Dear BSDetector,

Fundamental rights are for individual humans to be secure in their persons, to have access to the benefits available in society and to be free. The political formulation called self-determination allows people identified by a common religion, language or other criterion to form a nation state based on that identity. Those within the boundary of that nation state who do not share that identity are denied the full benefits of living in that state.

Self-determination is a political formulation which is inimical to the human rights of individual humans who do not share the paradigm of the state. The solution to the oppression resulting from self-determination is to see that all nations do not make distinctions among its citizens on any such paradigm.

BSDetector,

"...every nation State in Europe and the Middle East is based on a claim by a majority language-culture group that it constitutes an authentic nation with a right of self-determination in its own territory." Even if that is accepted as valid principle it offers absolutely support for Zionism.

You can't assert that Jews have a claim to Palestine simply because there were some majority Jewish societies there 2000 years ago. You're in fact supporting the Palestinian cause by invoking the doctrine of self-determination because there's no ethical basis for Zionism. Therefore Jews as a people, have no right to invade and occupy Palestine, since by doing so they violate Palestinians' rights to self determination.

I agree with david f, it's about time ethno-religious chauvinism disappeared, its demise is long overdue.

BSDetector wrote:

"...every nation State in Europe and the Middle East is based on a claim by a majority language-culture group that it constitutes an authentic nation with a right of self-determination in its own territory.”

Dear BSDetector,

The above is false if we actually look at the nation states of Europe. At the southeast of the Netherlands is a tendril extending to Maastricht. That is simply where the armies were at the time of the Peace of Westphalia. The boundaries of Europe are in part the limits of dynasties or armies.

Look at Belgium. It is a composite of two languages. Look at Switzerland. It has four languages - German, French, Italian and Romansch. Modern France is a product of the French Revolution which enshrined the Rights of Man. The first right is “Men are born and remain free and equal in rights. Social distinctions may be founded only upon the general good.” There is nothing in those rights referring to the French language or any religion.

Modern Germany resulted from union under Bismarck of several distinctive nations which specifically excluded the German speaking people in Austria. After the union authorities in Berlin specified a national language.

Modern Italy is the union of different kingdoms. A quote from the memoirs of d'Azeglio is L'Italia è fatta. Restano da fare gli italiani (literally: Italy has been made; now it remains to make Italians, but often reported more colloquially as "We have made Italy. Now we must make Italians."). After Italy was united it did not have a common language. Part of making the residents of Italy into Italians was giving them a common language.

Your statement is nonsense based on ideology rather than history.

The idea of group rights has been the basis for oppression many times in history. ‘State's Rights’ was a rallying call for the Confederacy which revolted against the Union. The only state's right that was at issue as far as I can see was the right to keep humans in slavery. Like other minorities in an area not sharing the dominant paradigm slaves were oppressed.

Third line should be "no support for Zionism".

Davef, your personal (I would say idiosyncratic) view of the right of self-determination of peoples is completely at odds with contemporary international legal norms. The fundamental and incontrovertible nature of that right has been recognized in the UN Charter (Art 1.2) the ICCPR (Art 1.1) and by the ICJ in the Namibia, Western Sahara and East Timor cases. Professor James Crawford regards the right of self-determination and other peoples’ rights as a category of human rights. Individual rights are another.

And yes, I accept that the right applies also to the Palestinians. I support a two-State solution for that reason. The UN has supported a resolution of the conflict on the basis of two States for two peoples since 1947.

You will have a hard time convincing French people that the State of France is based solely on the rights of man and not also on the French language and culture. Your belief that nation-States can be founded solely on universalistic principles and in disregard of the ethnic, linguistic and cultural particularities of their majority populations is touching but utterly pie-in-the-sky. Perhaps in the distant future this might become possible but the trend for now is in completely the opposite direction. Even immigrant nations like Australia have difficulty conceiving themselves in exclusively universalistic terms.

Look at the former Soviet Union and the former Yugoslavia. Almost as soon as communism collapsed they each broke up into their constituent ethnic parts. Attempts to prevent each break-up caused shocking atrocities but since the break-up was achieved the resulting separate independent states have lived peacefully. Even the closely-related Czechs and Slovaks preferred an amicable divorce to an acrimonious marriage.

Yes, the Flemish and the Walloons and the different groups in Switzerland have managed to live together in one State, but never entirely happily. And you slyly omitted all mention of the Basques. Jews and Arabs differ in language, culture and religion. Forcing them to live in one State in roughly equal numbers would simply reignite the 1947-9 war with terrible consequences all round. And for what purpose? To satisfy your delicate sensibilities?

Dear BSDetector,

You are right. Self-determination is accepted in contemporary legal norms, and I have never denied that. It became accepted after the Versailles treaty when Woodrow Wilson brought it into diplomatic parlance.

My contention is the contemporary legal norms regarding self-determination are a source of conflict and oppression.

To contend as you have: “"...every nation State in Europe and the Middle East is based on a claim by a majority language-culture group that it constitutes an authentic nation with a right of self-determination in its own territory." ignores history. You have made a claim about every nation. All we have to do is find one nation for which that is not true, and your generalisation is false. As I pointed out Switzerland has four official languages. It is a stable conglomeration having existed since 1648 with the same boundaries. It is a nation state to which your generalisation, ‘every nation’, does not apply. A universal generalisation with an exception is no longer a universal generalisation. That is simple logic.

Certainly the Rights of Man are not what has solely determined the French state. However, it was not the claim by a majority language-culture group that gave France its current boundaries. Through much of European history the boundaries of nations were determined by dynastic considerations or the power of armies. Dynastic considerations ignored the language groups within a nations boundaries. The boundaries of France until the French Revolution were determined by the armies of the Bourbon dynasty and the natural boundaries it could defend. Current France is shaped by natural boundaries. The Atlantic Ocean, the Pyrenees, the Mediterranean and the Rhine determined the boundaries. Where the boundaries were not determined by natural defensive barriers as in the northeast there has been continual conflict. Within the there were many language groups and dialects. The Bourbons really didn’t care whether their domains spoke the same language. France after the French Revolution attempted to create a nation state by mandating a single language to be taught in the French schools. Nevertheless other languages still exist in France.

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