Notes from Quebec

Kosovo vs. Quebec as Ethnostates

March 24, 2008 

The Canadian government finally got a grip this past week and recognized the independence of Kosovo. The outraged Serb ambassador to Canada, Dusan Batakovic, reiterated the obvious parallel with Quebec’s separatist movement to which Russia had already drawn attention. Canadian federalists instantly claimed that there was no parallel whatsoever, with one prominent Liberal (Bob Rae) saying that calling the new country a precedent was an “insult to the intelligence”, thus placing severe limits on his own. Quebec’s October Crisis of 1970 may not have been anywhere near as extreme as recent Serb-Kosovar troubles, but it was surely on the same continuum and for similar reasons. 

From the standpoint of a “universal nationalist” one could applaud any ethny that tries to defend itself. But one’s own self- or ethnic-interest naturally can affect one’s sympathies. In the case of the Kosovars, there is much to dislike for Serb sympathizers. The manner of takeover of an historic section of Serbia reminds one of the Reconquista movement of Mexicans in the American Southwest: Conquest by immigration and high fertility. And it certainly is not heartening to entertain the political expansion of Islam within the traditional boundaries of Europe. 

But the larger issue is to think about the advantages and disadvantages of ethnic nationalism. And it’s not always evident where an ethny’s own greatest advantage lies. Having one’s own ethnostate would seem to imply being able to run one’s own life with congenial kinfolk without the interference of other states. Jerry Z. Muller’s recent article in Foreign Affairs is a wonderful dissertation on the underappreciated importance of that factor. But a small, weak ethnostate can end up at the mercy of larger more powerful states — and not just by being crushed by the latter’s tanks: For example, trade barriers can ruin its economic life. This became a major large issue for the Ukraine once it separated from Russia, and Kosovo may well have similar difficulties if it can’t arrange with Serbia for energy supplies. 

So the big dilemma is: Do we support the separation and sovereignty of breakaway ethnies:  Kosovars separating from Serbia, Tibetans separating from China, the Protestants of Northern Ireland from Ireland — or the Québécois from Canada? Or do we support a superordinate ethny with ambitions of dominating the whole region, e.g., Christian Orthodox Serbs who either dominated or hoped to continue dominating various parts of a “Greater Serbia,” including Kosovo. And don’t forget those whites in the U.S. who propose forming ethnostates for (i.e., dominated by) Euro-Americans within the present-day US that would co-exist with other ethnostates dominated by blacks or by Hispanics — unless the latter were somehow “ethnically cleansed” from the whole country or continent.  

An ethny able to maintain dominance over a large territory in spite of its containing other ethnies (usually minorities) can reap several rewards: valuable resources, access to the sea and economies of scale. Abe Lincoln’s nixing of the attempt of the Confederate states to secede from the U.S. conserved a large, rich and powerful country but one dominated by northern puritan branches of British North Americans at the expense of the Confederate states and their states’ rights. 

On the other hand, such a country then has to put up with the presence of those other ethnies/races, and as Muller has pointed out, that can be hazardous, arguably the cause of the 20^th century’s horrendous wars in Europe: 

Whereas in 1900 there were many states in Europe without a single overwhelmingly dominant nationality, by 2007 there were only two, and one of these, Belgium, was close to breaking up. …. in Europe the “separatist project” has not so much vanished as triumphed. 

The European Union was once thought of as a way of having one’s cake and eating it through the logic of “subsidiarity”. Subsidiarity means that local issues are dealt with at the local level. However, if countries share both the same problem and likely solution  (e.g., pollution or common defense), the higher political level would deal with it.  

Subsidiarity sounds good on paper, but betrayal of subsidiarity by EU bureaucrats has led to the term, “European Soviet Union”. For example, many Europeans, already dismayed by consequences of immigration from some Muslim countries, are worried that a common immigration policy would saddle them with even more cultural incompatibility.  But were such a union properly set up, it would make sense to see an Ireland wrenching itself free of Britain’s domination only to joyously turn around and join (and benefit from) the supra-level EU. Isn’t that what all the countries of one-time Yugoslavia now want? Separated from each other, but joined together again along with other European countries — while safeguarding their ethnic homogeneity within their country. 

Ethnic differences need not be great in order for people to want a separate state. E.g., Croats’ and Serbs’ religious differences have tended to separate them (or at least create ambivalence) in spite of considerable ethnic (Slav) commonality. But language differences (e.g., Belgium, Canada) can be an especially salient motive for separation. 

Could we expect world-wide anarchy among vast numbers of miniscule ethnostates because of too much fragmentation? Fiddlesticks! Did the world suffer when Singapore or Liechtenstein came into being? Or when the Soviet Union broke up into mini-states? No. And Kosovo, which many of the world’s powers-that-be have just endorsed, is tiny: only about 4200 sq. miles (60 or 70 miles across).  

In any case, it takes time to carry out such transformations properly, with referenda paving the way. Note that this is what the Swiss did, for example, in organizing the splitting up of the canton of Berne into two smaller, more ethnically homogeneous and rather autonomous, cantons.  The process was totally peaceful because every precaution was taken to keep everything democratic and to fulfill the desire of all for an enclave of their own people (including house swaps for outlying households). Property rights were fully respected, of course.  

No, the real problem stems from the desire of powerful elites and powerful countries to establish or control as large an empire as possible without regard to local nationalisms. That’s what underlay the vast amounts of bloodshed over the centuries in the Balkans. None of the European or Ottoman empires gave a fig for local nationalism, but they wanted territory and access to resources. In the same way, elites in the United States envision the country as an empire, with strong centralized control to keep a lid on any manifestation of ethnonational aspirations by its European majority. This has prompted paleoconservatives and one candidate for the presidency (Ron Paul) to long for a vastly reduced central/federal government. Were “states’ rights” to ever be re-acquired, much more in the way of ethnic/racial sorting could occur, possibly resulting in ethnostates! Good idea! 

Québécois nationalists have been very calmly relishing the prospect of Kosovo independence but are fully aware of the impossibility of achieving their own separation quite as neatly. First, the same interests that led to the U.S. Immigration Act of 1965 worked their wonders on Pierre Elliot Trudeau and his gang of multi-culturalists running Canada back in the 70s. With “diversity” having replaced Christianity for so many faithful, there are still remarkably few Québécois or Canadians of European origin who fully appreciate the decline of their own ethnies by replacement.  

One of the few exceptions is Mario Dumont, of the Action Démocratique party (nominally not separatist but nevertheless concerned for the nation). Last year, Dumont called for some constraint on immigration.  

And then the nationalist Parti Québécois just concluded a convention, under its new leader, Pauline Marois, which rejected the idea of another sovereignty referendum, but replaced it with a strategy of achieving it “by stealth”: that is, by assiduously working for more and greater provincial powers, including (most importantly) control over immigration, Quebec citizenship, and a new Quebec constitution.  

Brilliant! But they’d better work fairly fast before further immigration renders the plan hopeless.