> But what is really tragic here is the failure to grasp that self-
determination
> is itself a highly ideological concept, with roots in 19th century
> illiberalism and revolutionary socialism. For much of the 20th century, it
> legitimised ethnic intolerance, guerrilla warfare and human rights abuses.
The
> result is a trail of carnage that stretches from the Balkans to the Basque
> region, from Sri Lanka to Mindanao, from Eritrea to Zimbabwe.
What the hell is happening to the Melbourne Age. This is shockingly stupid stuff, trading on the conflation of self-determination and ethnic self- determination. This is an awfully cynical paper. Self-determination is meant to be the terrible light that has drawn leftwing intellectuals like moths; so they end up burned by association with 'terrible' movements like the Tamil Tigers and the PLO. Here we see the development of the theory of human rights into an explicitly imperialist doctrine; the ridiculous pretence being that enlightened foreign rulers should be able to shepherd the ignoble rabble into civilization. There is a reason why this sort of stuff is regarded as vile by most of the non-colonized world, and do we really need to repeat the atrocities to relearn the lessons? We probably do.
This is so depressing. Nobody seems able to think without the aid of heads mounted at the ends of pikes.
Thiago
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