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« Iran: Cancerous Israel to Vanish Soon | Main | The Al-Dura Decision...Pending »

February 26, 2008

Comments

Hillel

I admittedly have not given the issue a lot of thought, in particular the issue of the nature of a sovereign state and the international legal issues.
(That is to say, to the extent that anyone actually considers "international law" as anything more than a method to blackmail lefties into bullying their own governments).

Nevertheless, caveats aside:

I'm inclined to agree a little more with Melanie:
http://www.spectator.co.uk/melaniephillips/521441/is-this-crazy-or-is-this-crazy.thtml

Wessel van Rensburg

Interesting post. I was intrigued with the 'Certainly South African style reconciliation is needed.' comment. What exactly do you mean by that?

Mediocrates

Doesn't this merely presage an era of unilateral separatism based on little more than a wish and/or mythology that asserts one is sufficiently different to warrant a 'country'? What is the modern definition of a country in that sense? A place that more or less gets to keep its borders unless and until some subgroup says no? You folks live in Africa, how many distinct groups are there in SA? When I was in Cote d'Ivoire there were perhaps as many as 700 different linguistic groups that an anthropologist would say is a 'tribe'. Are they each not deserving of a 'country'?

What happens when the 1.4 million Israeli Arabs assert they are no longer Israeli and that Haifa should now be deemed the capital of Arab-Haifastan?

Or that Iraq should break up into 4 or 5 'statelets' or the Caucauses into at least a dozen more countries? I'm sure I will hear the good reason why China can't allow China to devolve into its constituent elements or that India is just fine with its 1000 languages and dozen religions. No we will hear the powerful impress their guilt and their will on the small. We will hear the 22 Arab states with their endless civil ethnic relgious and race wars preach and command that tiny Israel break apart 'for fairness and liberty' or some such idiocy.

No, I'm not convinced that Kosovo is a good thing. Not because it's yet one more angry dysfunctional Muslim country, but because there is really no such thing as functional 'trans'nationalism - a world w/o organized sufficiently static countries. It's nonsense.

My friend is not Spanish. Spanish to him is meaningless. He is Catalan. My cousin lives in Normandy, she considers herself Breton. So when do the Bretons and Catalans get their own recognized states? Never mind that it won't work, let's just splot them down on the map and declare that small group and personal identity politics have won.

Mike

Wessel, I was referring to the TRC. Some sort of healing process needs to take place for the crimes that have been committed over centuries in that small corner of the world to be dealt with.

Mike

Hillel, I think Melanie comes across as rather Islamophobic in that piece. I don’t agree that it poses a threat to Western Christendom. There is no indication that it will be an Al Qaeda strong hold. Just came across as fear mongering.

That said I think there are serious implications for regions just declaring unilateral independence. As I said some form of mechanism policy needs to be put in place to balance the rights of people to national self determination and the right of a country to territorial sovereignty and integrity.

Mike

Mediocrates, you are accurately articulated the Pandora’s box that Kosovo has opened. I agree with you. But using your argument on what basis do the Serbs have a right to have Serbia, or the catholic the Vatican or the Jews Israel. Ethno-religious states are a common feature of the current international landscape. How do you decide that some people have a right to national self determination and not others. Many of the so called ‘states’ you mention in the Middle East and Africa are myths in and of themselves. They were created by colonists sitting in London and Paris. There is no historical basis for the country of Nigeria for example. We have seen in Iraq how shallow this national is in the face of ethnicity and religion. So I don’t really hold any candle for the current status quo.

Hillel

Mike,

Regarding Melanie's piece, I meant to highlight the issues Mediocrates raised, i.e. what is a state, etc.

On the "Islamophobia" - it seems to me that the difference between your vision and Melanie's is based on the claim that Kosovo will be a democratic islamic country. Melanie is of the opinion there is no such thing. You seem to think there is, or can be.

I don't know enough about Kosovo specifically. Howver, I'm pretty sure based on the various other democratic islamic states and the democratic islamic state being set up in Gaza & the WB etc, that I know who is wearing the rose coloured spectacles. They suit your complection. ;-)

Mike

Hillel, I think I should employ you as my fashion advisor :).

What about Turkey and the former Soviet republics? there are examples of moderate Muslim majority states that have even recognised Israel.

