Monday, May 21, 2007

[sønderjylland-holstein question] fuzzy borders might be one solution

Bet you've been gnashing your teeth over this issue today:

Lord Palmerston once said that only three men in Europe had ever understood the Schleswig-Holstein question and of these, the Prince Consort was dead, a Danish statesman was in an asylum and he himself had forgotten it.

I don't see the problem:

Though Sønderjylland had a German component in the population and though Holstein had a Danish component, still - apart from economic reasons and there were several, why couldn't the former go to Denmark and the latter to Germany?

I have three solutions, the first mentioned here:

1 Fuzzy borders

This requires common sense from governments. Where there is a clear historical mix of ethnicities and where local customs and even local dialects have sprung up, why can't that area be left "fuzzy"?

Why the need to rigidly define a border, except to make a map look beautiful?

In South Ossetia and Alsace-Lorraine, it would seem logical but unfortunately, another logic, in the form of national self-interest and national pre-eminence, holds sway.

Alsace-Moselle today is at peace but what is not mentioned is that the French forcibly suppressed the local dialect and enforced French when they took Alsace-Lorraine into France proper in 1918/19. Few speak the local dialect now. This is a powerful factor and hardly worth Germany fighting over.

So you could say that the use of force and strong-arm tactics works in some situations. Except that there'll always be unrest if the minority thnks it's getting a raw deal.

Strategic disputes like Hans Island are another matter and are, quite frankly, abstruse. Less abstruse and just plain silly is the Eritrea/Ethiopia dispute.

A look at the map [lower right] shows Ethiopia to have no sea access whatsoever. If Eritrea were to concede even a small corridor, tensions would greatly ease. Liveability is at stake here, not ethnicity or useable acreage. So:

2 Common sense. If Ethiopia could compensate Eritrea [whether or not it felt it needed to] and if Eritrea could grant it a reasonable seaport or two, where's the long term harm? Of course, as Bag points out, there must be an acceptable trade-off.

3 Apartheid. Readers probably can't believe I'm suggesting this. Why is there peace in Australia, despite the secessionist mood of WA? There is one main ethnicity. Why is there peace in Russia - and there is peace, by the way? One ethnicity and language.

What about the republic I live in? See N2 above - common sense.

But if parties refuse to use common sense and a sense of compromise, then apartheid is the only possibility, overseen by international bodies. Key example - the Middle-East.

I'd like to know what Charles, of Free Jersey might have to say about all this.


Inflicted on you by on

5 comments:

  1. BagMonday 21 May 2007 at 12:17:00 GMT+1

    James, All this is open for negotiation now. These countries should negotiate for what they want.

    Your comment on 'If Ethiopia could compensate Eritrea [whether or not it felt it needed to]' was interesting. How would you like it is someone wanted a shortcut through your land and not offer any compensation? I know what I think. You pay more for land with access rights and no other government will just take it.

    However, that does not stop them negotiating a right of way or a transfer of the land. There must be something they could trade.

    The issue is these people are no different from us. There must be something in it for us. In the UK if you praised Tony Blair they would get the strip of land to the sea. Not every country has such dozy leaders.

    I do not see these getting resolved easily. Nor would I see it being much different if you were looking at 'civilised' countries.

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  2. James HighamMonday 21 May 2007 at 12:32:00 GMT+1

    Bag, I clearly didn't explain myself well enough. That's precisely what I meant - that there should be some sort of trade-off. I'll fix it now.

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  3. CrushedMonday 21 May 2007 at 13:04:00 GMT+1

    The answer to your question about Scheswig Holstein is that Christian Of oldenburg, on becoming King Of Denmark passed a a law saying that the Duchy of Schleswig and the County of Holstein should be perpetually united. This created a problem long term, as Schleswig was under Danish Soverignty, whilst Holstein was a Feif of the HRE.
    This is why Holstein was a member of the shadowy German Confederation that preceded German unification, whilst Schleswig was not. When in 1663, Christian IX, became King of Denmark, with descent through the female line, his cousin claimed the Duchy of Scheswig-Holstein, on the grounds that Holstein anyway, as a German county, was subject to Salic law.
    The whole thing was very complex and prompted Palmerston's comments.

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  4. UnknownMonday 21 May 2007 at 17:55:00 GMT+1

    Fuzzy Borders and Common Sense are clearly the best solutions. Fuzzy Borders because it would allow people to make those arrangements that suit them best, without being part of someone else's Big Plan. With a little common sense, people can exchange for what they value more.

    Both of these solutions require functioning and reasonably in-corrupt institutions, like the rule of law (even if it's only a very local law). In the absence of that apartheid - enforced seperateness - may be an alternative (perhaps the recent Eurovision voting is evidence of this?).

    Isn't there a very big problem with finding a suitably impartial outsider to do the enforcing, though? The UN's efforts at peacekeeping have been mired in scandles if they haven't been derided for being useless (or both). Being impartial would seem to conflict with any incentive to solve the problem. The long term solution would seem to be institution-building. But getting there...

    All three solutions suffer from the problem of people who think they know what's best, people with a Plan, who don't like spontaneous order. The people who want to have nice neat lines on their maps. Order, for order's sake.

    As a final thought, doesn't apartheid only really treat the symptoms, and not the cause? It would still require the local population to value security and reliable institutions before removing it.

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  5. James HighamMonday 21 May 2007 at 20:41:00 GMT+1

    Crushed - thanks for that info - it explained it clearly.

    Charles - thanks for stopping by. Yes, apartheid is not a good solution and could only be a fallback position but as you say: "It would still require the local population to value security and reliable institutions before removing it."

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