From: steve.devos-AT-krokodile.co.uk
Date: Mon, 15 Mar 2004 11:54:51 -0000 (GMT)
Subject: RE: Went to a Tarik Ali talk...


Eric/Hugh

I'm not sure that I understand where you are going with this argument.
Because in the current neo-liberal/globalised environment - national
soveriegnty  has decreasing or little actual meaning, given that only states
within the G20 club are allowed socio-economic self-determination.  The
question of ethnic self-determination is surely as irrelevant as that
obviously linked illusion of national self-determination.  Is it possible to
think 'ethnic self-determination' along with 'national self-determination'
when both concepts are challenged by the present refusal of  globalisation
to countenance such concepts ?

Whar actually caused me some anguish this morning was the realisation (once
again) that for Jack Straw (Foriegn Minister) an ethnic group is only
another term for  a religious identity - surely such a reactionary
identiication is meaningless - except when understood as a means of
supporting the strange structure that the neo-liberal globalisers seemingly
desire, namely the simple structure of 'globalisation and religious
ethnicity'.   As evidenced by the endless repetition of the meaningless and
phrase 'muslim'  ...   rather than  something that foregrounds the differend
between their version of globalisation and the other discourses and
socio-political movements on offer.

What this leads to is the question of what precisely do you understand by
the 'state' ?  especially in the context of global, state and the arious
subsets of  difference...?

steve


> Hugh wrote:
>
> What ever happened to the idea of "Self-determination" of ethnic
> enclaves
> was the answer to hundreds of years of conflict?  Why shouldn't the
> Kurds or
> the Basques become a small nation?
>
> Hugh,
>
> I'm open to what you say and think that these ideas merit
> consideration, but also think the challenge they pose to national
> sovereignty is one reason why they usually prove to be unsuccessfully,
> as well as the fact that pure regional homogeneity never exists. It is
> true, for example, that Kurds predominate in the north section of Iraq,
> but the population there is not only Kurds. Kurds also exist in other
> parts of Iraq.  If a Kurdish state was created in the north, would huge
> migrations of
> populations need to be displaced and what impact would that have on the
> region? How would it impact on the Kurds currently living in Turkey?
> Would the government of Turkey allow a region to secede in order to
> join up with the new state?
>
> As a somewhat cynical thought experiment, consider the United States.
> We know that the Southern and Mountain states tend to consistently
> oppose adequate government funding even though these states receive
> much more in federal funding then they contribute. Furthermore, they
> tend to vote in a block that is fundamentalist, racist, homophobic and
> politically reactionary.
>
> Why not allow these states to secede and form their own nation?  Why
> should the Midwest, West Cost, and Eastern Seaboard continue to
> underwrite them?
>
> eric