I dont buy the argument that Muslims cant be democrats. If Jews, Hindus, Budists and christians etc can why are they special?

Wessel van Rensburg

Mediocrates, in case you have not noticed Catalunia is getting more and more autonomy. To such an extent that right wing Spain is getting very nervous. Last year the head of the army threatened to intervene.

If it was up to the Catalunians they would have had independence long ago. Both Catalunia and Basque country is more industrialised and wealthy than Spain. And recently the other independent language community in Spain, Galicia also voiced some independentest noise.

Wessel van Rensburg

"Wessel, I was referring to the TRC. Some sort of healing process..."

True, but the TRC was disbanded to soon. Racial tensions are now much higher than a few years ago. Things like the destruction of Afrikaner monumnets in Standerton is certainly not conducive to reconciliation.

Mike

Wessel, I wouldnt dispute that. I think a lot more consultation was/is needed on these issues. Reconcilation is not a 1 day or 1 year event. It takes decades. But the TRC was a good start.

Benjamin

Mostly excellant post Mike, I found: Kosova and Albania: history, people, identity a good article for some background into the issue.

BLACKLISTED DICTATOR

Perhaps we should not underestimate the potential fall-out from Kosovan independence.
Didn't a spot of bother in the Balkans light the powder-keg for World War One ?

hillel

Mike

The issue is less to do with democracy than with a secular liberal outlook. In particular the ability to "live and let live" and minority rights.

Sure, you can find secular Muslims, just as you can find people of any faith who are secular. But the Koran is, in general, not interpreted or implemented in the finest traditions of liberal and secular humanism.

Turkey is perhaps a perfect example. They've had a secular government for some time, in particular the run-off of Ataturk's influence. However, their current administration and more specifically the trend in the rise of Wahhabi and related ideologies does not point to the long term survival of a liberal democracy.

BLACKLISTED DICTATOR

Mike,
Your comments re the illogic of so many nation states is pertinent. I suppose that at this particular stage of human development most people seem to believe that the nation state is worth keeping. However, when you take a close look at the United Nations then one might conclude that the idea is being over-valued.
I propose a world run by the Blacklisted Dictator with It'sAlmost Supernatural and Gary Selikow in an advisory, non-governmental, role.

Steve

Nice to see you back in town Dictator ;)

BLACKLISTED DICTATOR

The nation state is an extremely confusing concept...
Can anyone explain the logic of the United Kingdom ?
Lets assume that South Africa keeps 2010 and that the semi-finals are as follows Wales v N. Ireland and Scotland v England. Would other footballing nations accept the UK's predominance or would they start
questioning the very existence of The UK ?

Steve

No, I think the opposit is more problematic. That in the Olympics Great Britain uses athletes from England, Scotland, Wales and N.Eire.

No one would start questioning the existence of the UK if those teams all got to the semi finals. The likelihood of that happening however is smaller than the likelihood of a white person becoming the PM of an African nation.

Gary

I believe in national self-determination and independence for every nation.
So my strong Zionism and support for sovereignty for my own people is not in any way incongruent.And that includes Kosovo as well as Scotland, Weales, Kurdistan the Basque State and Tibet. My support for Basque independence does not however mean I have any sympathy with the ETA terrorists whos'e acts have resulted in the death of innocent children, just like somebody who may support a United Ireland need not neccesary have sympathy for the Marxist IRA terrorist scum.
I do NOT support a 25 Arab state, as I do not recognize the "Palestinians" as a distinct nation from the Arabs, but am prepared to countenance Gaza being absorbed into Egypt and parts of the "West Bank" into Jordan.
Let the UK break up, let Wales and Scotland's independence be restored, as they were forced into union with England against their will, albeit hundreds of years ago.
The King who forced Wales into a 'unitary state' with England in the 13th century, Edward I, was the same badstar who expelled the Jews from England.
Their are also people in England who support an independent England and the breakup of the UK.

By the way Blacklisted Dictator, why did you only offer me an advisory non-governmental role, rather than a Ministry or two? :)


Steve,
How can one nation (UK) be four nations ( N.Ireland, Scotland , Wales and England) ? Surely this must be a breach of IOC and FIFA rules?

