Stateless nation

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This article is about a nation lacking a nation state. For a community lacking a government, see Stateless society. For persons lacking state affiliation, see Statelessness.

A stateless nation is an ethnic group or nation that does not possess its own sovereign state.[1] Use of the term implies that the nation has the right to self-determination, to establish an independent nation-state with its own government.[2][3] Members of stateless nations may be citizens of the country in which they live, or they may be denied citizenship by that country. Stateless nations are usually not represented in international sports or in international organisations such as the United Nations. Nations without a state are classified as fourth-world nations.[4][5][6] Some stateless nations have a history of statehood, while some were always stateless.

The term was coined in 1983 by political scientist Jacques Leruez in his book L'Écosse, une nation sans État about the peculiar position of Scotland within the British state. It was later adopted and popularized by Scottish scholars such as David McCrone, Michael Keating and T. M. Devine.[7]

Ethnicities described as stateless nations can be dispersed across a number of states (for example, the Yoruba people found in the African states of Nigeria, Benin and Togo) or form the native population of a province within a larger state (such as the Uyghur people in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region within the People's Republic of China). Some stateless nations historically had a state, which was absorbed by another; for example, Tibet's declaration of independence in 1913 was not recognized, and it was reunited in 1951 by the People's Republic of China - which claims that Tibet is an integral part of China, while the Tibetan government-in-exile maintains that Tibet is an independent state under an unlawful occupation.[8][9] Some ethnic groups were once a stateless nation that later became a nation state (for example, the nations of the Balkans such as the Croats, Serbs, Bosniaks, Slovenes, Montenegrins and Macedonians that were once part of the multinational state of Yugoslavia and gained independence during the breakup of Yugoslavia).

Stateless nations can have large populations; for example, the Kurds have an estimated population of over 30 million people, which makes them one of the largest stateless nations.[10]

Nation-states and nations without states

The symbiotic relationship between nations and states arose in Western Europe during the 18th century, and it was exported to the rest of the world through colonial rule. Whereas the Western European nation-states are at present relinquishing some of their powers to the European Union, many of the former colonies are now the zealous defenders of the concept of national statehood.[3] However, not all peoples within multi-cultural states consider themselves stateless nations. As not all states are nation states, there are ethnic groups who live in multinational states that are not considered "stateless nations".

Only a small fraction of the world's national groups have associated nation states; the rest are distributed in one or more states. While there are over 3000 estimated nations in the world, there were only 193 member states of the United Nations as of 2011, of which fewer than 20 are considered to be ethnically homogeneous nation states. Thus nation states are not as common as often assumed, and stateless nations are the overwhelming majority of nations in the world.[3]

Consequences of colonialism and imperialism

During the imperial and colonial era, powerful nations extended their influence outside their homeland; resulting in many colonized nations ceasing to be self-governing and being described as stateless nations thereafter.[11] Some nations have been victims of "carve-outs" that left their homeland divided among several countries. Even today, the colonial boundaries form modern national boundaries. These boundaries often differ from cultural boundaries which results in situations wherein people who speak the same language or have the same culture are divided by national borders; for example, New Guinea is split into the regions of West Papua (a former Dutch colony) and Papua New Guinea (a former Australian colony).[12] During decolonization, the colonial powers imposed a unified state structure irrespective of the ethnic differences and granted independence to their colonies as a multinational state. This led to successor states with many minority ethnic groups in them, which increased the potential for ethnic conflicts.[13][14][15][16] Some of these minority groups campaigned for self-determination. Stateless nations were not protected in all countries and as a result, they became victims of atrocities such as discrimination, ethnic cleansing, genocide, forced assimilation, and the exploitation of labor and natural resources.[17][18]

Nationalism and stateless nations

People with a common origin, history, language, culture, customs, or religion can turn into a nation through the awakening of national consciousness.[19] A nation can exist without a state, as is exemplified by the stateless nations. Citizenship is not always the nationality of a person.[20] In a multinational state different national identities can coexist or compete: for example, in Britain English nationalism, Scottish nationalism, and Welsh nationalism exist and are held together by British nationalism.[21] Nationalism is often connected to separatism because a nation is considered to achieve completeness through its independence.[22]

Throughout history, numerous nations declared their independence, but not all succeeded in establishing a state. Even today, there are active autonomy and independence movements around the world. The claim of the stateless nations to self-determination is often denied due to geopolitical interests and increasing globalization of the world.[23][24][25][26] Stateless nations sometimes show solidarity with other stateless nations and maintain diplomatic relations.[27][28]

Unionism vs separatism

Not all ethnic groups claim to be a nation or aspire to be a separate state. Some of them see themselves as part of the multinational state they are located in and believe that their interests are well represented in it. The favoring of a united single state is associated with unionism (such as Pakistani nationalism, Indian nationalism, and Belgian nationalism) [citation needed]). In many countries, unionism is also encouraged by governments and separatism is considered illegal.

