Irredentist appointment by Luke Harding [Luke Harding is an award-winning foreign correspondent with the Guardian. He has reported from Delhi, Berlin and Moscow and has covered wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya.] Luke Harding wrote in the Gaurdian : Musing on Russias annexation of Crimea, Strobe Talbott, foreign policy analyst and former US deputy secretary – sent an eye-catching tweet last week. He wrote: Thanks to Putin, musty word irredentism, coined by Italians in 19th & early 20th century, is now all-too-relevant to new perils of 21st. Vladimir Putin has rejuvenated an old Italian doctrine Irredenta which says that a country is entitled to control areas or territories outside its borders to which it has an ethnic or historical claim. The word comes from the Italian for unredeemed – *irredenta*. The Italians patriots who came up with it were referring to Italian-speaking territories at the time under the control of the Austro-Hungarian empire (Trieste, Istria, Dalmatia and so on). Ever since, irredentism has frequently featured in territorial disputes, especially but not always in Europe. The doctrines most brutal exponent, of course, was Hitler. The Führer justified his annexation of Austria and the Südetenland on the grounds that he was protecting ethnic Germans and incorporating them into Greater Germany. The 1938 Anschlüss in Austria took place after a rigged referendum. Putins audacious irredentist land-grab in Ukraine is the biggest geopolitical challenge for the west since the cold war. It has shaken the post-war consensus that Europes borders are fixed, and has thrown up a series of major challenges for the US, the EU and Nato – defensive, cyber, energy. The question now is how far is Putin prepared to go to realise what looks like a plan to create a new Greater Russia? The obvious next target are the Russian-speaking areas of south and eastern Ukraine. Trans-Dniester – a Russian-speaking separatist territory and Soviet hangover next to Moldova – has already said it wants to join the Russian Federation. There are significant Russian-speaking populations in the Baltic states. And in post-Soviet Central Asia, especially Kazakhstan. Seemingly, the Kremlins annexation sets a military precedent for other major states with historical grudges to take matters into their own hands. China notably abstained on a motion by the US at the UN security council condemning Moscows annexation of Crimea. Beijing has always claimed Taiwan is part of the Peoples Republic of China, applying the irredentist principle that the Chinese-speaking peoples are an indivisible entity. (For its part, China has Tibet – from Beijings point of view a separatist or splittist rather than irredentist problem). There are numerous other irredentist hotspots out there. Pakistan claims Indian-administred Kashmir on the grounds that it is the only state with a Muslim majority. Afghanistans Pashtun tribes refuse to recognise the Durand line, drawn up by a British civil servant, and dividing Pakistan and Afghanistan. Argentina makes an irredentist case for the Malvinas or Falkland islands, on the grounds of historical justice and propinquity. But the population on the Falklands is resolutely British, making the ethnic argument tricky and allowing London to invoke self-determination. What conclusions should sovereign nations draw from the unhappy Crimea affair? With irrendentism back in fashion one is surely get yourself a nuclear weapon. And hang on to it. Luke Harding
Posted on: Fri, 28 Mar 2014 12:13:47 +0000
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