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The Concept of Self-determination: A Threat to World Peace and Stability? a

Guaranteeing equal treatment of all citizens can be an effective antidote to the upsurge of ethnic and other types of nationalist violence. If democracy is so restructured that all the ethnic groups are equally treated and the national facilities and resources are evenly distributed as far as possible among different groups, then addressing the ethnic problem can be possible under a democratic system without resorting to the principle of self-determination.

by Sheikh Abu Faisal Md. Murad
NEW tensions began to get out of the ground in the international scene of the post-Cold War era as some peoples in different parts of (he world raised their voice to establish their just right to self-determination.' as can be exemplified by the secessionist movements in Chechnya. Bosnia. Kosovo, Ethiopia. Indonesia. India. Sri Lanka and other countries. As the states, from which these people struggling for self-determination would like to secede Ln order to form their own states, cannot allow these moves for the sake of the c< ncept of sovereignty, they must use their military and other means to check or eliminate those movements of self-determination. However, this very concept of self-determination is closely linked with terms like nationalism, nation-state. nation etc. As the world is moving fast toward the path of globalisation and thus its regions are getting interdependent. the question now arises how much viable and justifiable It would be to draw the boundary lines of the world territory into micro-states by following the spawning demands of self-determination
Deep down the history of self-determination, it can be learnt that this concept was devised lo stop ethnic violence and to give due honour to the aspirations of different ethnicities by allowing them to establish their own independent homelands. Strobe Talbott. US Deputy Secretary’ of State, wrote an article — ‘Self-Determination in an Interdependent World’ — in an American Journal Foreign Policy in which he argued that the policy of self-determination could not be a viable mechanism to root out the ethnic problems sweeping all over the world In his opinion, other mechanisms should be devised in order to redress the dilemma and. among the options. democracy can be considered the most enduring means to bring forth redress to this ongoing problem. Whether the concept of self-determination, termed by some as “simply loaded with dynamite." can really act to address the ethnic and nationalistic problems and
whether democracy can be an alternative way to bring a solution to this problem will be taken into account in this article.
Concepts of Nationalism and Self-determination
The concepts of self-determination and nationalism are often interchangeably used. One of the most dynamic forces for political change and action in tiie modern world is nationalism A dominant factor in past centuries in shaping the nations of Europe and America, and at the root of many wars, nationalism has now become the most Important, in which great empires have disintegrated and in which the long-oppressed peoples of Asia. Africa and Latin America have awakened to claim the right to sovereign Independence. Taking into consideration the problems pertaining to nationalism James Anderson thinks that nationalism is one of the most powerful forces in the modern world and one of the most problematic. He further adds that like a chameleon it changes its complexion to blend with different political environments and yet It has firmly stamped its mark on the political map Despite different colours of nationalism its focal point is always political Indeed. nationalism as a political doctrine holds that humanity is naturally divided into culturally distinct nations, and that only legitimate form of government Is national self-government within the nation state. Nationalism Is a mixture of two elements: an Ideology centralized about the Idea of nationality. and the political institutionalization of that Ideology into the national state. Theories relating to modern state demand that a state can be strongly cemented and Integrated only when the people comprising the state belong to the commonalties of ethnicity, language, religion, culture, that is. belong to the same nationalism.
The Ideal of the state and the nation coinciding geographically In the nation-state derives from several sources. These are democratic aspirations of na-
Hons and nationalists to achieve states of their own and the wish to reform or democratise existing states. Conversely, the achievement of statehood, or of greater access to state power, however limited, makes it possible for at least some classes or factions of the nation to fulfil aims which would otherwise be unattainable. In the twentieth century. Europe discovered that the matter of nationalism was not so simple. The empires were indeed destroyed. but in their wake came not few but many claims to sovereignty, claims that were both overlapping and conflicting. How were they to be adjudicated? First Europe and then the world embraced two rules for deciding the location of borders. One is the principle of self-determination and the other is the principle that the existing borders arc sacrosanct and should not be altered. The two are not always compatible Often they are in conflict. In the conflict over whose national demands are lawful and legitimate. one side went to war to change borders In order to make them conform more closely to the principle of national self-determination, while the other fought to retain existing borders. The problem remains that both are rooted in history and logic and neither can be eliminated. Resolving the anomalies depends on finding a compromise between the two. The Paris Peace Conference that convened In 1919 proclaimed that the allocation of sovereignty would be apportioned on Justice, defined as the fulfilment of national aspirations Borders were to be drawn so as to put people of the same nationality in a single sovereign political unit But this requirement was not hilly
applied, nor could it have been.
