Ritu wrote:
David Hobby wrote:
I'd even propose that partition into separate countries
should be the default for groups with separate languages.
Eww! I think that is a pretty bad idea, at least for my part of the
world.
Just out of curiousity though, when you say 'language' do you mean just
official languages or do the dialects also get to thump their chests and
ask for a separate nation?
Just languages! I'd even call Hindi and Urdu one
language, if that helped. : )
Separate countries created this way could always decide to
merge; I'm sure the three or four parts of Switzerland would.
Yeah right. You create different states, make random politicians heads
of state instead of mere heads of provinces/areas, and you expect them
to give that up to merge...?
Well, the PEOPLE would decide, in my system. It would
just go to a popular vote. We can't trust politicians
to decide things like this...
Many countries exist for historical reasons, it's not
clear to me that one should expend much energy trying to
keep them together.
What is wrong with historic reasons? Why should they be considered
obviously inferior to linguistic or ethnic reasons?
"Historic reasons" was my euphemism for "somebody conquered
all these places, and decided to call it a country". If
history matters that much, the groups can always choose to
stay together.
I have never been a fan of keeping people in forcibly, but I do not
share this love of dismemberment, David. :)
Ritu-- I was overstating things to get a reaction, I guess.
If a whole bunch of really different regions want to be one
country, fine. On the other hand, what would be so wrong
with them being many different countries, bound together as
the countries in the EU are?
I do agree with you, the people involved should get to
decide. I'm not sure what the best mechanism for this
would be. One could start by giving every linguistically
(or however) distinct group its own homeland, ideally
a place where they made up most of the population.
(I'm not sure what to do with the Gypsies, for instance,
assuming they'd want a homeland.)
Who will 'give' these homelands?
I'm presuming that the groups would already be in
de facto possession of their "homelands". Having to
clear out the indigenous people to create a homeland
for others is not an ideal solution! (This could
now turn into an argument about Israel, but let's
refrain.)
And why is it a good idea to have distinct groups living in distinct
localities?
Well, it's not. It's something you would create if
they demonstrated they can't share localities. But
just having a homeland might take some pressure off
of a group?
Then once we have a rough idea of what the countries
are, we get to negotiate their borders.
Who is 'we' and who are 'they' whose borders 'we' get to negotiate? And
why do 'we' get to negotiate 'their' borders?
'We' would include everybody involved. The group of
neighboring countries, together with the outside
power (hopefully the UN) who was trying to help produce
a solution. You didn't think this was going to happen
without an outside power intervening, did you?
Some people
would have to choose, then. If one was outside one's
homeland, one could either move there, or stay where
one was as a minority.
Yeah, millions of muslims, sikhs, and hindus faced and made that choice
in 1947.
This might be a tangent, but here goes: The Hindus got India, the
Muslims got Pakistan, and what region did the Sikhs get?
There would have to be some
carefully designed laws to stop minorities from being
oppressed. Certainly they should always be able to get fair
compensation for property they leave behind, and to then go
to their homeland, or wherever.
This is nice in theory but sometimes just doesn't work too well in
practice. New nations are free to form their own constitutions, they are
free to choose what rights they do or do not bestow upon their
minorities. They are also free to choose just how often and how well
these laws would be enforced. Property prices crash when the nation is
in a turmoil due to a partition and relocation, government funds are
tied up in protective and relief measures. New nations are also free to
go to war with each other and then make it close to impossible for their
new enemy's citizens to enter their nation.
Ritu
You have hit on a flaw of my argument, it does presume that
there is an outside power which can enforce justice. Maybe
there would have to be a period of a year before the constitution
took effect. If it was sufficiently bad for some groups, that
would be their time to get out. What I was getting at is that
it is certainly unjust to force a group out AND confiscate their
possessions. So I was trying to remove an economic motivation
for picking on minorities.
Now if one's property becomes worthless because the government
of one's country messes up, that's too bad, but it would not
be considered "actionable". (One could for instance have
removed assets from the country before the one-year waiting
period took effect.)
---David
_______________________________________________
http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
