Bashdar Ismaeel writes:

"The basis of any nationalist struggle is primarily ethnicity. … No nation has the right to submerge, rule-over or deny outright another nation."

Ismaeel seem to equate "ethnicity" with "nation".

So do different ethnicities have the right to their own states?

What of the Tibetans or the Uighars? Should we support their secession from China?

What of the people of West Papua? Should they have the right to secede from the Javanese Empire aka Indonesia?

How about the Sikh? Do they have a right to secede from India to form "Khalestan"?

Do the Tamils have the right to secede from Sri Lanka? Were the Tamil Tigers on the right side after all?

Should Chechnya be allowed to secede from Russia?

How about the Basques? Can they secede from Spain?

And of course there's Israel, a Jewish homeland. Should there be one?

The professed Australian ideal of "multiculturalism" notwithstanding, many ethnicities do seem to want their own states.

Could Australia declare itself a "White homeland" and limit immigration of non-Whites?

How far does this go?

Unfortunately Bashdar is mistaken, no case demonstrates the lack of international standards better than that of Indonesia. And the issue of self-determination is simple and consistent with the principle of territorial integrity.

The world in 1945 agreed to stop colonialism, decolonization (the American spelling) is required by the UN charter, and was formalised during December 1960 in UN General Assembly resolutions 1514 and 1541. 1514 states forces of repression must be immediately removed from every colony to allow self-determination. And 1541 states a COLONY is a subordinate territory which has not expressed it's free will, which is geographically separate and distinct ethnically and/or culturally from the country administrating it.

During 1961 the US national security adviser told Kennedy that South East Asia would befriend the Soviet Union unless Sukarno got West Papua, and the US coerced the Netherlands to sign an agreement trading the people of West Papua without their consent to Indonesia. The United Nations was rushed into endorsing the deal without benefit of legal advice whether it was legal. The West Papuan people have protested ever since August 1962.

This UN double standard has inflicted inhuman cruelty on our neighbours for 47 years as reviewed by the Yale Law School six years ago in it's report “Indonesian Human Rights Abuses in West Papua: Application of the Law of Genocide to the History of Indonesian Control”. We and the media have accepted the mining industry's description of the Papuan people as 'stone age primitives' or lesser humans as justification to remain silent. The West Papuan people I have known for ten years have displayed the best social skills I have ever witnessed, I do not believe Melanesian culture is primitive.

In June the Vanuatu Parliament voted unanimously to sponsor a motion at next month's United Nations General Assembly asking for the International Court of Justice to give it's advisory opinion about the legality of the New York Agreement in which West Papua was traded to Indonesia. Should Australia support such a motion?

Steven,

Well, Bashir does say 'The basis of any nationalist struggle is PRIMARILY ethnicity': clearly, one would think, it is not the whole story. If an ethnic group (by whatever name) more or less exclusively occupies a particular stretch of territory, then their claim would be far stronger, if they were to make one. The point surely is that people ought to have the right to choose, IF they occupy sufficient territory to exercise some sovereignty over. So, yes, if the people of Tibet or 'Xinjiang' or West Papua or Taiwan or Kurdistan had the power to choose self-determination, and they did so, then that would be their choice. Of course, the flooding of territories with outsiders from the imperial centre would confound this somewhat.

But otherwise, where do we stand on the rights of what Lenin called small nations to self-determination ? Would we oppose, say, Ireland's independence from English rule ? After all, there are, even now, fewer people in Ireland, and it is a much smaller territory, than Xinjiang or Tibet or Kurdistan or Taiwan. How much do we seek to preserve imperial rule (even de facto imperial rule, as in the case of Yugoslavia/Serbia) over subordinate territories ?

So what acts of self-determination would you oppose, Steven, assuming that the people in the cases here clearly expressed their choice for self-determination:

- Ireland from English rule ?

- the United States from British rule ?

- Argentina etc. from Spanish rule ?

- India and Pakistan from British rule ?

- African nations from British, French, Portuguese and Spanish rule ?

- Czechoslovakia from Austrian rule ? The Czech Republic and Slovakia from each other ?

- Poland from Russian, Austrian and German rule ?

- The Philippines from US rule ?

- Slovenia, Croatia, Macedonia, Bosnia, Montenegro from Serbian diktat ?

- The Basque country from Spanish and French rule ?

- West Papua from Indonesian rule ?

- the thirty million Kurds from Turkish, Syrian, Iraqi and Iranian control ?

- Xinjiang/East Turkestan, Tibet and Taiwan from Chinese imperial control ?

[TBC]

[continued]

Do, or should, these groups have the right to determine their own future, over the territory that they occupy, and have occupied as a majority population, as the more or less exclusive population there, for an historical stretch of time, say hundreds of years ?

Empires, and the imperial impulse, don't seem to die quickly or quietly. I'm sure that there are still English people who think that Ireland should still be part of an 'indissoluble' United Kingdom, and perhaps Americans who think they should still control the Philippines. The new Tsarists seem to have trouble thinking of parts of the old USSR going their own ways.

But what do we support - imperialism or self-determination, power or democratic choice ?

Joe

Daeron asks whether Australia should support Vanuatu against Indonesia at the UN.

Let's see.

On the con side:

The Javanese Empire, aka Indonesia, is our most important neighbour. It is a Muslim country with 10 times our population. We depend on their cooperation in controlling the flow of boat people. Do we really want to get them angry at us? Do we really want to give the anti-Australian Islamic parties a casus belli?

The United States, our most important strategic ally and an important trading partner, has made it clear that they want to build a strategic partnership with Indonesia. Do we want to get the US angry at us too?

The last time we worked to detach a piece of territory, East Timor, from the Javanese Empire we became a target for Muslim terrorists. Do we want to do that again?

On the pro side:

Justice for the West Papuans.

DO THE MATHS.

Of course it is not in Australia's interest to support Vanuatu. And however the government of the day dresses it up, whatever spin the government puts on it, Australian foreign policy, like that of every other country, is guided by self-interest.

Of course we always CLAIM we are following "international law" and acting from the highest principles. But this is taurine fertiliser. We ALWAYS act from self-interest.

So don't be daft Daeron.

Australia is not going to support Vanuatu against the Javanese Empire. The West Papuans should face up to the fact that they and their culture are doomed.

And Aborigines should look at West Papua and reflect on the fact that if the Europeans had not arrived first they would now be part of the Javanese Empire. Would they prefer that?

Perhaps you're right, Steven, we should just think about ourselves, even if it means selling other people down the river. I'm a little uneasy with that sort of realpolitik.

But in a more equitable world, would we - as we did in the case of East Timor - stand up on our hind legs and support the right of people, even just on paper, to make their own choices ? Or is that just too difficult and dangerous ? Might we lose more than we can gain by sticking up for the human rights of other people ?

Yes, perhaps you're right, some people will never have the freedoms that we take for granted and that's how it is, period. It's not our problem, so let's just shut our eyes to it all.

Joe Lane