Yesterday, Kalaallit Nunaat – Greenland – moved a step closer toward independence from Denmark. The Arctic country has become a subject in its own right under international law; its language, Kalaallisut, has become the sole official language; and it is taking over control of its own police and judiciary, as well as greater control over its natural resources. This move was based on a referendum that took place in November, in which 75% of Greenlandic voters opted in favour.

The festivities in the Greenlandic capital of Nuuk marking yesterday’s event were attended by Denmark’s Queen Margrethe and its prime minister, Lars Loekke Rasmussen. For the Greenlanders are fortunate in having, in Denmark, one of the world’s most enlightened imperial overlords. This is the same Denmark that has proven a staunch member of the allied coalition in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the object of Islamist hatred over the Danish cartoon controversy. We may compared Denmark’s enlightened readiness to permit the peaceful secession of one of its territories and its sterling record as a member of the Western alliance, with the sorry record of Spain, Slovakia and Romania. These countries’ exaggerated fears of ’separatism’ have led them, despite being members of NATO, to break ranks with most of the rest of the alliance to oppose Kosova’s independence from Serbia, and to align themselves instead with hostile Russia. Denmark, the more enlightened country on the issue of national self-determination, is the better member of the Western alliance.

Denmark’s ready acceptance of Greenland’s right to secede is in keeping with a proud Nordic tradition of enlightened resolution of national questions. Norway seceded peacefully from Sweden in 1905, as did Iceland from Denmark in 1944. Territorial disputes between Sweden and Finland over the Aland Islands in the 1920s and between Denmark and Norway over eastern Greenland in the 1930s were peacefully resolved by international arbitration. Finland granted autonomy to the Aland Islands in 1920; Denmark to Greenland in 1979, allowing the latter to secede from the EU in 1985. 

The contrast between the enlightened Nordic acceptance of the right of nations to self-determination on the one hand, and the nationalist resistance to ’separatism’ on the part of Spain, Slovakia and Romania on the other, is not unrelated to the fact that, whereas Denmark has a long history of liberal constitutional government, Spain was still a dictatorship less than thirty-five years ago; Slovakia and Romania twenty years ago. Spain’s continued refusal to recognise the right of the Basque Country and Catalonia to self-determination is a continuation, in softer form, of the repression of these countries by the fascist dictatorship of Francisco Franco. For their part, Slovakia and Romania have been among the most unreconstructed of the former Eastern bloc countries to join NATO and the EU.

Further still from the Danish ideal of tolerance of secession are repressive states with ruling ideologies hostile to liberal democratic Western values, such as Russia, Iran and China. These states rely on massive violence or forced assimilation to crush subject peoples. They are able to do this precisely because they reject Western values. Equally, as they are unconstrained by concern for human rights, they are ready to support other states that brutally suppress subject peoples. Thus, on 27 May of this year, Russia and China were among those members of the United Nations Human Rights Council that voted for a resolution in praise of Sri Lanka’s brutal campaign against the Tamil Tigers, who are fighting for a separate Tamil state, while Britain, France, Germany and other democratic states voted against. Other states that voted for the resolution included Saudi Arabia, Cuba, Egypt, Nigeria, the degree of whose concern for human rights is suggested by their alignment on this question.

The reality is that, by and large, the more enlightened and democratic a state is, the more ready it will be to accept the secession of a constituent territory or subject people. Conversely, the more repressive and undemocratic a state is, the less willing it will be to countenance such a move, and the more ready it will be to support the brutal suppression of such a move by another such state. It is very possible that Scotland will eventually secede from the United Kingdom; conceivable that Wales will do so, or that Puerto Rico will secede from the US. But while we Britons and Americans may or may not hope against such acts of secession, few of us are enraged by the prospect.

