jorgelito

So it has been quite fashionable for a time to support foreign causes of which we actually know very little about. It has been trendy to look abroad for a cause and ignore those closer to home. With all the yammering about freeing Tibet and freeing Palestine, I always wonder why those two? Why not Darfur, or Kurdistan or why not Kashmir? Why not Cyprus? Why not any one of the numerous Balkan States (with names I can't spell or pronounce) and former USSR states that are vying for their independence? Trans-Dnieper anyone?

Are we selective? Is there a criteria? How do you choose which state you'd like to see free? Is there a timeline cut-off? Referendum? Type of prosposed government?

How about Hawaii? I thought this was interesting and kind of made me rethink a bit about all these independence issues and how we decide who gets to be free or who gets some support.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080619/...alace_takeover

This case seems interesting to me because there appears to be some political mechanism in place to actually find a compromise and make it happen perhaps.

Do you think the Beastie Boys and Bjork will come and give their support? Maybe Sharon Stone and Richard Gere can fix their karma by supporting the poor native Hawaiian's cause.

The Faba

I'd like to see how long this group of 1,000 people survives when they try to confiscate 1.3 million people's bank accounts.

They're only outnumbered by, like, 1,300:1...

Willravel

If you can get Brian Williams to say Kamehameha, I'm all for it.

But seriously, if there was a large movement in Hawaii, say well more than half the voting public, then I could see them attempting to secede. Of course I'm still not 100% sure about whether a state has a right to secede after joining the US.

dlish

maybe its got to do with the human rights abuses that china and israel commit again civilian pupulations.

no one likes oppressing nations. its probably why the US is on the wrong side of most people nowadays.

i know it sounds simplistic..but i think it rings true

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ASU2003

This isn't a new thing, it just happened to be a slow news day I guess.

The best outcome I bet would be for them to get one small island to run. Kind of like the native america reservations.

I wonder where they would be if they weren't a US state?

levite

Yeah, I'm not a fan of "trendy" political causes, either-- especially supporting one side or another in foreign conflicts that have nothing to do with the US, and whose arguments and meanings are generally either barely discerned or grossly misunderstood by the majority of the "activists" who are involved.

Leaving aside the Israel-Palestinian conflict, which I think is too complex to get into here, people essentially support Tibet, I think, because they like the Dalai Lama, not because they actually feel strongly about Tibetan nationalism. Not that I am opposed to Tibetan nationalism, or that I favor China's conquest of Tibet! I'm just saying I think that's what most people are motivated by, right or wrong.

But as for Hawaii...I think they have a pretty good case. The US annexed Hawaii without so much as a by-your-leave from the Hawaiian populace, and I think that since the transition from US Territory to State was conducted under the auspices of a Territorial and Federal government that included no native Hawaiians (as far as I can tell), at the very least, Hawaii ought to be given the same Federal semi-autonomous district status as Native American reservations and tribal lands in the Continental US, and Native Hawaiians ought to have at least partial self-government....

Come to that, the Inuit probably have a fairly good claim on Alaska, too....

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Nimetic

I'm sure that everything is fine in Tibet, that's why it's open to reporters eh?

Quite simply - I support democracy. If the people of Tibet want to be a separate country, well fair enough. The same goes for Tasmania (a part of Australia), or any other group/state/region.

Independence is a major change though, so I think you'd need more than a simple majority. Perhaps 2/3?

Cynthetiq

I'm confused... they get permission to go to the land that they claim as rightfully theirs, and they only occupy it during the day time?

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dlish

i agree nim.

give the tassies to the kiwis cos i dont see them lasting on their own! nah seriously though,...

any country that wants/needs democracy has a right of self rule if they can show enough reason and resolve to want and know how to rule themselves.

chechnya is a classic example where russias meddling screwed a fine working specimen of democratically elected leaders and turned them into 'religious rebels'.

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xepherys

I disagree with what native Americans have to begin with. Frankly I think that reservations should be abolished. They haven't proven very good for the native folk. People living on reservation tend to live poorly, don't really live in the culture of their ancestors (many young Indians do not speak their peoples native tongue, even if they grow up on reservations). With the exception of casino money, the reservations have actually been pretty BAD for native Americans.

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jorgelito

I think that's it pretty much in a nut shell.

Good point here. But does that mean you are in favor of independence for the Maoris (is that what you meant?). I think this comes back to right of self-determination. Which to me, is where the discussion/conversation gets more interesting. How would you compare/contrast New Zealand with Chechnya?

