Hi, Keith,
Great to see you here. The four criteria for sovereignty reflect international law; they don't speak to the dynamics that bring a state into being, but to the characteristics of an entity that has qualified for sovereignty. I am quite current on the situation in the Kurdish regions, but the matter of whether they seek and achieve statehood will not, in my opinion be decided there; it will be decided in Baghdad, Tehran and Ankara, for the reasons that I suggested in my earlier email. Modern history of replete with examples of ethnic groups that has sought and failed to achieve statehood. It would not be aberrational that the Kurds fail, also, should they seek it (and this currently is at best ambiguous). And you are right; we are all conjecturing, and only emerging facts will indicate which of our views were 'correct.' You refer to Egypt and Turkey, and fear that they will slip into Medieval religionism. Ataturk and Nasser were certainly instrumental in bringing their countries into a world defined by secular and nationalist principles, but they both also created serious problems within their countries, including varieties of religious suppression and lack of popular political participation. They both were able to accomplish much by casting themselves as defenders of their countries against foreign aggression (e.g. Ataturk against the European powers at the Treties of Sevres and Lausanne, and Greece at the battles around Izmir; and Nasser against the British re. the nationalization of the Suez Canal, and the British, French, and Israeli invasions of 1956). But they also introduced dysfunctionalities into their countries: Ataturk in raising the army to be final arbiter on political matters, suppression of the rural leadership of the country, and suppression of dissident political voices and parties; Nasser in the creation of a one-party government, and the suppression of the Muslim Brotherhood and Coptic organizations. To these internal challenges, we now have an emerging and more global phenomenon. Western culture is being revealed as problematic: it is based on consumption, the notion that people are first and foremost economic actors and easy prey for falsely-generated consumer demand; the habits of state-sponsored gambling, seduction, deceit, greed, and hyperbole; growth dependency; education subordinated to entertainment, etc. I see the rise of religious fundamentalism around the world as a misplaced and ineffective but sincere effort by ordinary people to find a counter to the 'cancerous' spread of modern commercial Western culture. I doubt these religious constructs will find any answer to that commercialism, but at least they are trying. And we do need real answers and fast, for we are losing what I think is a growing portion of our kids to despair about their future. No, I don't have any good ideas about how to slow the cancerous spread of modern Western culture, but I do have sympathy for those who are trying. Turkey and Egypt will do just fine; they will muddle their ways to something that works, I hope. We Westerners would be better off focusing on our own plethora of problems, and trying to limit the damage we do to others. The perspectives of the colonial period are not only dead, but I am beginning to suspect/hope that the 'Third World' may be part of our solution to our problems. A long reply to a provocative email, Keith. Many thanks. Cheers, Lawry _____ From: Keith Hudson [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, December 01, 2006 3:59 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: [email protected] Subject: Re: [Futurework] FW: Map of Middle East -- Statehood criteria and conquest Lawry, I don't know why you and Harry can be so certain that the Kurds will never establish a nation-state. In order to establish even the beginnings of statehood there has to be another more subtle factor which is not mentioned in your four criteria mentioned below. I'll mention this a little later. But in the meantime, does anybody think that the 240-odd countries that have obtained recognition as nation-states by the United Nations really are nation-states in the historical sense as sketched out in the Treaty of Westphalia of 1648 which, by and large, established the concept? What the Westphalian concept amounts to is that if a region has a sufficient sense of cultural "togetherness" that its citizens will fight like mad to preserve itself -- with a consequence of widespread civilian deaths and economic destruction whether it succeeds or not -- then it deserves the definition. It then becomes altogether more tidy for the contiguous regions concerned. Westphalian nation-statehood was an entirely Western European concept borne of centuries of incessant warfare which was, at that time, threatening to get completely out of hand and far beyond preceding notions of chivalric warfare fought by small cliques of rich people able to afford mercenary armies. What the Westphalian Treaty said was: "For the sake of stopping all this warfare, let's respect the cultural identity of any region that is prepared to fight hard to defend what it clearly regards as its territorial boundary." >From then onwards the concept of nation-statehood solidified three quite new ideas which were already developing in embryo : 1. The formation of strict national boundaries; 2. Standing armies; 3. Governments fostered what we now call economic growth for the sake of wider taxation (to pay for their armies) and, in particular, military innovation (which also depended on freedom for scientific research, hitherto repressed by the Medieval Church). In strictly Westphalian terms, most of the nation-states that have registered with the United Nations (itself of uncertain future) are not nation-states at all, but merely of populations which have been manipulated by neo-nationalistic politicians living in regions without much by way of resources that other countries wanted to grab. So what does make a *real* nation-state as occurred in Western Europe over the past three centuries? It was the rise of small cliques of independent thinkers and, in particular, small groups of individuals who adopted the mode of inductive reasoning and scientific experimentation as most precisely defined only a little earlier by Francis Bacon (1561-1626). Thus, in all the proto-nation-states of Western Europe we find that small scientific societies were founded along the lines of Royal Society in this country. All to-be nation-states were of populations in which new technological methods were fast diffusing within their own predominant language group. In shorthand this is called the Western Enlightenment. So where does this leave the Kurds? Who knows? -- we simply don't know enough