This being so, it is not in the interests of the Western alliance rigidly to uphold the principle that subject peoples should not be allowed to secede unilaterally from existing independent states. Western respect for human rights means that Western states will never be able to support acts of repression by other states against subject peoples as unequivocally as our undemocratic enemies, while even moderate Western expressions of concern at human rights abuses committed during such acts of repression will earn us the ire of the states in question. Western support for Russia against Chechen rebels during the 1990s did not earn us any Russian gratitude, but Western criticism of Russian human-rights abuses in Chechnya certainly earned us Russian ire. Meanwhile, Russia’s crushing of Chechnya strengthened its grip on the Caucasus region, making possible the assault on our Georgian ally last summer. Simply put, Western support for Russia against Chechnya was a blunder; the democratic world should have recognised Chechnya’s independence in 1991, alongside the Soviet republics that declared independence at the same time. Equally, in the event that democratic Taiwan should declare independence from Communist China, while we may regret the clash with the latter that this will inevitably occasion, support for Taiwan would be the only honourable policy. In supporting Kosova’s secession from Serbia, Western statesmen have erred in pretending that this instance of secession is unique. Erred both because it is factually untrue that Kosovo is a unique case, and because pretending that it is will only tie our hands in the future, when dealing with states ruled by hostile, repressive regimes carrying out acts of mass violence against subject peoples.

Genuine democracies have nothing to fear from ’separatism’; dictatorships and other repressive states do. It is time to accept the principle that, in certain circumstances, subject peoples should be permitted to secede unilaterally from a parent state. Such circumstances might include those where the subject people in question has suffered particularly extreme persecution, or conversely where it has proved itself worthy through practising good, democratic governance. Should they ever choose to exercise this right, the people of Darfur would qualify under the first condition; the Taiwanese under the second. Other conditions or combinations thereof might also warrant qualification. Kosova, for example, qualified not only because of the extreme persecution its people had suffered under Serbian rule, but also because of the constitutional status the territory had enjoyed in the former Yugoslavia. The question of whether a subject people has earned the right to secede should ultimately be decided in the court of public opinion in the democratic world.

But this does not mean that every secessionist movement or act should be supported indiscriminately – far from it. For the right of nations to self-determination is open to abuse. There are cases where an expansionist, predatory state conquers part of a neighbour’s territory, using the pretext of support for a national minority; the predatory state then ethnically cleanses the unwanted population from the conquered territory, creates an artificial demographic majority in favour of ‘independence’, then declares that this artificial majority has the right to ’self-determination’. This is what Serbia did in Bosnia, Turkey in Cyprus and Russia in Abkhazia. There are cases where the population of a territory is split relatively evenly between supporters and opponents of secession, or where the secessionists are in the minority.

Clearly, in such cases, support for the right to secede should not be the default position. Rather, each demand for secession has to be judged individually, on its own merits – like a case in court. The example most often cited by opponents of national self-determination is that of the southern US states’ attempted secession in the 1860s; as this secession was motivated by the desire to preserve the barbaric institution of slavery, it is not an example that can be used to deny the right to secede to secessionist peoples with more legitimate motives.

The very real possibility that the democratic world might intervene to support a secessionist movement on its territory would act as an incentive for repressive states, both to improve their treatment of their subject peoples and to lessen their hostility to the democratic world. The possibility of losing Darfur would be likely to act as a greater deterrent to Khartoum’s genocidal policies there than the toothless indictments of the International Criminal Court. Conversely, where it is a case of a repressive state allied to the West, pressure to reform would take a different form. Because Turkey is a member of NATO and an EU candidate country, there is no possibility that the Western alliance will intervene militarily to end Turkey’s rule over its Kurdish-inhabited regions; Turkey’s territorial integrity is therefore secure. But the ‘price’ that Turkey pays for this is that it is required to improve its treatment of its Kurds and its human-rights’ record generally - something that, over the past decade, it has actually done. So long as Turkey continues to democratise, Kurdish support for secession is likely to wane, or at least to be increasingly channelled away from support for violent insurgency to support for peaceful, constitutional nationalist parties.

As surely as night follows day, more peoples that today are unfree will join the ranks of the Eritreans, Croatians, Kosovars and others which have already seceded in recent decades after fighting bitter wars of independence. There is no point regretting this, or attempting to halt the process. The Western alliance should be on the right side of history.

This article was published today on the website of the Henry Jackson Society.

These limericks are all based on dual versions of well-known place names (well, except for one, which uses a disjunction between spelling and pronunciation). You read the one and say the other…

Thanks to Antonia Morton for inspiring me.

A lively young miss from Bombay
Sent a note to her beau to combay.
She said, “Have a look –
I’ve learned how to cook!”
But she burned him while making flumbai.

A man with a flat in Peking
Was forever inclined to reking.
“The bathtub is leijing!
The neighbours are beijing!
This place is all just gilded ceking!”

A teak cutter living in Myanmar
Came down with quite bad sclerodyanmar.
He found it a bon
To lie low in Yangon
Getting rubbed by a tart named Miss Yanmar.

