Hindu Vivek Kendra
A RESOURCE CENTER FOR THE PROMOTION OF HINDUTVA
   
 
 
«« Back
National majorities have rights

National majorities have rights

Author: Peter Preston
Publication: The Guardian, UK
Date: November 4, 2002
URL: http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,825395,00.html

Introduction: But in Britain, minorities have been given a veto over their future

It is probably the most visceral question of our times, asked from Chechnya to Kashmir to Armagh and often answered in blood. But the odd thing is that, no matter how many times he hears it, no matter how many times he witnesses its consequences, Tony Blair never quite gets the point. Indeed, he, John Prescott and Robin Cook still troop around blank-faced, offering the question up on a plate. As though it were panacea, not potential poison.

What do the Chechens, with their bombs and their kidnappers, want? They want to live in a free little country of their own - not as a runt in the litter of Russia's federation. What do the Kashmiris, with their bombs and murderous attacks, want? They want to be free of the Indian federation (and possibly of Pakistani ambition, too). And the Kurds, the Tamils, the Corsicans and Kosovans? Wherever you look, wherever you go, there are minorities buried within bigger countries demanding autonomy. But the bigger countries - thank you President Putin - are saying: "No." Not maybe; not perhaps, one fine day; just no. Their no is the voice of the majority. Minorities have rights. Majorities have the last word.

But in Britain, though we seldom pause to reflect on it, there is another way that gives minorities the last word - and majorities not so much as a word in edgeways. Do Scotland or Wales wish to elect their own parliaments? All they have to do is win a referendum first. The done devolution deal.

Does Northern Ireland wish to remain a part of the UK, or join with Dublin? A referendum for Northern Irish voters lies constantly open. All republicans have to do to leave is win, and then push off. And - whisper it gently - the same formula lies there for the Scots and the Welsh one day. It seems so obvious, so normal. Mr Cook at the weekend was peddling regional assemblies for anyone who calls. Mr Prescott sells elected mayors like cans of beans.

But in fact this seeming normality is rather remarkable; and perhaps remarkable folly. Tony Blair's biggest mate in Europe, Jose Maria Aznar, would certainly think so. Other democratic countries' byzantine struggles against their own minorities tend not to make newspaper headlines here. They are complex, introverted tales. Spain follows events in Northern Ireland closely, because it hears eerie echoes - but London doesn't linger long over the tumult in Bilbao or Barcelona. Nevertheless, there is reason to linger.

Britain long ago offered Gibraltar a referendum to ratify or reject a change in its status should London and Madrid ever seek to negotiate one. Because Aznar and Blair are pals, those negotiations have taken place. Because sovereignty can be shared, that is the preferred solution. But 30,000 Gibraltarians want nothing to do with it. They have their referendum - and other Iberians have suddenly taken up the same cry.

We'll hold our own vote in a couple of years, says Juan Jose Ibarretxe, president of the Basque country's ruling PNV. Give us a loose association with Madrid plus a place in the European Union and there's a peaceful way out for everyone. Hey, and if they're doing that, says Arturo Mas, the new leader of Catalonia's nationalists, we'll want a better deal, too. What's sauce for Gibraltar's goose is suddenly the sauce of separatism across much of northern Spain.

It is a thick stew of politics, with some parallels - the banning of Batasuna, the Basques' Sinn Fein; the goal of "freedom" within the EU - and some important differences, including a tradition of terror attacks to make the IRA seem wimps. But the most important difference of the lot is Madrid's stubborn antipathy to capitulation. Why should a minority be able to decide the fate of a nation without reference to the majority that surrounds and supports it? Where is the fairness or democracy in that?

There's the vexatious question. Majorities have rights, too. They want their country kept whole, for fear of wholesale disintegration. So they need a specific voice in deciding its future, just as Aznar demands a voice that represents the interests of all Spaniards, not just Spain's richest, most disaffected regions.

But this is curiously not the current British instinct. Want to bale out of a disunited kingdom? Sure: carry on. Want a block on progress to any solution? Sure: the Gibraltarians have it, whatever the wider British interest. Want a fatter range of subsidies from the centre as your price for staying on board? Sure: that is the precise Prescott-Cook formula for introducing more regional assemblies. If the north-east (say) fancies some of the same boodle as Scotland and Wales, then it need only vote to get it. From Middlesbrough to Hartlepool you can even get your oddball elected mayor if you tick the right box. Yet the people who pay for that decision, who have to live with this jigsaw system, are never asked the question square on. We don't get a national referendum to sanctify the process; we are pushed aside.

Stand back and ponder the illogic here. Northern Ireland lapses bad-temperedly into direct rule again. But the direct rulers - us - have damn-all say in what happens next. We merely hold the punchbag. A Gibraltar settlement? No dice. A decent accounting of devolution? No way. A local government framework that offers coherence? Sadly not. More elected mayors to re-charge voting turn-outs? Alas, look at Switzerland, with its constant compartmentalisation and referendums. And don't bother to guess which European country has the lowest voting levels of the lot.

What sounds so reasonable can be a recipe for stagnation and fissiparous impotence. A switch-off, not a turn-on. The question is itself a stinker because we gave away the answer long ago.

p.preston@guardian.co.uk
 


Back                          Top

«« Back
 
 
 
  Search Articles
 
  Special Annoucements