Abandoning Dominance

As the Celtic nations of Scotland, Wales, and Ireland negotiate the demise of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, bedrock nations in the Americas and elsewhere still struggle against annihilation. While the Inuit of Greenland prepare for peaceful independence from Denmark, the Mapuche fight a life and death battle against the state of Chile.

The list of native nations yearning to be free is long, our attention drawn now and then to Kurdistan, Basque country, Tibet, or Biafra. While these references are remotely familiar as geographic locales, what is not often considered is that these are also the names of peoples with long ties to the landscapes they have rightful claim to, and that these peoples have social, political, and spiritual systems of their own.

Respecting their right under international law to be themselves, entails abandoning all means of foreign dominance through economic and military force—a lesson empires like the UK, the US, and the USSR learn at great cost.