Self-Determination

Issues of Self-Determination 1: Identity 2: Borders 3: The Numbers/authority 1:Identity: "the qualities, beliefs, etc., that make a particular person or group different from others."(1) Identity can be effective at binding a group of people that share a territory, language, culture, and/or customs. It can also tightly tie together groups of people that share economic, political, and/or religious history. Self-Determination exemplifies the principle of identity as a group of people collectively decide together the type of government they will establish. While Identity binds a group together cohesively, it also often demonizes and alienates those who do not fit the identity. I contend that if Self-Determination happened on a global scale we would see the emergence of several smaller nations that are built on identities of race and/or religion. Countries that would demonize and alienate other countries based on race and religion. Historically India and Pakistan are empirical evidence of this. When "home rule" was finally realized from the British, they separated from each other. Even though they share geographic and cultural roots, they were/are divided religiously. As a result, there has been little peace in this region of the world and tensions are typically high. Identity is traditionally how the nations of the world began. Egypt, Israel, China, etc. The ancient world is empirical proof of the dangers involved. Many wars in the history of the world were fought based on race or religion. Even in Modern history, the Nazi"s identified as a supposed "pure" nation, and demonized and attempted to eliminate an entire race of people. Imagine if modern groups like ISIS or the KKK self-determined themselves a nation. While we do still have these issues today, if self-determination happened globally, then these problems would exponentially get worse as they would happen all over the world. 2:Borders: "A line separating one country or state from another."(2) Imagine if even just those nations currently pushing for self-determination were granted as they wished. Where would their boundaries be? Can current Sovereign nations be forced to give up their sovereign land to make room for these self-determined nations? The best example I can think of for this is Israel. The world took land from other sovereign nations and created a separate sovereign nation. Since the creation of Israel war has raged almost perpetually. Aside from whether or not this was a good thing, it certainly has resulted in war. If self-determination happened on a global scale, then the deciding of boarders would present a huge problem and almost certainly start several wars. 3: The numbers/authority Another issue with Self-determination on a global scale is numbers. How many people would be necessary to make a declaration of Independence from the country that they are separating from? What percentage of the people in that region would have to agree in order to separate? Who has the authority to answer those questions? If self-determination happened on a global scale then determining legitimate breakoffs vs non legitimate break offs poses consistency issues. Self-determination on a global scale would require some type of global initiative or world government that would keep nations from not allowing groups to split off from them. This is not plausible. Concluding opening arguments Self-determination relies heavily on the principle of identity. This does unite strongly, however, it also divides just has strongly. Boarders pose a huge problem for self-determination on a global scale. Both of these reasons would likely result in continuous wars. Due to the numbers/authority global self-determination is not plausible. Over to Pro. (1)http://www.merriam-webster.com... (2) http://www.merriam-webster.com...