Two newlyweds visited Ho Chi Minh City,
But the bride soon asked, “Where’s my go chi minh city?”
He was found with another.
Quoth she, “I’m gone to mother!
I just can’t let bo chi monh citys be bo chi minh city!”

A young lass who lived in Krung Thep
Went out one fine night for a wep.
She soon happened bhai
Her Thai sweetie-phai
And they stayed up until three o’clep.

A rude dude who visited Kalaallit Nunaat
Declared, “This is such an obsalallit nunaat!
Just come up to Godthab
And have a quick lodthab!
Next time I’ll just go to maralaallit nunaat!”

A Philly lass known to be fruylkill
Was taking a walk by the Schuylkill.
She picked up a dollow
Stashed away in a hollow –
Which she’d found through a map search on Guylkill.

A moocher who hung out in Báile Atha Cliath
Said “I surely don’t mean to be tràile atha cliath;
Begorrah, ’tis true,
I ate all your stew,
But I couldn’t just let it sit dàile atha cliath.”

There once was a fellow from Worcester
Who had slept with a school-friend’s sorcester.
He explained to his mate,
“She’s so saucy and great,
Man, I’m sorry – I couldn’t resorcester!”

A jaunty young fellow from Cirencester
Saw a pretty lass and blew a kirencester,
But the poor silly fool
Was so gobsmacked with drool
That he just managed to spit and hirencester.

Ja fa força temps que vaig escriure l’entrada a Ethnologue, quan vaig escriure la informació relativa a Alaska i Canadà. Per ser sincera, pensava que potser em costaria anar trobant informació per al projecte, i em va semblar un pas fàcil començar per Ethnologue. Però he anat saltant d’una pàgina a l’altra, i pràcticament m’havia oblidat d’aquest pas tan bàsic. Així que continuo, aquest cop amb la informació sobre Grenlàndia o, més ben dit, Kalaallit Nunaat:

Kalaallit Nunaat (Greenland)

La població total és de 56.384. Llengües nacionals o oficials: inuktitut greenlandès, danès. Afiliació amb Dinamarca, autogovern des de 1979. Taxa d’alfabetització: 93%. El nombre de llengües llistat per Grenlàndia és de dos: danès i inuktitut grenlandès. Totes dues són llengües vives.

Inuktitut grenlandès
[kal] 47.800 parlants a Grenlàndia (1995 Krauss). Aquesta xifra inclou 3.000 parlants de grenlandès est, 44.000 de grenlandès oest, i 800 de nord grenlandès. La població total en tots els països és de 54.800. Unes 80 comunitats per sobre de 10 persones. About 80 communities of populations over 10. També es parla a Dinamarca. Només alternatius: Greenlandic, Kalaallisut. Dialectes: West Greenlandic, East Greenlandic, “Polar Eskimo” (North Greenlandic, Thule Inuit). Els dialectes s’acosten a ser llengües diferents (M. Krauss 1995). Classificació: Eskimo-Aleut, Eskimo, Inuit.

No he pogut trobar el mapa de Grenlàndia, potser no en tenen…

It has been a while since my entry about the maps in Ethnologue, when I posted the information concerning Alaska and Canada. To be honest, the I was thinking that it would be difficult to find information for my project. But I have been jumping from one site to another one, and I had almost forget about this basic step. So here I go; this time, the Ethnologue report for Greenland, or, rather, Kalaallit Nunaat:

Kalaallit Nunaat (Greenland)

The total population is 56.384. National or official languages: Greenlandic Inuktitut, Danish. Affiliated with Denmark; home rule since 1979. Literacy rate: 93%. The number of languages listed for Greenland is two: Danish and Greenlandic Inuktitut. Of those, both are living languages.

Inuktitut, Greenlandic
[kal] 47,800 in Greenland (1995 Krauss). Population includes 3,000 East Greenlandic, 44,000 West Greenlandic, 800 North Greenlandic. Population total all countries: 54,800.Greenland. About 80 communities of populations over 10. Also spoken in Denmark. Alternate names: Greenlandic, Kalaallisut. Dialects: West Greenlandic, East Greenlandic, “Polar Eskimo” (North Greenlandic, Thule Inuit). Dialects border on being different languages (M. Krauss 1995). Classification: Eskimo-Aleut, Eskimo, Inuit.

I couldn’t find the map for Greenland in Ethnologue, maybe it doesn’t exist…