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rfmcdonaldThe thing that has most strongly caught my attention about Sarah Palin's so far disastrous time as McCain's putative Vice President is her long association with the Alaskan Independence Party. There's the novelty of hearing of a separatist movement in the fifty states of the Union, for starters, and the whole 1970s retro feel of this radically anti-center movement like something I'd expect Toffler to write in Future Shock.
All that said, I don't see what's necessarily wrong with separatism. Fustel de Coulanges' pointed out that the national affiliations of Alsatians couldn't be determined by the fact of German conquest. Wouldn't it naturally follow that a government couldn't continue to retain legitimate authority over a particular region by force of arms? That seems to increasingly by the norm in the developed world. Take Canada, where the 2000 Clarity Act established clear procedures by which a province (i.e. Québec) could accede to independence. From everything I've read, if Scotland voted in favour of independence by British government would--perhaps eventually, perhaps quickly--recognize its independence. In the case of Belgium, the affiliation of the city of Brussels is allegedly the main thing keeping that federation together. Et cetera.
I'd make exceptions for situations where hopeful states didn't guarantee the rights of people belonging to minority groups of whatever kind. The Confederacy wouldn't pass muster, for instance, while Croatia in the early 1990s would have had to seriously improve its relationship with its Serb minority. (Then again, interethnic relations in the SFRY were already, what with the militias and the early ethnic cleansings and the jokes about mutilation and murder that were too much the rage.) If these rights are guaranteed or better yet taken for granted, what's wrong with (say) a democratic Republic of Alaska, or a [name your own future polity]? I don't want to go so far as to suggest that what better way would there be to demonstrate a polity's democratic nature than to allow some of its citizens to secede in a democratic manner, but still.
Thoughts? Does this make sense? Or am I being facile?
All that said, I don't see what's necessarily wrong with separatism. Fustel de Coulanges' pointed out that the national affiliations of Alsatians couldn't be determined by the fact of German conquest. Wouldn't it naturally follow that a government couldn't continue to retain legitimate authority over a particular region by force of arms? That seems to increasingly by the norm in the developed world. Take Canada, where the 2000 Clarity Act established clear procedures by which a province (i.e. Québec) could accede to independence. From everything I've read, if Scotland voted in favour of independence by British government would--perhaps eventually, perhaps quickly--recognize its independence. In the case of Belgium, the affiliation of the city of Brussels is allegedly the main thing keeping that federation together. Et cetera.
I'd make exceptions for situations where hopeful states didn't guarantee the rights of people belonging to minority groups of whatever kind. The Confederacy wouldn't pass muster, for instance, while Croatia in the early 1990s would have had to seriously improve its relationship with its Serb minority. (Then again, interethnic relations in the SFRY were already, what with the militias and the early ethnic cleansings and the jokes about mutilation and murder that were too much the rage.) If these rights are guaranteed or better yet taken for granted, what's wrong with (say) a democratic Republic of Alaska, or a [name your own future polity]? I don't want to go so far as to suggest that what better way would there be to demonstrate a polity's democratic nature than to allow some of its citizens to secede in a democratic manner, but still.
Thoughts? Does this make sense? Or am I being facile?
