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Separatism
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Separatism refers to the advocacy of a state of cultural, ethnic, tribal, religious, racial or gender separation from the larger group, often with demands for greater political autonomy and even for full political secession and the formation of a new state. Depending on their political situation and views, groups may refer to their organizing as independence, self-determination, partition or decolonization movements instead of, or in addition to, autonomist, separatist or secession movements.
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Encyclopedia
Separatism refers to the advocacy of a state of cultural, ethnic, tribal, religious, racial or gender separation from the larger group, often with demands for greater political autonomy and even for full political secession and the formation of a new state. Depending on their political situation and views, groups may refer to their organizing as independence, self-determination, partition or decolonization movements instead of, or in addition to, autonomist, separatist or secession movements. While some critics may equate separatism and religious segregation, racial segregation or sexual segregation, separatists argue that separation by choice is not the same as government enforced segregation and serves useful purposes.
Motivations for separatism
Groups may have one or more motivations for separation, including:
- emotional resentment of rival communities
- protection from ethnic cleansing and genocide
- justified resistance by victims of oppression, including denigration of their language, culture or religion
- propaganda by those who hope to gain politically from intergroup conflict and hatred
- the economic and political dominance of one group that does not share power and privilege in an egalitarian fashion
- economic motivations of seeking to end economic exploitation by more powerful group or, conversely, to escape economic redistribution from a richer to a poorer group
- preservation of threatened religious, language or other cultural tradition
- destabilization from one separatist movement giving rise to others
- geopolitical power vacuum from breakup of larger states or empires
- continuing fragmentation as more and more states break up.
Governmental responses
How far separatist demands will go toward full independence, and whether groups pursue constitutional and nonviolent or armed violence, depend on a variety of economic, political and social factors, including movement leadership and the government’s response. Governments may respond in a number of ways, some of which are mutually exclusive. These may have little effect, satisfy separatist demands or even increase them.
- accede to separatist demands
- improve the circumstances of disadvantaged minorities, be they religious, linguistic, territorial, economic or political
- adopt “asymmetric federalism” where different states have different relations to the central government depending on separatist demands or considerations
- allow minorities to win in political disputes about which they feel strongly, through parliamentary voting, referendum, etc.
- settle for a confederation or a commonwealth relationship where there are only limited ties among states.
Types of separatist groups
Separatist groups practice a form of identity politics - “political activity and theorizing founded in the shared experiences of injustice of members of certain social groups.” Such groups believe attempts at integration with dominant groups compromise their identity and ability to pursue greater self-determination. However, economic and political factors usually are critical in creating strong separatist movements as opposed to less ambitious identity movements.
See more complete lists of historical and active autonomist and secessionist movements, as well as a list of unrecognized countries.
Religious
Religious groups and sects believe they should interact primarily with co-religionists.
- English Christians in the 16th and 17th centuries who wished to separate from the Church of England and form independent local churches were influential politically under Oliver Cromwell, who was himself a Separatist. They were eventually called Congregationalists. The Pilgrims who established the first successful colony in New England were separatists.
- Zionism sought the creation of the state of Israel as a Jewish homeland.
- Muslim groups may seek to separate from each other, especially the Sunni and Shiite sects in Iraq and Lebanon.
- Russia, China, India and the Philippines have Muslim-separatist groups.
- Some British Muslims seek to have Sharia law recognized in predominantly Muslim areas of Britain.
- Indonesia currently has both Christian and Muslim separatist groups.
- Members of animist and Christian tribes in Sudan seek to separate from the Muslim-dominated government.
- Some Sikhs in India sought an independent nation of Khalistan during the 1970s and 1980s. The Khalistan movement inside India largely ended with the Indian military Operation Blue Star against Sikh militants and the retaliatory assassination of the then Prime Minister of India Indira Gandhi. However, some outside India still support such a movement. Muslims are also seeking independence from India in Kashmir.
Ethnic
Ethnic separatism is based more on cultural and linguistic differences than religious or racial differences, which also may exist. Notable ethnic separatist movements include:
- the Kurdish people whose lands and peoples were divided between Turkey, Syria, Iraq after World War I. Also the Kurdish region in Iran.
- Spain’s Basque, Catalan and Galician separatists.
- France's Basque, Catalan, Corsican and Breton separatists,
- the Soviet Union’s dissolution into its original ethnic groupings which formed their own nations of Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Estonia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan.
- Czechoslovakia’s split into ethnic Czech and Slovakian republics in 1993.
- the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia dissolution into ethnic (and religious) based Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Slovenia, Montenegro, Serbia and Kosovo.
- Belgium granting Dutch-speaking Flanders and French-speaking Wallonia greater autonomy.
- Switzerland’s division into cantons along geographical, religious and linguistic lines.
- French-speaking Quebec debating and voting on separation from Canada over several decades.
- Africa’s hundreds of ethnic groups are subsumed into 53 nation states, often leading to ethnic conflict and separatism, including in Angola, Algeria, Burundi, Congo and The Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Uganda and Zimbabwe.
- the Nigerian civil war (also known as the Biafran war) during the 1960s among Igbos, Hausa-Fulani and Yoruba; today’s ethnic and oil-related conflict in the Niger Delta of Nigeria.
- conflicts in Liberia between African-Liberians and Americo-Liberians, Africans who immigrated from the Americas after being freed from slavery.
- conflicts between Zulus and Xhosa in South Africa during and after apartheid.
- Boere-Afrikaner separatists.
- the 1994 Hutu campaign of genocide against minority Tutsis in Rwanda.
- Indian and Pakistani ethnic and linguistic groups seeking greater autonomy.
- China's Tibet and Xinjiang regions have separatist governments in exile.
- Sri Lanka's ethnic Tamil minority separatism in Tamil Eelam.
- Yugoslavia's ethnic Albanian minority separatism in Kosovo.
- Chechen separatism in the Caucasus
- Alemannic Separatism
- Separatism in Silesia
- South Ossetia and Abkhazia separatism in Georgia.
- Rio Grande do Sul's separatism in Brazil
- Anjouan's separatism in Union of Comoros
Racial
Some groups seek to separate from others along racialist lines. They oppose inter-marriage with other races and seek separate schools, businesses, churches and other institutions or even separate societies, territories and governments.
Aired May 1, 2007 - 19:00:00
Gender
Separatist feminism is women’s choosing to separate from male-defined, male-dominated institutions, relationships, roles and activities. Lesbian separatism advocates lesbianism as the logical result of feminism. Some separatist feminists and lesbian separatists have chosen to live apart in intentional community, cooperatives, and on land trusts.
See also
External links
- Graham K. Brown, , United Nations Human Development Report 2005 (PDF).
- Ryan Griffiths, Paper presented at the annual meeting of the ISA's 49th AAnnual Convention, Bridging Multiple Divides, Hilton San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA, Mar 26, 2008 (PDF).
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