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Huffington Post
March 8 2014
Pariotic Taurine Excreta
By Ian Williams
Vladimir Putin's actions in Crimea are perilously close to tearing up
rules that have kept us "the peoples of the world from the scourge of
war."
Both sides in the conflict will be invoking the United Nations
Charter, which enshrines the inviolability of sovereign states and
their borders -- unlike the League of Nations, which was surprisingly
active at redrawing borders after Versailles. The root of the problem
is the weird West European notion of the nation state -- a Procrustean
construct in which populations had to be cut or stretched to fit
homogeneously into a frame predetermined by nationalist ideologues.
The French probably invented it -- at a time when more than half their
population did not speak French.
Looking at the Ottomans and the Hapsburgs almost leads to nostalgia,
albeit with many qualifications. In their different ways, they at
least provided for linguistic and ethnic diversity within one polity,
which the European Union (despite its failings) also offers.
Boris Yeltsin's power grab in Moscow led to the chaotic dissolution of
the Soviet Union, leaving far too many questions unanswered, not least
of which were the rights of minorities. A shared EU style citizenship,
dual nationalities, linguistic rights should all have been negotiated
-- not to mention open borders.
Decolonization in both Africa and the former Soviet Union led to many
absurdities based on respect for existing boundaries whether drawn up
by tipsy District Commissioners in Africa or playful commissars in the
Soviet Union following Stalin's. One of Stalin's little jokes,
Nagorno-Karabagh, stranding an enclave of Armenians in Azerbaijan, is
a classic unresolved issue that cannot be solved without adjusting
borders.
So what of Ukraine? During the Balkan Wars, Bogdan Denitch, who
represented the Democratic Socialists of America at the Socialist
International, often quoted the Balkan formula: "Why should I be a
minority in your country, when you could be a minority in mine?" It
seems to be doing sterling service in Ukraine now.
If only Putin were as sedulous about the rights of, say, Chechens, as
he is about Russian speakers in the Crimea. Or if Moscow had shown any
respect for the rights of the Crimean Tartars. But then the respect
for Iraqi sovereignty shown by George W. Bush and Tony Blair is hardly
a good example. Experience suggests that people believe in their own
right to self-determination but are less convinced about the rights of
others. Ask a typical Indian about Kashmiri rights, an Argentinean
about Falkland Islanders, or a Moroccan about Western Sahara, and the
chances are you will hit a mother lode of patriotic taurine excreta.
While many at the time would agree that the Sudeten Germans had been
deprived of their right to self-determination, there is a consensus
that Hitler's "liberation" of them broke all the rules. It was the
Nazis flouting of the rules against aggression and conquest that led
to the UN Charter's emphasis on sovereignty -- which has been
reasonably successful so far in averting a third world war.
There are more questions than answers in Ukraine. Its capital, Kiev,
was the core of what became the Russian state. There were Polish,
Lithuanian and Russian states on what is now Ukrainian territory but
until 1917 there had been no independent Ukrainian polity. Ironically,
Ukraine owes its present territory to Stalin and his joint invasion
with Hitler in of Poland in 1939.
But the Ukrainian ultra-nationalists, with their anti-Russian language
moves, are not exactly paragons of toleration. If Ukraine has a right
to national self-determination, then why don't the constituent parts
also have the same right? There is nothing in the UN Charter to stop
boundaries being changed -- but not by force. There are other ways.
One is negotiation, from first principles with consultation and
protection for all the parties on the ground. The other is the EU
approach, which has been remarkably successful in making the borders
meaningless for all but administrative purposes. If Britain and the
new Europe can remain economically part of the EU while groveling
politically to Washington, Ukraine can join the EU without joining
Nato and while maintaining the close political relations it needs with
Russia. After all, those Ukrainian nationalists still want Russian gas
to keep them warm.
