Self-determination in the Modern World

It never seems to end. There is fighting in the Ukraine. Israel continues its ethnic cleansing campaign. Having separated from Sudan, now the peoples of South Sudan are fighting among themselves. Iraq, Somalia, Thailand ... the list seems almost endless.

On the other hand, a lot of people with different ethnic heritages, religions, and customs get along just fine, almost all the time. America has its famous melting pot, if you are willing to overlook the earlier genocide against Native American Indians and discrimination against non-Europeans (and Irish, Jews, Italians ...). Partly that is because we have created a new nationalist identity, itself dangerous to other nations of the world. America has a high-proportion of modern people, who see religion as mythology and ethnic identities as old-fashioned. In a way "modern" people are globalists. A modern person can find people with similar outlooks almost anywhere in the world.

Individuals often hold modern and old-fashioned contradictions within themselves. Woodrow Wilson, President of the United States from 1913 until 1921, was a racist, in fact one of the key intellectual architects of 20th century racial segregation. Perhaps because of his racism, rather than in spite of it, he proposed to the peace conference after World War I that people should have the right to "self-determination." National borders would be drawn by the people themselves, so that an ethnic group might choose to have its own nation, or to combine freely with other ethnic groups into a larger nation.

When Wilson and the American delegation got to Versailles they found there were a lot of people interested in self-determination. People in the British, French, German, Dutch, Belgian, Italian, and former Ottoman empires, for instance. Ho Chi Minh was there (think of all the trouble that could have been prevented had the conference granted Vietnam independence from France.) But none of the empires had any interest in granting freedom to their conquests, and Japan, France and the British Empire actually grabbed more territory. Being on the winning side trumped universal ideas of justice. Nor did it ever occur to Wilson to free Puerto Rico or the Philippines.

The Japanese asked that all Asian peoples be granted self-determination and freedom from (European) colonial domination. They also asked for a general provision against racism, which Woodrow Wilson personally nixed. The only new nations to emerge were carved out of the losers, Germany, Turkey, Russia and the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Many of today's problems trace directly to the triumph of power and racism over justice at Versailles. Iraq, rather than being part of a larger pan-Arab nation, or being divided into Shiite, Kurd, and Sunni majority smaller nations, was created for British oil extraction. Palestine was divided off from Syria (which was given to the French) so that Britain could keep its promise to the Jews for their help in World War I. The nation now known as Jordan was given as a consolation prize to a pal of Lawrence of Arabia.

We cannot redraw the past, but modern people might well try to not repeat its obvious mistakes. I understand when ethnic groups and other minorities are, or feel they are, oppressed. That pushes them towards a desire for autonomy and independence. But nationalism, ethnic identification and racism are closely related. I think people do better when they trascend all that.

Adjusting borders in Africa, South America, and Asia that were drawn by European imperial powers makes some sense. This would have to be done on the principle of self-determination: let people draw their own lines. But many issues have no geographic solutions. Some minority groups have no majority areas. Many areas have complex mixtures of groups.

The better answer is to encourage the trend to a modern, friendly mindset based on the following principles:

Legal and economic justice for all.
Freedom of religion and expression.
Classic good governance: no corruption or favoritism of any kind.
Emphasizing our common humanity, not our cultural or physical differences.
Universal education in the generally accepted principles of ethics.

Human nature being what it is, setting things right will be a long, slow process. There have been several historical attempts to globalize an ethical system, usually a religion. I believe Christianity, Buddhism, and Islam all attempted to be universal religions, with a universal system of ethics for all people. Each failed, or at least has failed so far. Marxism (or more broadly, socialism including anarchism) also sought to be a universal cure for humanity. I think it is worth looking at each of the histories of these movements to see what they achieved and why they failed.

I believe the key is being universal, but not authoritarian. Universal tolerance and diversity can work as long as we share (and act on) core ethical values. Modern people do this. Modern people can treat anyone as an individual. Modern people do not oppress others. Modern people communicate and educate. Modern people show mercy. Modern people resort to self-defense only as a last resort, and never act as or facilitate aggressors.

There just are not enough of us, yet. But we can be found just about everywhere and anywhere. We just need to keep making more friends, and avoid corruption.