The norm of inviolability of borders was bolstered by the Cold War as both the United States and the Soviet Union worried that trying to change existing borders'had the potential for creating conflicts into which they could be dragged, with enormously disastrous consequences. With the re-demarcation of borders based on national aspirations in the post-Cold War era. for example, in the case of the former Soviet Union and Yugoslavia, the problem was that peoples who had been part of political majorities. became, all of a sudden, minorities and vice versa, leading in some places to violence on a large scale. During the Paris Peace Conference of 1919. Woodrow Wilson's Secretary of State. Robert Lancing, wrote of self-determination in his diary:
"The phrase is loaded with dynamite. It will raise hopes which can never be realised. It will. I fear, cost thousands of lives." Nationalism defines people primarily in terms of belonging (or not belonging) to a particular country and culture which it designates as a 'nation.' Nationalism is simultaneously backward-looking and forward-looking in the sense that a remote past, typically a concocted heroic version of it. Is used to highlight the inadequacies of the recent past and the present with a view to pointing towards and mobilising support for progress to a future thoughtfully better constructed. The question of the use of different forms of nationalism depends on the distinctiveness and diversity of environments and scenarios under which such nationalist or secessionist movements foment up. As under no adverse situa-
tion a man has been able to have his right Implemented unhindered, ne has to take off and on the path of violence. As Buchheit said: " If history’ were a chronicle of the voluntary association and disassociation of groups, there would be no need tor a doctrine of self-determination. It is the distinct absence of such a peaceful evolution* of mankind's social organization which ultimately gave rise to the principle of self-determination as the twentieth century’s primary expression of disapproval of involuntary political association." In fact, people claiming to be united under the banner of some type of nationalism are willing to be governed under the government made by themselves, not imposed by others upon them. As John Stuart Mill has argued: "Where the sentiment ol nationality exists in any force, there is a prima facie case for uniting all tne members of the nationality under the same government, and a government to themselves apart. This Is merely saying that the question of government ought to be decided by the governed. One hardly knows what any division of the human race should be free to do if not to determine with which of the various collective bodies of human beings they choose ‘e associate themselves."
So a group of human beings gets united on the basis of a number of commonalties in order to form a state with the government that would serve their Interests. Again, if a small group from within the larger group even thinks of getting oppressed and alienated under the existing state mechanism, (hey can demand secession from it in order to make a state which would serve this groups interests. In order to legitimatise
their demand, they can evoke the principle of self-determination.
Can Democracy Act as an Alternative?
In democratic societies, only objectives that are hopelessly extreme force their proponents to desperate strategies. Adoption of extreme goals, or lack of alternative means, or a combination of the two. can result in terrorism. Ted Robert Gurr in Why Men Rebel has argued that political violence is a consequence of a significant gap developing between the value expectations of a given group of people and the value capabilities of the group. He argues that ♦here remain three possible patterns of relative deprivation: decremental deprivation, aspirational deprivation and progressive deprivation. Decremental deprivation occurs when the value capabilities of a given population decline drastically because of one or several national disasters. Aspirational deprivation occurs when the value capabilities of a group remain constant while its value expectations are on increase. Progressive deprivation occurs when value capabilities stabilise or decline after a period in which value capabilities and value expectations have increased together. Sigmund Freud in his article Why Men Wage War has shown that war originates when man finds his respected values and culture threatened and trampled by others. Harold Laski has said: "no doctrine, however evil, moves to the use of force unless it is rooted in profound grievance which it sees no other way to remedy." He also adds that violence comes when the facts persuade men to believe that the bona-fides of their
rulers is no longer to be trusted
Armed separatism is a process whereby an ethnic group defined as collectivities of individuals who feel a sense of belonging based on cultural traits — usually some combinations of religion, language, and social mores — and notion of common ancestry, seeks to secede or gain autonomy from the control, de facto and de Jure, of a given state, through an organised and purposeful use of force, alone or in combination with other means. Separatist movements can be considered to be attempts by ethnic minorities on the pe-riphery of state power to attain political autonomy from the governing power of the centre. The fragmentation of values within the body politic not only implies an absence of a mechanism to mitigate any conflict that may arise, but also increase the potentiality for conflict and conflict escalation. Furthermore, a divergence of interests, as each ethnic group puts forward its case for rightful share of scarce resources, increases the plausibility for conflict and conflict escalation within the body politic. It is mainly the feeling of deprivation and alienation that drives a people to secede from a territory under whose rule their sought-for goals have been trampled.
If an ethnically diverse, geographically sprawling state wants to protect itself against separatism, protecting the rights of minorities and far-flung communities can best do this. When a government system has been so structured that the interests of all the people living under it have been duly honoured without discrimination on the basis of race, religion. colour, language, ethnic origin and so on. there Is little chance for the rise of ethnic violence. This being the age of globalisation, which demands the inactivation of the highly criss-crossed borders of microstates and the revitalisation of greater states so that the flow of capital, goods and people can be facilitated, the people all over the world desirous of reaping benefits from this process of globalisation would rather like
to live under a bigger state. In a democratic political setting, a government is formed on the basis of the consent of the people and is expected to rule with an eye to the aspirations and interests of its governed. Democracy is the political system outstandingly structured to ensure self-determination. It can be a mechanism for peaceful secession. Again, it can act as the best antidote to seces-sionism and civil war. For. in a truly democratic state, citizens who seek to run their own lives have peaceful alternatives to taking arms against their government. But if the democratic system is formed on the policy of the winner-takes-all-seats. then the interests of the minority will not be properly implemented So there should be a mechanism in the constitution so that the basic interests of the minority, especially the vulnerable groups, can be guaranteed even in the case of a change in the government.
Concluding Remarks
When a people feel alienated. deprived and discriminated against under a particular state, they try to evoke the policy of self-determination in order to legitimatise their demands of building a separate homeland. The problem with the policy of self-determination is that a state can keep on disintegrating with demands of making new states from within it whenever different groups make their new demands of secession in different atmospheres and times So the principle itself is not a means to international peace and security. It only begets new demands for creating states to a smaller extent. thus making the functioning of the international organisations like the United Nations more complicated as then they have to deal with a colossal number of smaller states. Only guaranteeing equal treatment of all citizens can be an effective antidote to the upsurge of ethnic and other types of nationalist violence.
The author is Research Associate, BUSS.