There have been many examples in history of national
boundaries being altered following a plebiscite. To take one example unlikely to rouse my
readership to an instant foaming wrath:
in 1920, Denmark received northern Schleswig following such a referendum.
It’s politics, and power politics at that. All the blather about yesterday’s
vote in the Crimea being “illegal” in the view of (a shadowy, unspecified)
“International Law” consists just
of syllables, sub-semantically strung together. If the geopolitical playing-field were momentarily
tilted slightly differently, you’d have Congressmen standing on their chairs
shouting for the inalienable rights of the freedom-loving Crimean People to
determine their self-determination themselves (pop, pop, pop
go the flashbulbs.)
As it is, both sides would have it their own way:
Putin: The 1981 referendum that led to the Ukraine breaking away
from the Soviet Union, was illegal.
The 2014 referendum, that may lead
to the Crimea breaking away from Ukraine, is legal.
The West: (simply reverse both judgments)
[Update 14 September 2014] A very perceptive article in today’s Neue Zürcher Zeitung, pointing out some
overlooked similarities between goose and gander:
Allzu oft wird weggehört, denn
gross ist das Bedürfnis, im Kampf gegen Putins rabiates Expansionsbedürfnis nur
noch Gut und Böse gelten zu lassen. Kriege vernichten intellektuelle Grauzonen.
Das ist ein fataler Fehler. Nicht alles, was auf ukrainischer Seite kämpft, ist
gesättigt mit europäischen Werten und demokratisch. Sogar in der
Selbsteinschätzung Odnoroschenkos ist das Asowsche Bataillon eine
«rechtsextreme, nationalistische» Organisation. Dies zu bemänteln, ist
schädlich, denn es diskreditiert die solide, westliche Argumentation gegen
Putin.
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