Obama: Crimea Doesn't Need Any Stinking Election

United States President Barack Obama is against having an election in the Crimea to determine whether that peninsula (practically an island) should rejoin the Russia it had been a part of until it was switched to the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic by communists who thought it would be easier to administrate through Kiev.

Obama called the plans for an election a violation of international law: "And that includes standing up for the principle of state sovereignty. The proposed referendum on the future of Crimea would violate the Ukrainian constitution and violate international law. Any discussion about the future of Ukraine must include the legitimate government of Ukraine. In 2014, we are well beyond the days when borders can be redrawn over the heads of democratic leaders." [March 6, 2014 Statement by President Barack Obama on the Ukraine]

This is a President who supports a fiercely anti-woman and anti-religious freedom regime in Saudi Arabia [See Dictator of Saudi Arabia]; who pays for mercenaries for a half dozen nations to rape Somalia [See Rape of Somalia]; who executes American citizens without trial; and who comes from a long line of Presidents who have acted like global dictators, installing puppet governments and overthrowing democratically elected governments whenever that furthered the purposes of the U.S. corporate security state.

The "democratic leaders" Obama refers to in his statement are an interim government put in place by a mob after the mob forced the elected government of the Ukraine to flee the capitol.

Perhaps someone should remind President Obama that our nation is based on illegal elections. The Founding Fathers held elections against the will of Parliament and the King of Britain.

I thought our ancestors had established that it is the people, not the rulers, who get to decide when an election is appropriate.

A majority of people in Crimea don't like being part of the Ukraine, especially now that right-wing thugs organized by neo-Nazis have overthrown the legitimately elected government. Let me be clear that I understand that many of the people who protested the former government were not right-wing thugs. People have a right to protest. But they don't have a right to overthrow an elected government that plans to continue to hold elections. They could have waited for the next election; if the government were that unpopular, it would have fallen peacefully.

The situation in the Ukraine looks like Algeria, Palestine, and Iran all over again (and many more national elections if you look further back in history, particularly in Latin America). In each of those cases the people elected anti-American governments. In Algeria the U.S. backed a military coup; in Palestine we backed a coup by the PLO, favoring them over Hamas; and in Iran we simply demonized the regime, shot down a civilian airliner, paid Iraq to attack and kill millions of Iranians (including using poison gas and mass electrocutions), and organized illegal international economic measures to try to strangle the regime.

In the U.S. it is illegal for a foreigner to donate to a political campaign (though of course it happens on occasion). But the U.S. funnels vast sums of money to parties it likes in foreign nations. If Obama really cared about sovereignty, he would stop interfering in so many nations' elections. He'd stop using military donations to bribe leaders. He'd shut down the CIA torture centers and fix the massive problems of the U.S. instead of keeping 12 aircraft carriers and their fleets circling the oceans as floating bullies.

I am not a fan of Vladimir Putin or Russian society. But it is their society. If people in the Crimea want to try being part of Russia instead of the Ukraine, it is their inherent human right. In the words of the U.S. Declaration of Independence: "Whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it." The "Ends" mentioned are, among others, Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.

If the people of Crimea think they will by happier and more free as part of Russia, it is their inalienable right to take action on that Pursuit.

If any other oppressed or misgoverned group, wants autonomy, or independence, or to merge with some other nation, that is their right as well.

Citizens of the U.S. should think about their right to "alter or abolish" the government of the United States of America, because it sure as hades could stand some major improvements.

National Self-determination, Crimea, and Ukraine

What ever happened to U.S. President Woodrow Wilson's principle of national self-determination? Shouldn't President Obama being standing up for this right for the people of Crimea and the eastern Ukraine?

Geopolitics is complicated. Ethnic (and religious & other) minorities within a nation are often majorities within a smaller region, and often aspire to have their own nation-states. Right now the Scots are getting ready to vote on independence from Great Britain, the Palestinians want independence from Israel ... the list is quite long.

Who gets a nation, and who does not? The strong get nations; the weak do not. But often the strongest nations, like the United States, do a lot of the decision making. Right now Russia looks like it is determined to help do some decision making in parts of the Ukraine, particularly in Crimea. To have a fair position on this specific application of the principle of national self-determination, it helps to have a historic perspective. Tweets from 3 microseconds ago are hard to interpret if you don't know the history of the past hundred years or so.

