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Old 05-07-2006, 11:20   #1
freddie freddie is offline
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Join Date: Jan 2003
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A nation's right to self-determination and independence... is it an absolute right?

Since it's the 4th of July - that time of the year when people on the other side of the pond make the pyrotechnics industry very happy I'll pay a little tribute to the relativity of international politics. Where's that line drawn when someone's labeled as a freedom fighter instead of a terrorist? How absolute is a nation's right to sovereignty? And when does it become an act of terrorism. Don't get me wrong... I'm not labeling those fuckers who cut people's heads off and send other people to blow themselves up as freedom fighters. Far from it. If anything those are nothing but opportunists.

I'm talking about more subtle issues. When does an ethnic /political entity or a colony deserve it's right to independence from it's motherland? There're no clearly defined rules about the subject in international politics. It's all impromptu. A case of diplomacy and often even armed conflicts. Sometimes (and when I say sometimes I mean always) subjective reasoning prevails when other countries decide whether to indorse the plight of a nation struggling for independence. It all depends on what these other countries gain from a new political alignment (as we established in the Sommes Battle thread). So sovereignty is de facto definitely not an absolute right. If that were so Lusatian Sorbs as a Slavic minority in Germany would get their own state as well. So would Taiwan gain independence from China, Chechnya from Russia, Kosovo Albanians from Serbia not to mention Basques which are a totally independent ethnic entity inside Spain.

However since numerous international law charters do state that nations have a right of self-determination and soverignty it's at least a de iure absolute right. However an interesting paradox arises when we label it as a wider human right . Is this right imperial to all other human rights including the right to life, liberty and security of a person? Because armed conflicts are almost a necessity in some cases and it clashes with other rights which are bound to be breeched (by a country which for the time it does not gain international recognition is legally still a political non-entity). And here's where we start talking about that thin line between a freedom fighter and a terrorist again.

I'm not trying to promote either way of thinking here. I just think international politics should be more clear regarding what rights a nation without it's own country has. It's a ridiculously sensitive issue though, since you'll bound to collide with sovereignty of other countries that already have well established political and territorial sovereignty. If the UN (and The League of Nations as it's organizational predecessor) made those conditions clear about 70 years ago I think there'd be no Middle Eastern nor Balkan crises. The vagueness of international politics works against peace sometimes. There's too many selfish interests countries have in shaping the political landscape. Something should be done about it NOW. Koffi Annan are you listening?
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freddie | TatySite.net t.E.A.m. [ multyman@hotmail.com ]

Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.

Last edited by freddie; 06-07-2006 at 11:24.
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