First published in Tribune, UK, 7 March 2014
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ian-williams/ukraine-russia-pariotic-taurine-excreta_b_4919665.html
March 8 2014
Pariotic Taurine Excreta
By Ian Williams
Vladimir Putin's actions in Crimea are perilously close to tearing up
rules that have kept us "the peoples of the world from the scourge of
war."
Both sides in the conflict will be invoking the United Nations
Charter, which enshrines the inviolability of sovereign states and
their borders -- unlike the League of Nations, which was surprisingly
active at redrawing borders after Versailles. The root of the problem
is the weird West European notion of the nation state -- a Procrustean
construct in which populations had to be cut or stretched to fit
homogeneously into a frame predetermined by nationalist ideologues.
The French probably invented it -- at a time when more than half their
population did not speak French.
Looking at the Ottomans and the Hapsburgs almost leads to nostalgia,
albeit with many qualifications. In their different ways, they at
least provided for linguistic and ethnic diversity within one polity,
which the European Union (despite its failings) also offers.
Boris Yeltsin's power grab in Moscow led to the chaotic dissolution of
the Soviet Union, leaving far too many questions unanswered, not least
of which were the rights of minorities. A shared EU style citizenship,
dual nationalities, linguistic rights should all have been negotiated
-- not to mention open borders.
Decolonization in both Africa and the former Soviet Union led to many
absurdities based on respect for existing boundaries whether drawn up
by tipsy District Commissioners in Africa or playful commissars in the
Soviet Union following Stalin's. One of Stalin's little jokes,
Nagorno-Karabagh, stranding an enclave of Armenians in Azerbaijan, is
a classic unresolved issue that cannot be solved without adjusting
borders.
So what of Ukraine? During the Balkan Wars, Bogdan Denitch, who
represented the Democratic Socialists of America at the Socialist
International, often quoted the Balkan formula: "Why should I be a
minority in your country, when you could be a minority in mine?" It
seems to be doing sterling service in Ukraine now.
If only Putin were as sedulous about the rights of, say, Chechens, as
he is about Russian speakers in the Crimea. Or if Moscow had shown any
respect for the rights of the Crimean Tartars. But then the respect
for Iraqi sovereignty shown by George W. Bush and Tony Blair is hardly
a good example. Experience suggests that people believe in their own
right to self-determination but are less convinced about the rights of
others. Ask a typical Indian about Kashmiri rights, an Argentinean
about Falkland Islanders, or a Moroccan about Western Sahara, and the
chances are you will hit a mother lode of patriotic taurine excreta.
While many at the time would agree that the Sudeten Germans had been
deprived of their right to self-determination, there is a consensus
that Hitler's "liberation" of them broke all the rules. It was the
Nazis flouting of the rules against aggression and conquest that led
to the UN Charter's emphasis on sovereignty -- which has been
reasonably successful so far in averting a third world war.
There are more questions than answers in Ukraine. Its capital, Kiev,
was the core of what became the Russian state. There were Polish,
Lithuanian and Russian states on what is now Ukrainian territory but
until 1917 there had been no independent Ukrainian polity. Ironically,
Ukraine owes its present territory to Stalin and his joint invasion
with Hitler in of Poland in 1939.
But the Ukrainian ultra-nationalists, with their anti-Russian language
moves, are not exactly paragons of toleration. If Ukraine has a right
to national self-determination, then why don't the constituent parts
also have the same right? There is nothing in the UN Charter to stop
boundaries being changed -- but not by force. There are other ways.
One is negotiation, from first principles with consultation and
protection for all the parties on the ground. The other is the EU
approach, which has been remarkably successful in making the borders
meaningless for all but administrative purposes. If Britain and the
new Europe can remain economically part of the EU while groveling
politically to Washington, Ukraine can join the EU without joining
Nato and while maintaining the close political relations it needs with
Russia. After all, those Ukrainian nationalists still want Russian gas
to keep them warm.
First published in Tribune, UK, 7 March 2014
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ian-williams/ukraine-russia-pariotic-taurine-excreta_b_4919665.html