Are you also suggesting that "whites" in South Africa are at a political Presidential disadvantage, a sort of reverse apartheid ?
And what happens if/ when The ANC falls from grace ? Can't Tony Leon make a come-back ?

BLACKLISTED DICTATOR

Steve,
How can one nation (UK) be four nations ( N.Ireland, Scotland , Wales and England) ? Surely this must be a breach of IOC and FIFA rules?

Are you also suggesting that "whites" in South Africa are at a political Presidential disadvantage, a sort of reverse apartheid ?
And what happens if/ when The ANC falls from grace ? Can't Tony Leon make a come-back ?

Gary

Oh, by the way Steve, the son of Botswana's founding father (dare I say it's Ben-Gurion?),
Lieutenant General Ian Khama has a white mother and will soon be the President of Botswana.

BLACKLISTED DICTATOR

Gary,
I can't give you the foreign affairs potfolio ( a role that you are obvioiusly for) as I envisage a total take-over making such a positon redundant.
What other positions are you qualified for ? How about Minister of Intelligence ?
If England goes independent, it will unfortunately still be stuck with the Church of England and the archbishop of "Canterbury/Kabul" making the introduction of shar'ia law inevitable.

Gary

No, Dictator when we get rid of the ANC South Africa will get a new Black President from the opposition, hopefully the IFP.
The IFPYB youth brigade has some very educated and promising young leaders.

Gary

Dictator, a lot of English are switching from Anglican to Roman Catholic.
And I don't want to say which of these churches are beeter, but I like Pope Benedict and I despise Rowan Williams who looks more alike an aging hyppie Commie than an Archbishop.

Steve

Gary, the dictator will obviously control all ministries, such is his fashion. Be happy with what you get.

Gary, how do you decide which Arabs are allowed states and which arent?

Dictator, its one nation with 3 countries and a province :) They are all generally so bad at sports that no-one worries about them.

None of them will be represented at the Euro Football championships this July.

Gary

Dictator, why don't you crown yourself Emperor like Napoleon did- it is so much more romantic than yet another darn President.

Gary,
You might be right about the IFP.
Perhaps when the presidency is again up for grabs,Tony Leon's Israeli born wife would be bones of contention with groups like the FXI and SAHRC.
I also have reservations about Archy's beard but i think that the religious crew have them to create a "holier than thou" demeanor.

Although, I hail from London, I don't understand why FIFA allows England, Wales etc to compete. If a Great Britain team had been in existence, it would have included George Best and Ryan Giggs and would have ensured many more world cup victories. As a soccer nation, they have kicked themselves in the foot and not in the goal.

Steve

Yes, from a football perspective you are correct.

Ryan Giggs would have solved Englands left wing problem for the past 12 years.

As for winning more world cups...Im not so sure :P

Gary

Well there was that song by the Lightning Seeds about England winning the world cup football for the first time since 1966 released four times each world cup..."Three Lions" .

English soccer fans just keep dreaming.
After Israel my favourite national team is Italy, so I am not heartbroken by England's football failures.

BLACKLISTED DICTATOR

Should Croatia have been allowed to knock England out of Euro cup (and 2010 World Cup qualifiers?)
I have nothing against Croatia per se, but i think that England might stand a better chance against Yugoslavia, particularly if it was being hampered by nationalistic dressing- room rivalries.

Gary

By the way how do you expect Scotland to merge their players with the Scottish soccer team when English soccer fans (including those in SA) concentrate only on Chelsea,Liverpool, Everton, Man U, Tottenham Hotspurs etc and haven't even heard of Rangers of Celtic.
Scottish soccer needs to get it's fair share of attention.

Gary

You damn right, Mediocrates, every nation is entitled to sovereignty and dammned be anyone who tries to stop them.
Only totalitarians oppose the nation state, and wish to oppose transnational empires.
G-D bless the nation-state, may it endure forever and may nation-states multiply and thrive.

BLACKLISTED DICTATOR

Gary,
You write " every nation is entitled to sovereignty". Can a nation really have sovereignty when it trades its currency in for The Euro ? Do the federal states of the USA have less "sovereignty" than the nations that are part of the European Union ?
Didn't Ireland's succesful economic development within the European Union make the IRA's obsession with a united Ireland outmoded ? Both Ireland and N.Ireland belong to the european union, perhaps revealing that the nation state is fast becoming an irrelevancy.

