Why do people like to argue that changing the status quo would cause suffering as though the status quo is not itself causing plenty of suffering? Especially when the chaos "caused" by change is most often actually caused by violent opposition from those desperate to preserve the current state of things?
The disruption is usually not worth it once generations have built their lives and have built their homes based on an existing border regime.
Read about the India Pakistan partition. How would you feel if you have to leave behind everything you have and move to another country because someone decided it is so.
Again, in many cases this is an arrangement that's only about a hundred years old (with about six or seven decades of sovereignty) _and_ is clearly not working out for the people involved. Why do people talk as though they are immutable institutions from prehistoric times?
Plenty of people built their lives on the US being a British colony. Plenty of people built their lives on Austria and Germany being a single country. Plenty of people built their lives on the USSR being a single entity. I could go on and on listing examples. Why is everyone else allowed to naturally form their own national identities but recent (particularly African) colonies are supposed to suck it up and endure the empty ones forced on them?
Perhaps. But what is your actual proposal that will actually make things better? Move the borders? Dissolve countries and go back to being tribes or something? What would that actually fix?
And if that won't fix much, then your talk about sunk cost is pointless.
It's fascinating to me that people talk about a peoples' desire to exercise their right to self-determination (whether autonomist or secessionist) as absurd, especially people whose forebears have already exercised that right to set up the stable societies they benefit from today.
People understand/respect separatism when it's Kosovo, Scotland, Catalunya, Hong Kong, etc, but all of a sudden want to be led by the hand when it involves African nations.
OK, but rayiner's comment was about fixing societies and economies. If you want independence for independence, fine, I've got no problem with that. I merely hope that you either succeed or fail as peacefully as possible.
But the context was about economics, so I presumed that you were saying that it would be economically helpful to change the boundaries.
"Economics" is not a somehow pure and distinct topic from nation building - economies thrive (and vice versa) on the stability of nations. You cannot force economic prosperity out of instability and disunity, so it is very strange to ask how creating more stable/unified nations or autonomous regions is economically helpful.
This obviously does not apply to all sub-Saharan countries - there are many that already had or have managed to forge national identities of their own. I am speaking for those of us who are unevenly yoked and know it.
Fair point. Important point, too. I would merely say that independence gives you the opportunity to create stability. But you still have to make it happen, and it's not as easy as it seems.
