Militant Secessionist and Autonomist Movements in Europe

We already went over the IRA struggle in a previous post.

I support most of these movements.

I support the armed Corsicans in Corsica fighting for independence from France. They are very careful about their bombs and bullets and rarely even hurt an innocent person, much less kill one. They mostly blow up unoccupied second homes being built on the coast. Sometimes there are people in the homes. In that case, they evacuate them so they can blow it up. Sometimes they strafe police cars and police stations, but that usually doesn’t cause any casualties. Sometimes they bomb police stations, but that usually doesn’t cause any casualties either.

I can hardly think of a more moral guerrilla movement. All they do is cause property damage and scare people. So what?

I also support the ETA in the Basque Country. They’ve declared a cease-fire anyway, and since then, they’ve been hit with endless raids and arrests. If that’s the way it’s going to be, why not take up arms again? Even when they were fighting, they just killed security forces and sometimes a few traitors. They gave ample warning of all their bombs so people could get out of the way.

Plus all of the Basque pro-independence youth movements and political parties have been outlawed as “wings of the ETA.” There are continuous arrests of these unarmed militants. Now that peaceful struggle is outlawed, why not take up arms again? However, the Basque language is in quite good shape these days. They have really turned things around in the past 30 years. It’s not in good shape in France, but even there, things are looking up.

The truth is that Spain and France are basically fascist countries. The fascists never left power in Italy, Spain or Portugal. They’ve been ruled by the Hard Right behind the scenes ever since fascism started. That’s who really runs those countries, no matter how many ruling “Socialist” parties there are. That’s why the Basques and Corsicans have to fight. Until they get a vote for self-determination, they need to fight.

It’s true that Spain has done better than France. Basque, Aranese and Catalan are recognized as official languages of France. The Catalan government mandates schooling in Catalan, TV and radio is in Catalan, signs must be bilingual, etc. This reasonable state of affairs has caused the Spanish speakers to rise up and scream that they are being discriminated against by Catalan fascists. Ridiculous, no?

I also support the Catalan movement, but it’s generally unarmed these days. Surely, they have a right to self-determination too? The Catalan language is actually in pretty good shape, but the Catalans are always screaming about it anyway. There are a few warning signs here and there, and there’s some hostility to Catalan on the part of local governments, especially in Murcia, France, the Balearic Islands and Valencia.

In Brittany, the movement is in very bad shape. I support autonomy there, not independence. The armed movement is dead. A bomb in a MacDonald’s in 2001 killed a young girl employee, and since then, the Breton movement has been more or less unarmed due to public revulsion over the act. The Bretons were very careful to try not to hurt innocent people with their bombs, but it looks like in this case, they fucked up.

There’s a pretty simple solution to all of these conflicts. Just give the separatists or autonomists a vote. In Brittany, they want simple stuff like Breton classes or bilingual or immersion programs in school. They badly need this because frankly, the Breton language is in catastrophic shape.

The French have always resisted this, a centralizing tendencies dating back to Jacobinism. The French Left has always been infected with Jacobinism due to the history of their Left, hence the somewhat fascist nature of the French Left. They frequently attack movements for minority languages as a reactionary indulgence.

Unfortunately, Jacobinism has sunk deep roots into the French body politic, and most French are Jacobins out of instinct alone it seems. At this point, they are probably genetically selecting for it.

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6 thoughts on “Militant Secessionist and Autonomist Movements in Europe”

  1. France is a fascist country?!

    I don’t know, Robert, you’ve developed a pretty liberal definition of “fascist” lately.

    If France is “fascist,” who isn’t?

  2. This post highlight’s how wide and varied the issue’s regarding irredentism, separatism, independence are.

    Where does Cyprus sit here? Prior to the 1974 invasion there was no Turkish zone, nor a Greek zone. The populations were quite mixed (geographically, not socially). And linguistically, the two languages co-existed. Ironically, what is hapening now is that the more threatened language is not that spoken by the minority (the Turks), but that spoken by the Greek’s, the Greek Cypriot dialect. Of course, the Turkish Cypriots spoke basically standard Turkish so they were never going to lose that ability whereas the Greek Cypriots are slowly starting to speak standardised Greek.

  3. Do you support all separatist movements Robert which there are some inside the US itself?

    The problem I have with separatist movements is that they are supported by a foreign or various foreign powers for geopolitical advantage like in the case of the former Yugoslavia who want to dismantle large powerful states into smaller individual pro US vassals.

  4. Why do you bother Chullo? I mean, you know you’re going to get banned sooner or later. Just curious what goes through people’s minds sometimes.

  5. Look man, I am banning you. I gave you two separate warnings for insulting me, which is really too many, and then you just go on and on with the hostile tone. You just don’t seem to get it for some reason, or you are just intent on being rude and hostile.

    Have a good life.

  6. I can’t support any kind of separatist movement as long as the separatists are not of higher average IQ + higher avg conscientiousness than the “oppressor” population – or – have a culture more conducive to future productivity.

    Basically, I think the Boer Afrikaners and South African English should have their own state. I would support any Chinese independence movement in Malaysia, given Singapore’s success under Chinese rule. I support the independence of Hindu Bali from Muslim Indonesia (on purely cultural grounds). I supported the independence of South Sudan and I support the independence of Darfur, as well as the creation of a Christian Coptic Egyptian state (even in the middle of the desert if they have to) where copts can live free of Muslim persecution.

    What I really don’t support are the secessionists whose oppressors are clearly more civilized and advanced than they are, or those who are the same as their oppressors and employ violent methods like property damage. I think Palestine should be integrated into Israel under Jewish leadership; Pakistan should be integrated into a Greater India under Hindu Brahmin rule. It is by no means clear to me that Basques, Northern Irish, Albanian Kosovars are superior in some way to the Spanish or English or Serbs, so I cannot support them, especially not as long as they used violence.

    What matters to me is not one’s nationality or culture, but whose government can offer better living conditions, like housing, food, well-paid jobs, the non-persecution of atheists and gays, freedom of speech, etc. to individuals. There is no such thing as collective rights.

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