I love this map.
Events far away in Kosovo implicate a very practical question: Do we want countries and their borders to be up for grabs every time one of their ethnic minority groups resorts to terrorism? Or do we want, instead, to encourage all nations, even nations that are commited like most will be to remaining an “ethnic state” with a particular majority, to behave justly to all of their people, seeking negotiated solutions where possible? I think these questions answer themselves. And the answers matter not just to Europe but to America too, because we are facing the separatist “reconquista” ideology of Mexican radicals coming to the United States. If Serbia must give up Kosovo, what will Americans say if someday New Mexico or Arizona seek to break off from the United States and become new Hispanic-majority nations aligned with Mexico?
Ethnic and religious minorities are always a bit nervous about their safety and understandably so. Often the best solution if peace cannot otherwise be found is purposeful separation. If the recent breakup of Yugoslavia proves anything, it should prove the dangers of multiculturalism and multinational states. In any ideal world, Yugoslavia would have been dissolved through fair negotiations, population transfers, mutually agreeable drawing up of frontiers, and some form of compensation of displaced people.
But even if one thought every stateless people–Tamils, Palestinians, Kurds–deserved a nation state, the justification for a new state in Kosovo is nonexistent. Albania, the nation, is right next door and offers a suitable homeland to any Albanian that wanted to leave Yugoslavia. Because of these contradictions, the U.S. has resorted to saying that its recognition of Kosovo’s independence will not serve as a precedent because it is “unique.” Unique indeed, because Bush and the Europeans do not want to admit that we have participated in an incredibly dangerous exception to established principles of international law.
* I can’t say enough about the excellent coverage of the Kosovo Crisis over at Svetlana Novko’s Byzantine Sacred Art Blog, where I found the map above. A Serbian living in Canada, Svetlana has excellent sources and coverage from Kosovo and the rest of Serbia.
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Mexicans living in Arizona and New Mexico won’t opt for independence. They will want increased ethnic autonomy & priveleges and more formalized ties to Mexico. But they will not want to give up the economic benefits that come with being a part of the United States.
I think states more likely to secede within 50-60 years would be Minnesota, Wisconsin, etc, as they tire of sending wealth to the increasingly Latin American-style nation to the south of them, and don’t feel as much need for the security provided by the military as they are deep within the continent and are generally ignored by the rest of the world. I think the secession, if it did occur, would framed as creating a new U.S. and leaving a nation that is no longer really America.
I have no principled objection to secession, especially if it is meant to protect the cultural or ethnic integrity of a people under threat. Such threats are not necessarily physical. For instance, English domination of Britain (and formerly Ireland) has led to the near disappearance of the Celtic languages of those isles. Many of the areas cited on your map are similarly threatened by centralized socialist states (France, Spain) or socialist-minded ethnic groups (the Walloons of Belgium).
[...] arguments against Kosovo independence compelling, but one rings rather hollow to me. Chris Roach has a map up showing all the areas of Europe that might decide to secede, suggesting that Kosovo will set a [...]
“Do we want countries and their borders to be up for grabs every time one of their ethnic minority groups resorts to terrorism?”
It was the government of Serbia who behaved as terrorists by launching a campaign of genocide and ethnic cleansing against anyone who didn’t bow before Milosevic. The government also fomented unrest in Kosova by attempting to revoke the autonomy it enjoyed within Yugoslavia. Milosevic believed himself to be some sort of reincarnated Tito, attempted a power grab…and failed. Kosova’s belated declaration of independence is an act of self defense against a nation who would see them all dead.
In regards to Mexico, Kosova is indeed unique. The United States is not currently murdering Mexicans. Should southern Texas decide to reunite with Mexico or try to secede and the United States reacted with genocide, then the U.S. would lose its right to whine to the world community about it because the secession would be necessary to stop the taking of innocent life.
I know how badly you want the genocide and ethnic cleansing Serbia committed to go away, but it will always and forever be part of the equation.
How can you deny ethnic cleansing of Krajina or the burning and destruction of Churches and forced expulsion of Serbs in Kosovo?
Milsovic did not run Serbian area of Bosnia and, unlike Croatia (and Germany), abided by the arms embargo.
I’ve seen with my own eyes pictures of beheaded men and dead women, killed by your illustrious KLA.
The Mexican analogy is apt. We’re not killing Mexicans but, some Mexicans are killing us, just as some Albanian troublemakers started killing Serbian soldiers and cops in 1995 after their thuggish state was wrested back by Serbia after mismangement in 1970s and 1980s. Read about their oppression of Serbs back then and the “Greater Albania” dreams these guys have always harbored.
I don’t defend everything every Serb ever did. Obviously some did some very bad things in the war, but so did Croats, Muslims, and Muslim Albanians. But no one rewarded Serb aggression the way we just stupidly rewarded Albanian aggression by recognizing illegal Albanian Kososvo. Incidentally, Kostunica is no Milosovic, but where did that get the Serbs?
North Ossetia is not secessionist–there is no movement to leave the Russian Federation. To the contrary, as the only primarily Christian republic of the North Caucasus, it is closely tied to Moscow. *South* Ossetia has declared its secesssion from Georgia, and variously seeks independence or union with North Ossetia.
http://www.neo-tech.com/global/appendix3.html
Spotting and Dumping the Criminal Mind
“…Consider Dostoevsky’s analysis of the criminal mind in his masterwork `Crime and Punishment’: The criminal assumption is that one has the right and authority to take or confiscate values earned by others so long as someone else has a need for those values.”
The Criminal Mind is a mode of thinking that lays the responsibility for taking care of oneself onto others. A person with a criminal mind constantly projects that others owe him something — be it money, a job, happiness, love, or anything else of value.
You, and your fellow Serbs pretend that you didn’t do anything wrong:
You didn’t humiliated nobody, you didn’t steal nobody, you didn’t tortured nobody, you didn’t raped nobody, you didn’t kill nobody, you didn’t stab nobody, you didn’t shoot nobody, you didn’t kidnapped nobody, you didn’t took the home of nobody you didn’t took the property of nobody, you didn’t took the land of nobody ….
This is the way a Criminal Mind can think. Even the worse criminal tries to justify his self before committing the crime. The same way you are thinking too.
And if the victim react to protect his self in self defense and hurts you, then you label your prey or victim as an aggressor. What really happen to Croatia?
Along with Slovenia, Croatia declared its independence from Yugoslavia on June 25, 1991, which triggered the Croatian War of Independence. The Serb population living in border areas of Croatia revolted, supported by the Yugoslav army, and the ensuing months saw combat between various Croatian and Serbian armed forces. During this stage of the war, the independence of Croatia was recognized by the international community, while the Serbs proclaimed their own state, the Republic of Serbian Krajina. The Yugoslav army, controlled by Serbia, armed local Serbs turning them from “innocent civilians” to paramilitary forces. With the direct support of the Yugoslav army these Serb paramilitary forces committed unspeakable crimes against local Croats innocent civilians and put them in the ran By 1992, troops were entrenched, and so called Republic of Krajina was cleansed from the Croat population, resulting in hundreds of thousands Croat refugees that were displaced and moved to the Croatian side, and more than 20000 dead. The war ended in 1995, when the Croatian Army successfully launched two major offensives to retake the rebel areas by force, leading to a mass displacement of the hundreds of thousands local Serbs from those areas into Serbia and Republika Srpska. Those local Serbs had completed the metamorphosis from innocent civilians, to paramilitary forces and to professional criminals and terrorist. A peaceful reintegration of the remaining Serbian-controlled territory in the eastern part of the country was completed in 1998 under UN supervision, and 130000 from 250000 displaced Serbs reportedly have returned.