Ah, but I think we're gonna have to visit this sooner or later (or even open up another thread). I agree that the Dalai Lama is a very charismatic person (having seen him twice, I find him very likable), much more MTV friendly than say, Yasser Arafat or Mahmoud Abbas. (Good G*d, if the Palestinians ever get a leader of that caliber (MLK, Dalai Lama, JFK, Obama), they might just achieve what they want). But more to the point, I think it is easier to support Tibet because of it's distance and exotic quality. Plus, China is the 'it' bogey man these days. It is very popular and trendy to bash China (and Arabs, Muslims, North Korea etc). As such, having a face to the enemy as it were, it makes it very easy to bash the Chinese and root for anyone against the Chinese. Look how muted the response to the Chinese earthquakes were. This forum had more discussion about a little tremor in Iceland versus NONE about the big one in China. Some people even feel China deserved that earthquake out of sheer ignorance and malice (Sharon Stone).

Ok, let's roll with this. You have good summary here, but isn't this a slippery slope of sorts? Where does it begin and end? Will all sorts of claimants start coming out of the woodwork (other indigenous tribes etc.). Another thing to consider is what do "they" want? If the Hawaii group is relatively small then their claim does not have "mandate of the people" right? But what if a referendum showed 85% or some crazy number of Hawaiians wanting independence? Is that legitimate then? I think there would be a good case (though I don't know the legal structures for this).

As for the Inuit, are they clamoring for independence? I haven't heard anything, does anyone know? If so, then Canada will have some problems with them too I would assume.

I think you're onto something here but it needs more parsing out.. Human rights is a tricky thing. I don't think the Israelis and Chinese feel like they are human rights abusers. I think it also depends on who you ask too. I think there are plenty of Americans who feel like they have had their human rights abused right here in America (or at the very least, civil rights). As an American who traveled through Israel and China, I caught an earful from their people about how we Americans are hypocritical about human rights etc. It was harsh to say the least.

ASU2003

http://www.dizzler.com/music/Three_D...ls_In_A_Baggie

Look for the Nunavut song.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nunavut

They just made a new territory, not a new country, but they have a lot more control over the local government. And they probably could quietly become their own country and nobody would really notice. I mean who ever goes up there?

Nimetic

I agree - it is actually rather more complex in practice.

Where/if a state wants to be independent, that is simple (I say let them).

Where the original landowners claim property though - to descendants of colonists who have been born to the "new" country. That is real difficult to resolve.

MSD

There was a pretty big debate about that between 1861 and 1865, and "no" won decisively.

Texas has that secession clause in the annexation treaty, but it's never going to happen unless there are drastic changes.

uncle phil

good ol' south carolina...

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djtestudo

They were one of the states that tried it during that little disagreement, so my guess is it's a moot point.

Though honestly, if Texas and California were to secede, would the US be able to stop them?

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dlish

jorge

i think theres a difference between nz and chechnya. firsly nz, like australia is still part of the commonwealth, so they are still answerable to the Governor general whos the queens representative. now i dont know how things would work in terms of politics and law when it comes to these things, but id assume that in order for the moari's to gain independance from nz the bonds of being part of th commonwealth will need to be broken. secondly the moaris must show enough in terms of self rule and autonomy and demonstrate that they wont just run into the ground. east timor is a classic example. though they have a right for autonomy, i think their independance was premature and the choas weve seen lately is a result of that. granted there will be growing pains, but easttimor has been in serious strife and wouldnt be able to stand on its own without australias intervention.

in terms of chechnya, it is an autocratic nation that has run itself for years. its part of the soviet union, but has had self rule since stanlins time if i recall. their independance is hindered due to oil reserves in the caspian sea, and those oil lines need to run through chechnya. so russia wouldnt be willing to give chechnya up without a fight ( or two)

other ex soviet nations have demonstrated their breakaway rather cleanly. i dont see why checnya would be an exception. mashkadov was democratically elected and was widely seen across the world as the legitimate leader of checnya. installing puppet giverments like kadyrov and his men only add imbalance to an unsteady equation.

chechnya also had prescedents in other nations claiming indepedance after thefall of the soviet union. new zealand has no such neighbours. tasmanians would probably call out independance if one part of nz does. although it wouldnt be on race lines as in nz moaris.

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I always sign my facebook comments with ()()===========(}. Does that make me gay?
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Tophat665

When the Turks get out of Anatolia, then I will pay attention to this stuff. As it is, let me advance the modest proposal that one culture being conquered and subjugated by another is just one of those things that happens from time to time, and so long as it doesn't sink to the level of wholesale genocidal butchery it'll still be better that nearly all the times this has happened in the history of the world.

Not that it doesn't suck, but I'd rather spend my time trying to improve the lot of myself, my family, my friends, and my country in that order.

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uncle phil

my grandfather used to say, "when the fighting stops in ireland..." and he was a polish cavalry officer who came over here prior to the outbreak of WWI...

