borders by language and culture
Josh Trevino makes an impassioned plea against the inevitable, ie the pending declaration of independence by the province of Kosovo from Serbia. The following nugget of argument is in a sense the real heart of his argument:
This gets into an issue that interests me. Why do we feel that borders as they are now - often spanning ethnic and linguistic boundaries - are any "better" than ones that would be drawn taking them into account? Why not - in principle - have states for Pahstuns, Baluchis, Assyrians, et al?
I understand that in the post-Westphalian, post-WWII era today, the borders we have now represent a kind of stability from the horrific world-wide convulsions of the past. But now the convulsions are more localized instead, and no less horrific. Bosnia, Darfur, Iraq, Lebanon, Palestine... the list goes on.
It should be noted that a conservative assessment of nationality must and does take ethnicity into account. Is this not the centerpiece of the argument against unfeterred immigration to the US?
My feeling is that multi-ethnic societies are a stage III society, and only work if everyone is on equal footing (in other words, if everyone is an immigrant). This is why the US works so well as a melting pot/salad bar of culture today (aside from some messiness at the outset, ahem). But most everywhere else, this is not the case. Even the UK is roughly partitioned into ethnic provinces, grouped under a federalist umbrella. Perhaps it's time to embrace a post-post-Westphalian approach and stop drawing lines in the sand.
The old Wilsonian idea that a geographically-bounded majority population deserves its own sovereignty dies hard. In this decade, with American foreign policy predicated more than ever on quasi-Wilsonian principles, it is especially formidable. It is also a recipe for disaster: with the United States engaged in two wars in multiethnic states, to explicitly affirm this precedent in Kosovo invites more serious problems and bloodshed elsewhere. With Kosovo independent, what grounds do we have for dissuading the independence aspirations of the Kurds, the Pashtuns, the Baluchis, the Assyrians, the Arab Shi’a, et al.? Furthermore, what prevents Russia from seizing upon this precedent to cause trouble in the Caucasus and Moldova? (They say they won’t — for now — but why give them the leverage?) Contra the rhetoric of some neoconservatives, we ought not be in the business of redrawing borders, nor sponsoring particular ethnic groups for their own sake.
This gets into an issue that interests me. Why do we feel that borders as they are now - often spanning ethnic and linguistic boundaries - are any "better" than ones that would be drawn taking them into account? Why not - in principle - have states for Pahstuns, Baluchis, Assyrians, et al?
I understand that in the post-Westphalian, post-WWII era today, the borders we have now represent a kind of stability from the horrific world-wide convulsions of the past. But now the convulsions are more localized instead, and no less horrific. Bosnia, Darfur, Iraq, Lebanon, Palestine... the list goes on.
It should be noted that a conservative assessment of nationality must and does take ethnicity into account. Is this not the centerpiece of the argument against unfeterred immigration to the US?
My feeling is that multi-ethnic societies are a stage III society, and only work if everyone is on equal footing (in other words, if everyone is an immigrant). This is why the US works so well as a melting pot/salad bar of culture today (aside from some messiness at the outset, ahem). But most everywhere else, this is not the case. Even the UK is roughly partitioned into ethnic provinces, grouped under a federalist umbrella. Perhaps it's time to embrace a post-post-Westphalian approach and stop drawing lines in the sand.
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