Message to the ‘Little People’ : shut up
How the big and powerful are challenging the right to national self-determination
National self-determination is not a fancy theory nor an optional extra in the great order of things. It is a fundamental right which empowers people to determine their own lives. This is why it is enshrined in international law and why it really matters when it is being so flagrantly disregarded.
There are no prizes for guessing who is the most vocal violator these days as US President Trump storms around denying the right of self-determination to the people of Canada, Greenland, Panama and even more outrageously to Palestinians who, in his view, should not only be denied a say in their future but need to be expelled from their land.
The US has also embarked on negotiations over the future of Ukraine with the Russian aggressors, leaving out the Ukrainians while the fate of the Palestinian people is being discussed by the Jordanians, the Egyptians, the Saudis, the Israelis, the assorted Muppetry in the White House but notably without the participation of a single Palestinian.
It is hard to overstate how dangerous this is. Yet dictators have been emboldened by US support and just can’t wait to get on with implementing their plans with total disregard for the people directly affected .
Further to the East, where the Chinese Communist Party holds sway, General Secretary Xi Jinping continues to salivate at the thought of forcing Taiwan back into the Greater China fold. Most Taiwanese relish the democratic state they have built and have not the slightest desire to find themselves incorporated into the Chinese dictatorship but as Mr. Xi has little interest in what most people want on the Mainland, he is hardly likely to be bothered by the idea of self-determination in Taiwan.
Aside from powerful dictators stands a cluster of second tier self-determination violators. Among them is Britain desperately trying to make its mark in the world as it plans to handover the Chagos islands without regard to the views of the dispossessed Chagossians. They are few in number and have already been kicked out of their homes, clearly they cannot be admitted to a negotiating table where far more important people are seated.
Britain has form here as I witnessed when the UK handed Hong Kong over to the Chinese dictatorship having specifically barred Hong Kong people from taking part in the negotiations which led to this debacle. After the deal was done the Brits conducted a blatantly sham consultation exercise which, to no one’s surprise, concluded that the handover had widespread support.
Britain tends to justify these shameful abrogations of self-determination with pompous talk of pragmatism but the reality is that they amount to nothing less than ensuring that the little people are not allowed to get in the way of what the big people want to do.
The handover in Hong Kong has ended very badly, leaving Britain bleating about its disappointment over the way that the Chinese dictatorship has broken solemn pledges made during the negotiations. Why on earth the Brits managed to persuade themselves of the good faith of the Chinese Communist Party is only a mystery if you seriously believe that any of the grand people negotiating on Hong Kong’s behalf gave a monkey’s for Hongkongers.
The thing about national self-determination is that it is like pregnancy, a condition that offers no possibility of half measures. No one in history has ever been half pregnant and no people in history have flourished in a state of semi-self-determination.
Denying the right to determine always ends in tragedy. Ask the Kurds and Armenians in the Middle East, the people of Tigray in Ethiopia or maybe the terrible fate of the Palestinians might just be enough to suggest that suppressing the principle of self-determination is a sure route to endless war and suffering not just for those denied this right but also for those responsible for the denial.