The Crimean Peninsula's detachment from Ukraine could be the start of a large number of new countries in Europe. Venice has voted to break out of Italy, 150 years after the country gathered all the city states. Catalonia, the Basque Country, Greenland and Scotland can take a turn: But in the Hebrides, many would rather be part of Norway than of a free Scotland. Professor Øystein Sørensen calls for increased awareness of Europe's growing micronationalism.
(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
Land Crafting. The 18. Scotland will be holding a referendum on secession from the United Kingdom on September. For the first time in 207 years, since the union with England in 1707, Scotland with 5 million inhabitants can become its own country again.
In the latest opinion polls, there is an almost dead race, the "yes" side has increased to 40 percent. And both the Greens and the Socialist Party say yes to Scottish independence from London. The Scots are not alone: Ny Tid's overview shows that a dozen countries are ready to become their own states – from the self-proclaimed independent Transnistria in Moldova in the south, an area that can also belong to Russia, to the Faroe Islands and Greenland in the north. And by the Mediterranean we have Catalonia, Sardinia and Corsica – where strong forces want to break away from.
Last Friday, 89 percent in the Venice region, of those who voted, said "yes" to independence from Rome. The argument in Venice is that you are tired of the money being passed on to an Italian central power, without getting anything left.
For it is not only the Crimean peninsula that is in the borderlands. Are we about to see a new fragmentation of Europe? Are the city states on their way back into the shadow of the financial crisis and growing distrust of both Brussels, the EU and national capitals? And what do you think of such a development?
- Developments today confirm and reinforce an impression that was clear already in the 1990s: Nationalism in Europe is still strong and effective. It is expressed in different ways, but in principle it is the same phenomenon that was so strongly present in the 1800th century and early 1900th century.
Øystein Sørensen, professor of history at the University of Oslo, tells Ny Tid. Among other things, he is a specialist in European and Norwegian nationalism.
– In a political sense, it is a question of a desire or demand for self-government, preferably a separate state, for what one defines as one's nation – and a desire to defend this self-government against possible and actual threats. One of several problems that arises is when various nationalism projects collide – when they argue about who has the right to territories, for example, Sørensen says.
- What type of nationalism is this? Do you want to call ordinary nationalism, regionalism, anti-nationalism that is anti-Madrid, Rome, London – or a kind of hyper-nationalism, a division into ever smaller areas? Or is it an anti-diversity nationalism, as if one were to want a Basque country for Basques?
This is an excerpt from Ny Tid 28.03.2014. Read the whole by buying Ny Tid in newspaper retailers all over the country, or by subscribe to New Time -click here.
