Originally posted by myvoice: *
**Depends. It is certainly not an individual right belonging to each person. I don't have the right to declare my home an independent country and secede from the US. *
No I disagree, One single person would still have the right to self determination but what that right covers may be different. I mean if I am a nudist living in Saudi Arabia, I cant change teh whole area to my liking and I can determine whether I am willing to give up that or give up the place I am in.
When it starts becoming a larger and larger group, and they have legitimate concerns then they can start that sort of movement.
** My homeowners association represents a collective group but it doesn't have the right to form its own government and declare its independence from the US any more than I do with my own home. The Mormans in Utah do not have a collective right of self-determination to have Utah seceed from the US. **
Well the Utah example is interesting, They feel that they are being treated fairly, and from what I know they are being and they have been.
Would I have any interest in creating a breakaway republic within US, No, because I am treated well here for the most part and most importantly no one is forcing me to give up my belief or lifestyle.
Now here is the big one.. If there is a sizeable minority, which has legitimate grievances which are not being addressed and/or are being suppressed officially, then they should protest, and then at what point in time do you just say, The system is not working for me.
That is what happened with USA right, taxation without representation, boston teat party and badabing badaboom, we have a new country ( kinda strange for me to say as a pakistani-british-american since my new country got its independence from my old country, from which my older country got its independence as well :D)
*Why is it that you or anyone else thinks that just because some enclave or conclave of Muslims exists in some community or area somewhere in the world that they become a collective group that should have this so-called right of self determination? If 5 million Muslims moved into a community in upstate New York, would they have a right of self-determination to form their own country? *
You took my point incorrectly, no one should ask for independence just because they want it because they are different, but conmditions have to exist, if the group gets larger and larger and it has grievances that dont get resolved, and it is being systematically denied what its wills are, you will have a scenario at hand.
*An interesting question in this regard is who has or should have the final say or who is the final arbiter as to which collective group has a right to self-determination and independence. *
Now thats the big question with no real answer i suppose, Although in my view UN should have the final say.
*There are all kinds of rag-tag groups of people all over the world who use the "right of self-determination" as their mantra to justify perpetrating violence against others. *
Oh I have no love lost for rag tag groups, I have lost a few friends to the goons of these rag tag groups.
There are groups which hijack and entire group for its own agenda and hold an entire group captive and show themselves as champions of that group. Kinda like OBL grandstanding as some leader for muselims the world over whereas he is nothing buta two bit thug with dellusions of grandeur and his own agenda, but all of a sudden ppl start thinking, oh the muslims want this the muslims want that. Some weak minded individuals fall to his propoganda and become his fans even though he could care less.
If a group of 5000 texans start creating havoc in texas to make it independent, and say that they represent all hispanics, do they really. No.. but if the group is not some rag tag group of fanatics but a good size group lets say 80% of the population, what happens..I mean we do have the example of civil war here anyways.
Either way its a tough question.