TIME
Freedom Fighters
From Kosovo to Kurdistan, rebels vie for independence.
Here are the reasons some succeed--and some don't.
In an article titled as above, published in the Time Magazine (8 March 1999), the author Johanna Mcgeary has speculated on why some freedom movements succeed and others don’t.
| LUCK: The bad luck of historical accident is what has left most
current claimants out in the cold. To change that, you need to be in the right movement at
the right time in the right place. The Kurds in northern Iraq were just another bunch of
bickering agitators until the U.S. needed them to challenge Saddam Hussein. No one cared a
whit for the Kosovars until Slobodan Milosevic ground them into the dirt. (It obviously
helps to be the victim of a reviled dictator.) But Tamil Tigers of Sri
Lanka: Your moment has yet to arrive. LOCATION: Distance from Washington is relevant but cuts both ways. Fighting in Europe's backyard helps the Kosovars but hurts the Kurds. Living far from the West deprives oppressed East Timor of active foreign support, but in Sri Lanka the secessionist Tamil Tigers wage their war without interference. TELEVISION: It is not necessarily the legitimacy of a group's claim as much as the telegenic horror of its suffering that gains the combination of sympathy and anxiety crucial to independence. Constant images of the intifadeh helped transform the Palestinians from terrorist outcasts to deserving victims. The Basques, seeking a homeland from Spain and France, can air no bloody incidents to galvanize world support. GOOD GUYS VS. BAD GUYS: You have to be seen as the good guys in your struggle. This is not a guarantee: the Ibos in Biafra were regarded as victims, yet the world refused them statehood. Still, it is because of the Chechens' reputation for thuggery that they command little support. Leaders can make or break perceptions: Abdullah Ocalan as a terrorist cast the Kurds into disrepute; captive and martyred, he may help reshape them into the cause du jour. The alchemy of time also helps, transmuting bad rebels into negotiating partners, as the years have done to Northern Ireland's Roman Catholics UNITY: You can have too much or too little. The Kurds have long been thwarted by their internal rivalries. The Kosovars are feared because they might unite with ethnic brothers in Albania and Macedonia. Physical dispersal is an even greater obstacle: How would you separate territorially Rwanda's intermingled Hutu and Tutsi? DEMOCRACY: The victors of the cold war will judge your case, and they are disposed to anoint only noncommunist, nonauthoritarian believers in multiparty elections and the free market. That pretty much queers the prospects of religious-based Chechnya and most African separatists. The Kosovars' lack of civil institutions and political structures makes them a premature candidate. POTENTIAL TO ROCK THE GLOBAL BOAT: Stability, more than any other principle, governs statemakers. One reason the Kurds may never get their state is that they covet pieces of four geostrategically important nations: Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Syria. Tibet is stuck as long as the world considers it folly to take on China. VICTORY: War is still the best guarantee of independence--if you win. Eritrea won in 1993, after 32 years of battle. The Kosovars and the Kurds are not ready to concede. The author's conclusion:
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Courtesy TIME Magazine - 8 March 1999 |