GO HOME UN

Argument:

If people vote to secede, they should be allowed to.

Crimeans have voted to secede.

Therefore they should be allowed to.

I want to start off talking about the syllogism itself. The first premise is valid (although we can’t know if it’s true without a deeper analysis) and the following conditions allow us to conclude that Crimeans have the right to secede. So the focus of my analysis will be that first argument, who defends that whoever votes to secede, is consequently allowed to do so.

When talking about secession, I am choosing the succession from governments, and not the ecological succession, although they are somewhat related. If a people decide to vote to secede, it’s because a portion (majority or minority) of the population has different values or opinions on topics than the current government. But how can we legitimatise governments? Who imposed that we should obey to laws written by a certain government? Are you asked at your birth to sign a contract to follow a set of rules? I don’t record doing so, the answer must be hidden somewhere in history. The first nomads walked in groups because it was easier to defend each other in a gathering of individuals, so the bottom line was protection from unknown creatures. This evolved into bigger groups of people, as man became sedentary, creating cities, humans needed protection from other groups of people. The need of protection is still present, the only difference is the source of danger. As these groups became more populous, it became hard to manage every single person, so the first set of rules was created. These were the first values of men put onto a shirt of paper, it was what characterised a certain group of people. But is protection the only attribute people seek in a government? What about power exerted by the ruler over a number of people? A ruler will have a hard time losing some of his citizens, since it may weaken his authority. When a people decides to secede, there might be numerous reasons (economic, religious, political, ethnical or cultural) but it all comes down to two opposing forces: the rebels (for some reason we give a negative connotation to the people who want to secede) are (or think) they are prepared to be self-defensive and have a particular reason for separating, but on the other hand, the ruling power will be very cautious in letting this group to secede and form a new nation (which will sometime become a potential rival). I want to take a moment and talk about the negative connotation to the word “rebel” which is usually the word given to such separatists. Separatists also has a negative connotation, I just can’t find some word that defines a person who desires to leave a country probably because of the American history. The American Civil War was all about a separatist movement, and since the North (the ones who refused to fragment the nation) won over the Southern Confederation, it was imposed negative connotation to every separatist idea in order to preserve the unity of the country, and prevent any future attempt to divide the country in smaller nations. However, in other countries (and consequently other languages) such term may have a positive connotation. In India for example, “संबन्धविच्छेद” meaning secession, is seen as such a positive term that it’s a wide subject in Indian education. India seceded from Great Britain with one of the most iconic figures of the 20th century, Gandhi. Because the population was such involved in this movement, separation was seen as a solution for the countries problems, and the word took a positive connotation. When involved in a situation of secession, it is very hard to look from both perspectives, but it’s the best thing to do. You need to look from the big nation as a whole (Would the secession harm the country? Will it be beneficial? Will it destroy basic values of that society?) and at the same time, access the reasons for why the minority wants to separate (Are they being oppressed? Are they culturally very different from the original nation?) An interesting theme that could be analysed is how to measure how culturally different a population is to another? I could start talking about this, but it will diverge too far from the main topic. After accessing all of the reasons for both sides, we should take a look at the possible causes, and even looking at the possible causes to if there isn’t any resolution between both parties. Many civil wars being fought today are because there isn’t agreement between the two groups, and men instinctively turns towards violence to solve his problems. Is one reason (cultural, economical, religious, spoken language…) sufficient in order to decide to secede or not? It is for sure necessary, but the question is, how many or how much of this reason should you have to start such a movement? The ultimate conclusion in all of this is that each movement has dozens, hundreds of variables that need to be taken into account. It’s not like math where you can plug in for an equation and you will get a strict forward answer. Each variable should be taken into account. The next question is either we let the two parties access each variable, or should we let other countries to get involved? If one of the parties is significantly stronger than the other one, he will probably access the variables that are in his favour, and use force to persuade the separatists to back down, so it is better to have some external mediator in such cases, but let both parties to negotiate the majority of the discussion. Many of Rousseau’s philosophical ideas relate to this theme, before governments, the state of nature allowed men to live in peace, but with larger groups, rules had to be made to control the population and offer protection from stealing. But in my opinion the best proposition made by Rousseau was the idea of the “general will”. It argues that it’s not the majority that is always right, but a political organism that is an entity with a life of its own. It is very challenging to attain the general will, where everyone is content, but it’s in my opinion what should be strived for in all diplomatic issues of secession. 

Should Crimeans be allowed to secede? Like I mentioned, I am not Russian, nor Crimean, I know very little on the culture, religion and economics, so I can’t give reasonable opinion, however, for what I know, as 95% of Crimeans speak Russian (it's a Russian research, so I should be cautious on trusting it, but it’s the only piece of information I have at my disposal at the moment), 97% of Crimeans voted to join Russia, at this point, it is obvious that Crimeans want to join Russia, but do we have Ukraine’s voice in this? Are there any polls informing if Ukrainians want to loose a portion of their territory? The Ukrainian government has positioned itself against the decision. So as an international mediator, I would tend to give reason to Ukraine since they are being taken away Crimeia and the only information I have on Crimeia isn’t trustable. But I know very little on the subject, only persons involved in the situation have the biggest say in this discussion, external mediation should only be called when the situation shifts from negotiation to violence.