From: ulick@angelico.helios.nd.edu (Ulick Stafford)
Newsgroups: soc.rights.human,soc.culture.europe,soc.culture.celtic,eunet.politics,talk.politics.misc
Subject: Re: Separation vs. integration (Was Re: The European Community Blackmailed by Greece)
Date: 23 Jul 92 16:10:18 GMT
Organization: University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame

In article <tahonen.26@katk.Helsinki.FI> tahonen@katk.Helsinki.FI (Timo Ahonen) writes:
>
>Are serious about your claims that after a few years Slovaks will want to 
>rejoin with Czecks and the "Soviet Union" will reform from the present CIS 
>states? You make it sound like economy is and has been the only reason for 
>the indenpendence of the new states, and if it fails there's no reason for 
>the continuation of the independence. I'd take it as an insult to the newly-
>independent nations. According to your logic Eire should never have 
>separated from Britain. Should she now rejoin the UK?
>

Firstly, a correction.  Eire is a Gaelic word and is oncorrect (in Irish
courts, anyway) when used in an English sentence.  Ireland is preferred.
The Czech-Slovak union was much different to the colonisation of Ireland
by Britain.  It may never have been the best idea to unite Bohemia, 
previously under Austrian control, with Slovakia, previously under
Hungarian control, but the union was relatively equal.  There was much
industry in Slovakia.  Much of it was arms, and when Czechoslovakia decided
that the country shouldn't sell arms as freely as before, Slovakia was
more effected.  With some changes the present relative poverty of 
Slovakia, could change.

But, Ireland was relatively denuded of wealth by Britain in the 19th
century.  No industry was ever developed, except in the Northeast
that Britain still occupies.  Agriculture on vast estates owned by
absentee British landlords was the main industry, and while 1 million
people dies of famine in Ireland in the 1840's, Ireland remained a 
net exporter of food - grain that was the landlord's rent.  There is
a major difference between the union of smaller nations such as 
Bohemia and Slovaskia, and the forced occupation and colonial 
stripping of wealth and exploitation of the native population that
occurred in Ireland under British rule.

Also, I thought that the people of Slovakia wished to remain in
the union, but the politicians, desirous of their percieved greater
power of being the big fish in a smaller pond, who forced the 
change?

>West Europeans would have got very far either), and it's going to take time 
>to catch up with 40 years' worth of it. However, the example of the peaceful 
>splitting of the in itself artificial state of Czecho-Slovakia seems to 
>indicate that at least they are well into catching up with us.

There are many regions of Western European countries that may prefer a
greater degree of autonomy, but are not rushing headlong to secede,
realising that there may be some benefit to being part of a greater country,
even if their own Nationalism is not totally satisfied.  I am thinking
of the Catalan and Basque regions of Spain, and say, Scotland in the UK.


+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 
+ 'There was a  master come unto the earth, + Ulick Stafford, PP-ASEL       +
+    born in the holy land of Indiana,      + Dept of Chemical Engineering, +
+ in the mystical hills east of Fort Wayne'.+ Notre Dame, IN 46556          +
+      B'fhearr liom bheith ag eitilt.      +    ulick@bach.helios.nd.edu   +
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++