnik, [Charlottetown, PEI] Guardian

Students of political science are aware of the term de facto states. These are places that have declared themselves independent countries, usually through secession from existing states.

A number of such polities immediately comes to mind: Abkhazia, Somaliland, South Ossetia, Transnistria, and the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, among others.

They satisfy the standard criteria for statehood set out by the Montevideo Convention of 1933: a permanent population, a defined territory, and a government that can discharge international obligations and enter into relations with other states.

Yet, for various reasons, they have not been accorded diplomatic recognition by most countries in the international community.

There are also a number of jurisdictions that are, to all intents and purposes, almost as independent, but for one reason or another, prefer not to make that position explicit and do not seek diplomatic recognition – at least not now. They are, so to speak, virtual states within larger countries. Canadians are already familiar with one: Quebec. This province has all the attributes of nationhood: a national assembly, a flag, defined borders, taxation capacity, and a major measure of control over culture, language, immigration, pensions, and many other areas of governance.

Quebec even has a presence in international bodies such as UNESCO and la Francophonie, the organization of French-speaking countries.

Though the Meech Lake and Charlottetown Accords failed to insert this “distinct society” status into the Constitution, even Liberal premiers of the province act as though Quebec is, to a large degree, sovereign. Indeed, the federal government has recognized the Québécois as a nation.

So why bother to separate?

The same status holds true for Canada’s aboriginal peoples. First Nation reserves have their own rules, traditions, and police forces. They also benefit from fiscal privileges granted to reserve residents.

Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedom does not apply to them. Section 25 states: “The guarantee in this Charter of certain rights and freedoms shall not be construed so as to abrogate or derogate from any aboriginal treaty or other rights or freedoms that pertain to the aboriginal people of Canada.”

And Section 35 (1) of the Constitution makes it clear that “The existing aboriginal and treaty rights of the aboriginal peoples of Canada are hereby recognized and affirmed.”

The Mohawk Council of Kahnawake, near Montreal, for that reason is able to evict non-Mohawks from the reserve. It is in effect a de facto polity.

There are other such entities in the world, including Tatarstan in the Russian Federation, and Flanders and Wallonia in Belgium.

The Russian Federation, successor state to much of the old Soviet Union, includes, apart from the ordinary administrative subdivisions known as provinces, 21 ethnic republics, which have inherited special rights. They maintain state symbols such as constitutions, flags, and national anthems and have the power to determine their own political institutions.

Two Muslim-majority republics, Chechnya and Tatarstan, in particular have asserted their right to full sovereignty following the dissolution of the USSR. But while the Chechens became embroiled in war with Moscow, the Tatarstan leadership gained much of what they desired without open conflict.

Oil-rich and heavily industrialized, Tatarstan in the 1990s worked out an arrangement with Moscow, formalized by treaty, in which the 3.8 million inhabitants of the republic were acknowledged as having a “special relationship” with the federal government.

“The Republic of Tatarstan,” states its constitution, “is a democratic constitutional State associated with the Russian Federation by the Constitution of the Russian Federation, the Constitution of the Republic of Tatarstan and the Treaty between the Russian Federation and the Republic of Tatarstan.”

Tatarstan’s government considers this to have been a recognition by Russia of the republic’s sovereignty in cultural and economic spheres. The official language is Tatar, though Russian is also in use.

Belgium today is largely a fiction. It really consists of two separate unilingual entities, Dutch-speaking Flanders, with six million people, and French-speaking Wallonia, comprising 3.4 million. (There is also a small German-language zone.)

The national capital, Brussels, with more than one million people, is a francophone-majority enclave within the Flemish zone.

Most political power has since the 1970s devolved to the autonomous language communities, while the central government has been almost completely “emptied” of any meaningful political power.

The Flemings and Walloons have their own identities, flags, and assemblies. Not only matters such as education and culture, but even competencies related to territory, such as economic policy, environmental concerns, public works, housing and agriculture, are now in the hands of the linguistic regions.

So Belgium no longer has any national parties: even those that operate across linguistic divisions in both parts of the country – the Christian Democrats, Liberals, and Socialists -- function as separate unilingual Dutch or French-language organizations.

Brussels may be the headquarters of the European Union, but it’s no longer really the capital of Belgium – a state that has effectively ceased to exist. So there is no need for an acrimonious breakup.

Sovereignty, in a globalized and interdependent world, is clearly no longer an all-or-nothing proposition. Quebec, many Canadian reserves, Tatarstan, Flanders, and Wallonia are, to coin a term, de facto states by stealth.