Secession's Bad Name

Sometimes the success (or lack thereof) of an idea has less to do with the merits of an idea and more to do with the people who espouse it. We might reason that "better" ideas are embraced by "better" people, but that's only true to a degree. There's little reason to trust a doctor or a scientist's point of view on politics implicitly, for instance, though they might be brilliant in their specific niches. Perhaps the most dangerous thing for an idea is for it to become associated with disreputable people or organizations. Undoubtedly communism has gone out of vogue less because of anything that Karl Marx or Friedrich Engels actually wrote and more because what dictators like Josef Stalin and Mao Zedong actually did while in power. You can certainly be a card-carrying member of the Communist Party and not believe in mass murder, but it's difficult for any movement to survive being taken over by evil on such a scale.

In the United States, secessionism is also a severely tainted political ideology. I think it's fair to say that Americans are opposed to secession by default largely because they are opposed to the practice of slavery. Secession is still viewed through the lens of the Civil War; secessionism as an idea still stinks of the Confederacy. On the other hand, many Americans who are opposed to secession by default quite avidly support the idea of a Palestinian state or of a Free Tibet which are essentially secessionist movements; neither is it unusual for an American to believe the American colonists were justified in breaking away from Britain while at the same time refusing to seriously consider the prospect of a state legally breaking free of the United States.

As a general rule, I think people should have the right of self-determination. So, I tend to be "pro-secession" to the extent that I think there ought to be political mechanisms in place to allow people to break away from the state if there is a widespread desire to do so. It shouldn't be easy to secede, but it also shouldn't be impossible. I think it's healthy when Quebecois are allowed to vote to decide if they want to stay a part of Canada or forge ahead on their own -- they should have the right to make that decision. If the Catalonians, Scots, Tibetans, or Uighurs want to have their own nations, I also see no reason why they shouldn't. Unfortunately, it goes without saying that sometimes people will seek secession for less than noble reasons. For the most part, today's secession movements around the world seem to be tied to preserving a culture, language, or religion -- they are motivated by the desire to protect some of the most basic human rights. If we accept that all people have the right to self-determination, though, we have to accept that secession will sometimes lead to bad consequences. I would never claim that the Civil War was entirely motivated by slavery, but undoubtedly one of the consequences of secession would have been a continuation of the practice of legal slavery in the southern states, at least for a time. It's hardly surprising that China attempts to brush aside calls for Tibetan independence by villifying the feudalism of old Tibet -- the state is trying to argue that Tibetans shouldn't have the right to self-determination because they don't know what's good for them and want to go backwards. If you truly believe in self-determination as a concept, however, you also believe that people should have the freedom to make mistakes.

Many also oppose secessionism for purely practical reasons. Without a doubt, smaller nations tend to be more vulnerable to invasion. While individual areas like Venice and Genoa and Bavaria lost tremendous influence by the unification of Italy and Germany, these massive states became military powers in their own right, much more able to defend themselves against attack as well as perpetrate attacks on other nations. If every city in the world suddenly became free tomorrow, there might well be a flowering of culture and commerce as each city developed internally, but as soon as two cities formed a confederation the trend towards incorporation by force or coercion would likely begin anew. Additionally, secessionists, often motivated by pure emotion, don't always consider political matters like access to sea ports or land barriers that will surely help determine the future success of the nation they are trying to form when they are in the process of fighting for freedom. As I see it, these practical concerns will come to the fore if secessionism is treated less like a criminal act and more of a political issue to be debated. Although the independence-favoring Scottish National Power is narrowly in control of Scotland, Scottish secessionists face an uphill battle in even getting a vote on independence largely because of the reluctance of Scottish voters to break away from the rest of the United Kingdom and no longer be a part of a world power. If even the Scots aren't sure they want to break their union with their historical enemy England of all nations, then I think we can rest assured that legal secessionism is unlikely to create millions of microstates any time soon. At least the Scots can choose their own destiny (or at least influence the process), though, unlike the Uighurs and Tibetans. Amending the constitutions of the world to provide a clear legal path to secession, with definite (difficult but achievable) requirements set in place, would be a positive development in my view. In the United States, the law is already biased against secession, but I sincerely hope that Americans wouldn't treat a modern Texas independence movement (just to give a wild example...) as China treats the Tibetans.