Even before Woodrow Wilson made such a big deal about it at the end of World War I, Americans were firm believers in the right of ”national self-determination.”
It sounds so upright, so democratic, so . . . American. Though we make exceptions for Kurds, Puerto Ricans and residents of Washington, D.C., we generally support the right of people to select their own government. After all, we determine ourselves, and we`re a nation, aren`t we?
Well, no. Not entirely.
A ”nation” is not the same thing as a ”country.” It is, says the political dictionary, a people ”who possess a sense of unity because of common race, language or religion.” We qualify only on language, and just barely.
So the United States is not, strictly speaking, a ”nation-state.”
Neither is much of the world, a point worth remembering now that Latvians, Armenians, Serbs and so many others are insisting on their own governments. It isn`t that they aren`t entitled to have them. It`s just that the nation-state is neither the universal solution nor a perfect one.
The nation-state is a peculiarly (though not uniquely) European institution. Were Latin America organized into nation-states, it would be divided into only a few of them. Were Africa, it would be divided into scores. All Arabs are of one nation. They speak Arabic and (with a few exceptions) are Muslims. But they get 21 states, and are insisting on at least one more. The Kurds get none, and nothing but trouble and betrayal when they try to create one.
The nation-state is suited to Europe because many European nations are fairly large. There are some 56 million people in France, and almost all of them are French. That`s what they talk. There are slightly more people who live in Italy, and almost all of them are Italians. That`s what they talk.
There are a few minority residents, even citizens, in both countries, and there`s a certain mingling at the border. But for the most part, the French are in France, the Italians in Italy and Germany is just chock full of Germans.
Compare that with, say, Guinea, where not even 7.5 million folks are divided into three major ethnic groups and 15 others, each with its own language.
Or, for that matter, compare it with Latvia, with only 2.6 million people, or Lithuania, with about 1.3 million more. Nations they may be, but that does not mean either is large enough to be a functioning economy.
Should the 9 million Serbs split up with the 4.7 million Croats, would there be enough of either of them to make up a viable country? And what would happen to the 10 million or so people in what is now Yugoslavia who are neither?
Maybe bad things. There is something about ethnic parochialism that makes people . . . well, ethnically parochial. From which it is a often a short trip to becoming downright bigoted.
The history of Europe in this regard is not entirely reassuring. Americans are inclined to support the Baltic Republics because they are not simply seeking independence, they are seeking it from the Soviet Union. The disintegration of Yugoslavia or Czechoslovakia would also be further testament to the failure of communism, however irrelevant communism has become there.
But the peoples of eastern and central Europe have spent much of the last few centuries hating each other and anyone else who wandered into their territory. Their own devotion to democracy has not always been evident, and many of their leaders embraced Fascism with far more enthusiasm than was necessary simply to use it as a counterweight to Stalinism.
There was some hope, perhaps romantic and unrealistic, that because people who share a government have to work together, federations of nations in a single state could ease ethnic tensions. It works at least somewhat in Switzerland and Belgium, and in Britain, where most Scots and Welsh seem content with having their own World Cup soccer teams.
That it often does not work is obvious, but not entirely welcome. Secession threatens not only in Europe but in India and Canada. The result could be a proliferation of small, homogeneous, insular countries as each nationality claims its right to sovereignty.
From an American perspective, they may well have that right. But it does not necessarily follow that they would be wise to exercise it. The
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disintegration of the Soviet Union is neither a minor nor an uncomplicated prospect. Besides, if the Croats, Ukrainians and Armenians claim their independence, why will not the Basques, Catalans, Bretons, Flemings and Burgundians?
There is almost no limit to how balkanized the world can become. Balkanization, which has not been an unmixed blessing for the Balkans, might not be so great for the rest of the world either.