Woodrow Wilson and the legacy of self-determination

In Sri Lanka the majority Sinhalese has grappled with a violent insurgency from a Tamil group (The Liberation Tigers) seeking to secede the Tamil areas of the island from Sri Lankan state control. The Tamil cause has attracted substantial international support, understandably much sympathy has been driven by the poor human rights record of successive Sri Lankan government's. But it takes a severe lack of imagination not to believe that Sri Lanka can suppress a violent internal threat to their security without recourse to violence and indeed a great deal of repression. Successive governments in Sri Lanka have not performed as humanely as the United Kingdom during its campaign against the Provisional IRA which involved numerous depredations of liberties. But Sri Lanka is not an empire or a colonial power and there is nothing in the country's history that necessitates the dismantling of Sri Lanka and the creation of another sovereign state on the Island.

The right of nationalities to determine their own fate is an abstract concept with no clear parameters or limitations. Rights to free expression and one's religious beliefs can be established with clear boundaries and the recourse to interpretation through a state legal system. Self-determination has no agreed definition and there is no legal framework to determine its veracity or a means to its implementation. State power is its effective determinate. Movements with the requisite power, namely military force, can bring about their objective to establish their sovereignty and independence as the American revolutionaries did. States, such as China, with predominate power can prevent secession and maintain their territorial integrity. Outside interventions can work to bring about self-determination (e.g. Kosovo) but more often it prolongs conflict by preventing a resolution of the conflict.

Although perhaps an unpopular concept it is by no means clear that any national group has an inherent and incontestable right to statehood. Internationally recognised nation-states come into being through the exercise of power. The history of the United Kingdom involves the establishment of a centralised and predominant political entity in the British Isles through the successive subjugation of a host of regions and micro-kingdoms long since forgotten. And like China, Russia Turkey and Sri Lanka have strong historical and emotional connections to all regions of their respective countries. To surrender a piece of their homelands to a secessionist force is not so different than asking the Union to accept the exit of the Confederate South from the United States of America. The Confederate belief that they were entitled to no longer reside within the United States was not something the American people shared either now or then. But it entailed a war that took the lives of hundreds of thousands of soldiers and civilians.

We should recognise the similarities between Lincoln's iron will to preserve the Union at huge costs with that of other leaders today who wish to preserve their nations and territory from fragmentation. And we should not oversubscribe to the idea that Wilson's vision for the world as it was in 1918 is applicable today. The great empires, which Wilson especially loathed, are not in existence today and the enthusiasm for evermore war blighted micro-nations should be resisted by those of us in the Western world. Nations often have bloody pasts but once they are established the maintenance of order and a common identity are the best guarantees of peace and liberty. Countries that require evermore use of force to maintain themselves are rarely free, nonetheless they deserve the chance to remain whole and be free from the horrors of internecine violence.