about what is going on in the region. (Because trouble is not occurring there, the Western press don't send many journalists there. I haven't read any accounts for many months.) We know that the two chief Kurdish political factions have developed into a Western-type sense of government-and-opposition rather than mutual warfare, we know that education is given immense importance and we also know that trade and science are encouraged, their economy is growing and that religion is relegated to a subsidiary place in government (the essential other-side-of-the-coin factor in the rise of all the original nation-states). The region of northern Iraq is the only largely peaceful region in the Middle East, has a peshmerga army which is feared by Turkey and Iran (or else "Kurdistan" would have been invaded years ago) -- as Saddam Hissein had previously feared it -- and is still surviving despite its unhelpful terrain. Whether it will survive in the longer-term future against Turkey, Iran and a (likely) Shia-dominated Iraq remains to be seen but I would rate the odds far higher than both you and Harry. We need to know a great deal more whether there is, in the Kurdish region, those small but supremely important nuclei of indviduals around which their populations pivot and coalesce, recognising that they contain the kernal of the matter. Such small nuclei of outstanding individuals not only enabled the nation-states of Western Europe to come into existence from 1648 and onwards but also subsequently to re-establish nations which were in danger of becoming extinct. I am thinking of Israel, Armenia and China. (China as we know it today owes its development almost completely to the return of only a dozen of so of brilliant ex-pats from elsewhere in Asia. It would not have gone extinct, of course, but would probably have fractured into further Taiwan-sized chunks by now after the decline of the previous dictatorship.) Don't be so certain about Kurdistan. Turkey and Egypt are fast slipping backwards into Medieval religionism undoing a great deal of what Ataturk and Nasser respectively were able to achieve. Iran, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon and the rest of Iraq, are still poised between modernism and religion, between secular politicians and mullahs. The preliminary signs are that Kurdistan, along with the modernising Emirates of Bahrein, Qatar, Dubai and perhaps Abu Dhai may well be successful nations (presently accorded the term "nation-state") in 20 years' time long after after those other Middle East countries might have decayed further into medieval bigotry and poverty which could no more be termed nation-states as some countries in Africa, central Asia or South America are already supposed to be (according to the United Nations register). Keith Hudson At 16:52 30/11/2006 -0500, you wrote: I omitted an important matter, here. Under international law, there are two other principles relevant to territory and sovereignty. 1. To claim statehood, a country must meet four criteria: a. Control of land b. Control of population c. Ability to govern d. Able to exercise international relations Sovereignty is not dependent on the diplomatic recognition of other states. 2. It is illegal to seize territory of other countries, and such conquest does not convey or provide the basis for a claim of sovereignty over the seized territory. Indeed, conquest and occupation only impose on the conquering state a series of well-defined obligations to safe-guard the well-being and rights of the local population of the occupied territory. Sorry for the omission. I have several reports I am kicking out the door. Cheers, Lawry -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Lawrence de Bivort Sent: Thursday, November 30, 2006 1:15 PM To: 'pete'; [email protected] Subject: Re: [Futurework] FW: Map of Middle East There is no international law that assures an ethnic group its own territory or nation, contiguous or not. And I would guess that the vast majority of ethnic groups do not have their own nation. Some of them may want their own territory, but a right to such has to be established. Prior legitimate possession is one such argument. The problem, of course, is that groups tend to assert claims to territories that at some point in their history they once controlled, and so, by referring to different time periods, the various claims of groups overlap significantly with the claims of others. Quite apart from the issue of sovereignty for ethnic groups, this matter of overlaps reduces the viability of the historical claim. The doctrine of self-determination is primarily useful against a colonial power; it does not clarify the problem of overlapping, time-sensitive claims. The Kurds have no intrinsic right to a state of their own. Were they to advance such a claim, they would have to reckon with the sovereignty of Iraq, Iran, and Turkey. I would say that the idea of a Kurdish state is in fact dead, though they will be able to achieve a measure of autonomy within Iraq. If the Kurds were to pronounce themselves independent, and Iraq not able to enforce its sovereignty there due to the present control of the country by the US, it is sure to be challenged successfully in the future. My guess is that the Kurds are smart enough to realize this and will withstand the blandishments of outsiders, and settle for cooperative relations with the Iraq government, and a significant measure of autonomy, as negotiated jointly by the government and Kurdish representatives. Cheers, Lawry -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of pete Sent: Thursday, November 30, 2006 12:51 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [Futurework] FW: Map of Middle East On Tue, 28 Nov 2006, Christoph Reuss <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >Interesting. So the Kingdom of Israel existed only in a very short >period some 3000 years ago. Hmm, what does this say about the >legitimacy of the "law of return"...? You will notice that in all that time, the Kurds never had self-rule, let alone an empire. Does that mean we should decide they don't exist, and have no right to a contiguous homeland? _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [email protected] http://fes.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [email protected] http://fes.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [email protected] http://fes.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework -- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.409 / Virus Database: 268.15.2/559 - Release Date: 30/11/2006 Keith Hudson, Bath, England, <www.evolutionary-economics.org <http://www.evolutionary-economics.org/> >
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