Lawrence

ho hum, Mike blathering on about "Islamophobia", shows how we are all doomed really.

read my comment on Islamophobia here http://supernatural.blogs.com/weblog/2007/12/kasrils-submits.html

who has seen this DVD?
www.farewellIsrael.com

See it (needs to be purchased), from filmmaker and musician Joel Gilbert who has made some good doccies on Bob Dylan, it tells terrible depressing truths that people don't want to know anything about, that won't make the terrible FACTS go away though.

Mediocrates

No you don't simply devolve a state because it suits you. You work through your collective problems as best you can given the framework you're handed. You compromise. I wonder what all the well wishing identity politics liberals would think if there were no Abraham Lincoln and the south seceded and maintained slavery for another hundred years? Is that the definition of justice? Is that a good use of this mushy sense that we should simply let peoples do whatever it is they like? No the problem is you need to fix your problems and issues BEFORE it turns into ethnic warfare, not after. You don't break apart AFTER you've slaughtered one another. All you're doing is rewarding slaughter.

BLACKLISTED DICTATOR

Mediocrates,
I think that you might make a good marriage guidance therapist but I am not sure about your grasp of international affairs.
I suggest that you take your atlas out and start thinking about how most modern nation states have come into existence.
As far as I can see Kosovo has chanced its arm and declared itself to be a new nation state. Whether, it will be able to remain a nation state will depend on diplomacy and power. (The latter two factors have been instrumental in securing Israel's survival.)

Gary

So instead we should force different peoples into Rwanda type unions, where the majorities slaughter the minorities.
Just because our friends on the left prefer multi-national states to nation-states.
It is the multi-national state that has failed, not the nation-state.

Gary,
People will always slaughter each other. The nation state has neither "failed" or "succeeded".
Of course, the unification of Germany in the 19th century, led to World War 1+2 and to the holocaust. One might, as a Jew at least, conclude that the German nation state has been an unmitigated disaster.

BLACKLISTED DICTATOR

Gary,
People will always slaughter each other. The nation state has neither "failed" or "succeeded".
Of course, the unification of Germany in the 19th century, led to World War 1+2 and to the holocaust. One might, as a Jew at least, conclude that the German nation state has been an unmitigated disaster.

BLACKLISTED DICTATOR

Interesting to see how Serbia reacts to Kosovo in the forthcoming months....

Monday, 3 March 2008 (BBC WEBSITE)

Serbia has retaken control of a stretch of railway line in northern Kosovo, a senior Serb official has said.
Branislav Ristivojevic, who heads Serbia's state-run railway company, said Belgrade had restored control over the 50km (30-mile) Lesak-Zvecan line.

Earlier, Serb rail workers stopped a train on the line, saying they would not work for Kosovo's rail firms.

Belgrade and Kosovo Serbs refuse to recognise Kosovo's declaration of independence last month.

Last week, some 150 Kosovo Serb police officers were suspended for refusing to take orders from the ethnic Albanian authorities in Kosovo's capital, Pristina.


Serb police officers protested in the Gracanica enclave

All are based in the same area of the south-east and they are asking to be put under the direct command of the local United Nations mission (Unmik).

The Kosovo Police Service (KPS) said talks were under way with Serb officers working in other parts of the south.

Serb KPS officers in the northern Serb stronghold around Mitrovica already only take orders from Unmik.

Some 700 ethnic Serbs serve in the 7,000-strong KPS, created by Unmik after it took control of Kosovo at the end of the 1998-99 war.

Mediocrates

Again, no. Not unless you wish in a world without countries. We already see this in the EU where national distinctions are little more than brand affinity. But in the case of the EU - so what? It's stable, largely economically homogenized and there is a healthy respect for contract law and treaty. In other parts of the world, identity politics driven differences aren't about land or even ideology, they're a proxy for 'self'. As if that makes a viable state in and of itself. Which is doesn't. There is nothing inherently viable in creating ever smaller tribal states just because of some history of people not getting along with one another. There is no such thing as a world made up of thousands of Singapores because economically and socially the world doesn't really operate that way. What happens when all the the Kosovos of the world don't have the capital for development or food or medicine or water rights by virtue of the fact that a tiny sliver of people went their own way once?

