The earlier version sent itself a bit too early. Sorry. :) David Hobby wrote:
> > 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. : ) *g* Depends on what you want to achieve really - it can certainly throw up a number of protests, marches, fiery speeches and the like. But we can always group Hindustani and its parent languages [Hindi and Urdu] together. :) > 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... Nor can we trust them to sit by quietly while the people decide. They would out rousing the people, using any idea that let them stay in power longer, trying to create divisions. There usually is somebody who is willing to do that. And many who are willing to keep quiet while it is being done. > > 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. Fair enough. :) > 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? Administrational and developmental needs. When you are a new country, trying hard to catch up on the developmental front, you do not plan things according to regional sufficiency. Power plants, dams, railways networks, industrial production etc is all geared up on the basis of there being a single nation. The time and investment needed to make each region self-sufficient would be significant, and if, in the meantime any of the stronger/better placed regions decide to create some trouble [which is not so unlikely if it wants to be richer/more powerful], then the derailemt would be expensive. It seems like unnecessary chaos to me. I am more comfortable with the notion that if people want to get away that bad, then they should work hard for it. Not that let the divisions be, if the people want to get together later, they can always do that. > > 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. According to me, this is the sticky bit. Unless there has been a relatively recent displacement of population, mixed ehtnicities sharing a locality have already demonstrated that they can share in peace. But once there is a suggestion that there might be a segregation, certain people emphasise the differences, whip up passions, and try to turn that suggestion into a reality. > >>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? Oh no, I didn't. :) I think that it is usually the outsiders who think that a division is a good idea. > >>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? Sikhs, along with Hindus, Muslims, Jains, Buddhists, Parsis, Chritians, Jews etc, got India. The demand was for a separate state for Muslims, and some of them got it and chose to move there. But more Muslims stayed in India than went to Pakistan, and there never was a demand for a separate homeland for Hindus. And neither was India ever meant for Hindus alone. > 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.) But you don't need the government to mess up. The market will fall once it is certain that a slew of properties are coming up on the market because of the dislocation. People who need to move out want the cash fast - they need it to buy a home in the other country. And those who invest in properties would know that they can get the properties much cheaper as the deadline comes closer. Government intervention would be useless as the governement wouldn't have enough funds to spare to give a fair price to everyone who needed to sell. And it is no use expecting that the government can auction these places off later and send the proceeds to the erstwhile owners. Politicians don't send funds to other countries, not if they don't *have* to. I mean Nehru and Patel weren't bad folks by any stretch of imagination, but Gandhi had to go on his last fast-unto-death to make them send Pakistan it's share of the Indian exchequer. Which, incidentally, was the spur which led to Gandhi's assassination plot. Ritu _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