After making sure the British Empire won World War I (thereby protecting U.S. banking loans to London and Paris), Woodrow Wilson went to Europe with a lot of big ideas about permanent world peace. Best known for advocating the creation of the League of Nations, President Wilson proposed the principle of national self-determination. His specific territorial recommendations made in his Fourteen Points were supposed to derive from this principle.

Self-determination, the right of people to choose their sovereignty and political status, to be "governed only by their own consent," got off to a bad start. Woodrow Wilson himself was the architect of modern racism in the United States and within the Democratic Party. This was reflected in his attitude towards non-white people. He wanted self-determination for Poland, a state that did not exist before World War I, because that would weaken both Germany and Russia. But when the Japanese proposed that national self-determination should mean all the colonies of Britain, France, Belgium, Italy (and presumably the Japanese colony of Korea) should be granted independence if they wanted it, Wilson blocked that proposal in a committee which he chaired.

Putting aside Wilson's personal hypocrisy, consider the problem of trying to apply national self-determination to the real world, with its actual real human beings on the ground. Consider some 20th century examples.

Wilson did not grant independence to the American colonies of Puerto Rico or the Philippines. While Puerto Rico is still a possession of the United States, the Philippines became independent under Japanese tutelage during World War II. Then the U.S. recaptured the Philippines in an exceptionally brutal campaign notable for the massive execution of POWs by U.S. soldiers, a war crime. Only when the Philippines leaders agreed to permanent U.S. military access to the islands did the U.S. grant independence, of sorts, in 1946.

The basic principle the U.S. has operated under is democracy and national self-determination is fine as long as pro-U.S. governments end up in control. If anti-U.S. people want independence, or win an election to control a nation, that is another matter entirely.

Vietnam is perhaps the best example, although it is just one of many. Vietnam was a French colony [actually 3 colonies, collectively French Indochina] starting before World War I. It had an independence movement throughout its colonial history. Japan took over Vietnam during World War II, but the French [who were controlled from fascist France] continued to work with the Japanese. The Vietnamese independence movement fought for national self-determination during World War II, and tried to convince the Allied Powers (notably the U.S.) to support Vietnamese national self-determination.

American policy makers (ultimately President Truman) flirted with the idea of an independent Vietnam. Then they decided keeping France happy was more important. The French re-conquered Vietnam. The Vietnamese fought a bloody war for independence, and won. As part of the peace & independence deal the French and those Vietnamese loyal to them (mainly Roman Catholics) concentrated in southern Vietnam. They then refused to allow for national elections because they knew the Viet Minh, who had fought the French, would win. Instead, with U.S. backing, the French set up a regime in South Vietnam that was universally despised from its inception. The U.S. fought the Vietnamese War to try to keep Vietnam from being united and independent.

Even as President Obama scolds Russia for using military intervention in Crimea rather than diplomacy, the U.S. is paying anti-gay rights nations like Uganda to fight in Somalia. The U.S. has not even withdrawn its troops from Afghanistan. France has troops in several African nations, helping to decide who will rule there.

So why is the Ukraine so special? Well, first of all it is white people. Second of all, it has a large pro-Western following. But the pro-Russian faction won the last election. Why are the people violently protesting the last elections, including many young men who admit to being nationalist thugs, given the Democracy label? Can't Americans just admit that our leaders are not for majority rule democracy, they just want the Ukraine to join the European Union and be allied with the U.S. and NATO? Why can't we just wait for the next round of elections to see if sentiment has shifted and power can be transferred peacefully?

Why are Russian police actions bad, but U.S. and French and Brit police actions good?

Because Americans, the vast majority of them, or us, have a misinformed sense of right and wrong.

Is Vladimir Putin an asshole? Sure. But that is not the issue for Obama and the American corporate security state. The only question they ask is: Is Putin our asshole? As long as he is our asshole, as Saddam Hussein once was, and as Osama bin Laden once was, being an asshole is no problem. In politics Putin can be a friend of the U.S. on one issue, an enemy on another.

Self-determination for the Crimea would mean an election to see if the people of Crimea prefer to be part of the Ukraine or part of Russia. Or maybe even independent. I hope such an election is held so the rest of the world can know what Woodrow Wilson would think.

And how about independence or statehood for the U.S. possession known as Puerto Rico? What about Kurdistan for the Kurds, and ... list almost every ethnic minority that does not have its own nation here. There are literally hundreds of them.