It's a bad precedent. Why? Because it has no end game. What's to stop the left handed Kosovars from separating from the right handed Kosovars? What's to stop the Israeli Arabs from declaring themselves sufficiently different, or the Druze or the Sephardi vs the Azkenazi or the millions of Russian speaking Israelis from everyone else.

You see we've all become so obsessed with our differences we've come to hate our common ground. And while large countries like my US can thrive under those conditions, small countries cannot.

BLACKLISTED DICTATOR

Mediocrates,

It seems that you believe that no new nation states should emerge. Isn't this a bit arbitrary as Kosovo, is just another nation state, that has tried to establish itself after the appalling "post Yugoslavia" bloodshedding ?

However, I have my doubts about whether Kosovo can survive. It will need all the allies it can muster to confront Serbia's attempts to destabilize it.

Mediocrates

I did not say that. I said you need a very very strong reason to do so. And the reasons of ethnicity or culture on their own are not only weak but they fly in the face of the very liberal democracies which prop them up. There has to be some positive affect that drives it not simply a desire to express a negative one, an exclusion or escape from something. Israel isn't a country because it's a collection of Jews plunked down somewhere. It's a modern shared ethic, a nation of values and ideals and goals, no matter how flawed the implementation no matter the race and ethnic frictions.

We would all love to live on Donkey Island, the problem is, we'd all wind up donkeys, wouldn't we?

BLACKLISTED DICTATOR

Medioc,
I am a gorilla with the gorillamovement. I use donkeys to carry intellectual ammo deep into the jungle.

The Kosovan nationalists are Muslims. Is religion, in your book, a "negative" force? If it isn't, under what circumstances does it become "positive"?

Mediocrates

No separatism for its own sake is "Donkeyism" as if living solely amongst your 3000 closest friends will presage a new paradise? Hardly. If this were true there would, for example not be any Arab on Arab violence, but there is, because there is always some smaller delineation that someone will use to kill his neighbor. You're not of my tribe, my clan, my social group, my height and so on.

Mike/ Steve .

Following my comments on Supernatural blog about Kosovo, I thought that you would be amused by this extract from the JPost interview with Bernard Lewis. I think it partially explains why I am proud to be a "British / English /Jewish"


http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1204546415778&pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull


Growing up in England and serving in the British military, was an issue made of your being Jewish? Was it ever an obstacle?

No. When I joined the British army in 1940, I was interviewed by a sergeant who, while taking down all the relevant particulars, asked, "What is your race?"

Well, nowadays, I would say "white" or "Caucasian," but at the time, that wouldn't have occurred to me. In England, we never spoke about race. I knew what the Germans meant by it, however. So I asked the sergeant whether I should put "Jewish" in that category.

"Nah," he dismissed. "That's your religion, and we've already got that on another line."

At that point, I was completely mystified. "What, then," I asked, "am I supposed to put?"

"As far as the British army is concerned," he replied, "there are four races: English, Scottish, Welsh and Irish. You are clearly English."

So, I went to war with documents that said that I was British by nationality, English by race and Jewish by religion.

BLACKLISTED DICTATOR

Mike/ Steve .

Following my comments on Supernatural blog about Kosovo, I thought that you would be amused by this extract from the JPost interview with Bernard Lewis. I think it partially explains why I am proud to be a "British / English /Jewish"


http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1204546415778&pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull


Growing up in England and serving in the British military, was an issue made of your being Jewish? Was it ever an obstacle?

No. When I joined the British army in 1940, I was interviewed by a sergeant who, while taking down all the relevant particulars, asked, "What is your race?"

Well, nowadays, I would say "white" or "Caucasian," but at the time, that wouldn't have occurred to me. In England, we never spoke about race. I knew what the Germans meant by it, however. So I asked the sergeant whether I should put "Jewish" in that category.

"Nah," he dismissed. "That's your religion, and we've already got that on another line."

At that point, I was completely mystified. "What, then," I asked, "am I supposed to put?"

"As far as the British army is concerned," he replied, "there are four races: English, Scottish, Welsh and Irish. You are clearly English."

So, I went to war with documents that said that I was British by nationality, English by race and Jewish by religion.

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