See also

References

  1. ^ Dictionary Of Public Administration, U.C. Mandal, Sarup & Sons 2007, 505 p.
  2. ^ Osborne, Louise; Russell, Ruby (27 December 2015). "Stateless in Europe: 'We are no people with no nation'". TheGuardian.com. Archived from the original on 5 October 2019. Retrieved 28 December 2018.
  3. ^ a b c Chouinard, Stéphanie (2016), "Stateless nations", in Karl Cordell; Stefan Wolff (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Ethnic Conflict, Routledge, pp. 54–66, ISBN 9781317518921
  4. ^ David Newman, Boundaries, Territory and Postmodernity
  5. ^ Ethnic Minority Media: An International Perspective, Stephen Harold Riggins, 217p.
  6. ^ Language in Geographic Context, Colin H. Williams, 39p.
  7. ^ Verdugo, Richard R.; Milne, Andrew (1 June 2016). National Identity: Theory and Research. IAP. p. 85. ISBN 9781681235257. Archived from the original on 4 April 2023. Retrieved 1 January 2022 – via Google Books.
  8. ^ Clark, Gregory, In fear of China, 1969, saying: "Tibet, although enjoying independence at certain periods of its history, had never been recognised by any single foreign power as an independent state. The closest it has ever come to such recognition was the British formula of 1943: suzerainty, combined with autonomy and the right to enter into diplomatic relations."
  9. ^ "The Legal Status of Tibet". Cultural Survival. 22 February 2010. Archived from the original on 30 March 2014. Retrieved 17 May 2014.
  10. ^ "Who are the Kurds?". TRT World. Archived from the original on 8 July 2019. Retrieved 23 June 2018.
  11. ^ Redie Bereketeab, Self-Determination and Secession in Africa: The Post-Colonial State
  12. ^ Richard Devetak, Christopher W. Hughes, Routledge, 2007-12-18, The Globalization of Political Violence: Globalization's Shadow
  13. ^ Cultural Analysis: Towards Cross-cultural Understanding (2006), Hans Gullestrup, 130p.
  14. ^ Ethnicity and Christian leadership in west African sub-region: proceedings of the conference of the fifteenth CIWA Theology Week held at the Catholic Institute of West Africa (2004), Port Harcourt, p.272
  15. ^ Mussolini Warlord: Failed Dreams of Empire, 1940–1943 (2013), H. James Burgwyn, Chapter V
  16. ^ Ethnic Groups in Conflict (2009), Karl Cordell, Stefan Wolff
  17. ^ Donald L. Horowitz, Ethnic Groups in Conflict
  18. ^ Bruce E. Johansen, Resource Exploitation in Native North America: A Plague upon the Peoples
  19. ^ George W. White, Nationalism and Territory: Constructing Group Identity in Southeastern Europe
  20. ^ Understanding National Identity by David McCrone, Frank Bechhofer, p.22
  21. ^ Unionist-Nationalism: Governing Urban Scotland, 1830–1860 by Graeme Morton, 1999
  22. ^ James Minahan, Encyclopedia of the Stateless Nations: A-C
  23. ^ Nationalism and Globalisation (2015), Stephen Tierney
  24. ^ The Tamil Genocide by Sri Lanka: The Global Failure to Protect Tamil Rights Under International Law, Francis Boyle, chapter self determination.
  25. ^ Turmoil in the Middle East: Imperialism, War, and Political Instability (1999), Berch Berberoglu, 69p.
  26. ^ "Europe's Stateless Nations in the Era of Globalization, The Case for Catalonia's Secession by Josep Desquens". saisjournal.org. Archived from the original on 25 August 2016. Retrieved 3 February 2017.
  27. ^ The delegates were linked with the Scottish group 'SNP Friends of Catalonia', which itself had members recently visit the Catalan parliament in Barcelona in a show of solidarity to the country's hopes of self-determination. "Catalan delegates in solidarity visit to Scotland's independence movement". commonspace.scot. Archived from the original on 5 November 2016. Retrieved 5 November 2016.
  28. ^ The Catalan President and the Head of the Corsican government meet in Barcelona. The meeting lasted more than two hours and focused on enhancing the cooperation between the two nations in a regional and European level. "EFA brings stateless nations even closer". European Free Alliance. Archived from the original on 23 December 2017. Retrieved 23 December 2017.

Sources

External links

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