__________________
"We were wrong, terribly wrong. (We) should not have tried to fight a guerrilla war with conventional military tactics against a foe willing to absorb enormous casualties...in a country lacking the fundamental political stability necessary to conduct effective military and pacification operations. It could not be done and it was not done."
- Robert S. McNamara
-----------------------------------------
"We will take our napalm and flame throwers out of the land that scarcely knows the use of matches...
We will leave you your small joys and smaller troubles."
- Eugene McCarthy in "Vietnam Message"
-----------------------------------------
never wrestle with a pig.
you both get dirty;
the pig likes it.

roachboy

what i gather so far is that there is no particular impulse that would cause you to imagine that freedom for others is a way of extending such freedom as you do or do not enjoy where you are---so having dispensed with any actual rationale that might come from the usual suspects in terms of political commitment--like say ethics or a political inclination to oppose oppression of others because you see in them human beings not a whole lot unlike yourself--the entire issue becomes more of less arbitrary and the processes whereby one factoid/problem (is there a difference?) acquires weight and another doesn't also becomes more or less arbitrary.

so we can blame the hipsters for harshing our collective mellow. or signifiers like the dalai lama.

but there are interesting and to my mind disturbing problems underneath all this.

absence of a political message that shapes or gives direction to opposition to a colonial occupation, for example, does tend to efface the fact of occupation, yes?
if the people who are under occupation are adequately pulverized, political mobilization is a problem.
for example: there hasn't been a whole lot of political mobilization amongst the native american population in radical opposition to the entire american order since, o i dont know, wounded knee, except for the aim of the early 1970s. and even that you probably wouldn't know about unless you read "in the spirit of crazy horse" or some such.

but there is alot of political activity, particularly around questions of winning recognition of "tribal" status from states around the country...
recognition of status entails recognition of claims to exist.
but it is a problem--if everything is the same as everything else, really, then even being informed about some of the conflicts happening in various states around the country about this kind of issue is unnecessary, unless you happen to stumble across something in print or on the radio...in those few pockets of "alternative" information that still function in this increasingly homogenize infotainment wasteland we live in...
information is a problem.


on the other hand, it seems to make some sense that one's sense of solidarity, if it exists, would be shaped by the demands of the folk with whom you express solidarity, yes?
otherwise, you'd just be telling them what their situation "really means" and that's not a whole lot different from being colonized, is it?


what links the two is lack of information about political situations around the world--hell, even within the united states--not only about basic challenges to the existing order (and they're out there)--but even about groups or movements that work in the trenches of ordinary politics.

why is that? you'd think with 24/7 cable "news" outlets that you'd see and hear a whole range of stuff about all kinds of situations, that 24/7 would be enough time to provide actual context and a sense of history and grain to those situations. you would think that knowing something about , say, the costs entailed by the "american way of life"---to make things "local"---would be important.
but apparently this isn't the case.
apparently, you don't see or hear much.

i see alot of the thread so far (not all of it) as reproducing the effects of a sanitized information context that simply does not provide anything remotely like coherent coverage of movements that challenge what exists.
what's curious to me really is not that this reproduction happens--it happens all the time, all around, not just here--but that so few folk seem to notice that there's anything strange about it.

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jorgelito

So RB, do you think then, that:

1. it becomes a matter of a biased lens in which we view the world and how we decide which "cause: to latch on to? And:

2. likewise, for the contrarians and apathetics, could it be construde that the notion of "other" acts like a veil and obfuscates and dulls our perceptions?

roachboy

1. probably. at a certain level, obviously: but you can add texture or weight to a predisposition through information, yes? but there's always a sense in which you look for features that you are predisposed to look for. but it's not therefore the case that those features are just functions of your predispositions. well, they could be if you don't have any information.


2. the "other" is a metaphysical category.
what else can it do but dull?
the trick is that it's inverse dulls even more.

maybe there's only particularities.
but that makes people tired, thinking that way.
obliges you to look at stuff.
but what do you look at?
see (1) above.

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Tophat665

Speaking for myself and no one else, as a person who finds this problem to be something to be fixed well after many other more pressing issues, if not written off as one of those unpleasant things people do now and again regardless, I subscribe to the monkeysphere theory. I can give a good goddamn about 150 people, give or take, maybe twice that on a good day. Now that's not to say that it's always the same hundred fifty, and it's not to say that I have no empathy. It is to say that I define Other as those I do not know personally. I do not feel that it is an effective use of my time and energy to agonize over the plight of folks on the other side of the planet (or the other side of the state for that matter) who I will never speak to.

I particularly think it's a waste of time to agonize over distant problems of exceptionally long standing with no prospect of solution. Sorry, Levantine Arabs, but so far as I can tell the problem is Never going to go away.

Is the Dalai lama a wise, sweet, brilliant old man? Absolutely. Is it terribly unfortunate that China has decided it needs Tibet for it's strategic position or whatever? Absolutely. Am I gong to spend another minute worrying about it when I could be determining whether my kids go to a good school?

Nope.

Face it, if everyone would just mind their own business then this wouldn't be a problem. (Until the resources run low, but that's a whole other kettle of fish for my kids to boil.)

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Herk

Well put. It isn't a lack of empathy to admit a lack of control. I'm not sure if I agree completely, but I have mixed emotions so I appreciate this outlook.

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