Redrawing borders

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Re: Redrawing borders

Postby vijayjohn » 2018-10-01, 18:30

Yasna wrote:
Saim wrote:So Mongolia can become a Han-majority state? :hmm:

It should be a federation with strong safeguards against the tyranny of the majority. I think this is a must wherever there are significant ethnic minorities present.

Does that apply to the United States, too?

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Re: Redrawing borders

Postby Yasna » 2018-10-02, 17:04

vijayjohn wrote:Does that apply to the United States, too?

Depends on if you want to give up on the American project of creating a new American ethnicity (the melting pot).
Ein Buch muß die Axt sein für das gefrorene Meer in uns. - Kafka

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Re: Redrawing borders

Postby linguoboy » 2018-10-02, 17:08

Yasna wrote:
Saim wrote:So Mongolia can become a Han-majority state? :hmm:

It should be a federation with strong safeguards against the tyranny of the majority. I think this is a must wherever there are significant ethnic minorities present.

Why "should"? What principle(s) are you invoking here which determine(s) which administrative entities "should" be consolidated and which can be left as is?
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Re: Redrawing borders

Postby Yasna » 2018-10-03, 19:08

linguoboy wrote:Why "should"? What principle(s) are you invoking here which determine(s) which administrative entities "should" be consolidated and which can be left as is?

To improve the balance of power in Northeast Asia.
Ein Buch muß die Axt sein für das gefrorene Meer in uns. - Kafka

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Re: Redrawing borders

Postby Saim » 2019-01-14, 15:28

Yasna wrote:
linguoboy wrote:Why "should"? What principle(s) are you invoking here which determine(s) which administrative entities "should" be consolidated and which can be left as is?

To improve the balance of power in Northeast Asia.


I also like playing Age of Empires.

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Re: Redrawing borders

Postby vijayjohn » 2019-12-29, 7:23

You know how certain European powers divided up some of their colonial possessions according to their own whims instead of how the indigenous people themselves would have divided them up? I wonder how someone might have divided up Europe according to their own whims if they had conquered it.

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Re: Redrawing borders

Postby Yasna » 2019-12-29, 16:39

vijayjohn wrote:You know how certain European powers divided up some of their colonial possessions according to their own whims instead of how the indigenous people themselves would have divided them up? I wonder how someone might have divided up Europe according to their own whims if they had conquered it.

You don't need to wonder. Just look at pre-modern states and provinces established in Europe by the Romans, Ottomans, Umayyads, Mongols, Vikings, and various other groups that carved up territory outside of their ethnic homeland.
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Re: Redrawing borders

Postby vijayjohn » 2019-12-29, 18:14

Yasna wrote:
vijayjohn wrote:You know how certain European powers divided up some of their colonial possessions according to their own whims instead of how the indigenous people themselves would have divided them up? I wonder how someone might have divided up Europe according to their own whims if they had conquered it.

You don't need to wonder. Just look at pre-modern states and provinces established in Europe by the Romans, Ottomans, Umayyads, Mongols, Vikings, and various other groups that carved up territory outside of their ethnic homeland.

That's not the same thing; I mean if distinctly non-European invaders conquered ALL of Europe (maybe even some of Asia) and divided it up without any regard to cultural differences.

The British, French, Germans, Belgians, etc. were not Asian at all. They conquered most of the world and divided most of it up on their terms. There was no India or Nigeria before the British showed up. There was no Chad or Togo before the French showed up. The Romans and Vikings were indisputably European, and the Ottomans were at most right next door. The Mongols retreated from Europe while they were still conquering it, and the Umayyads only conquered parts of Spain and Portugal.

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Re: Redrawing borders

Postby Saim » 2019-12-29, 21:59

Would there be such a thing as “Asia” without European colonialism?

Did European empires respect cultural differences in carving up Europe? It just so happens that when some of them imploded they ended up creating smaller national states (Austria-Hungary), or in other places they were succesfull in linguistic or cultural assimilation (e.g. France).

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Re: Redrawing borders

Postby vijayjohn » 2019-12-30, 2:22

If you're trying to make a point, I'm honestly not sure what it is. :hmm: I shouldn't have specifically said that Europeans are "not Asian," though; they're also not African, not North/South American, not Oceanian, etc.
Saim wrote:Would there be such a thing as “Asia” without European colonialism?

AFAICT "Asia" originally referred to Lydia, so yes, I think so. The modern concept of Asia has a lot to do with European colonialism, though.
Did European empires respect cultural differences in carving up Europe? It just so happens that when some of them imploded they ended up creating smaller national states (Austria-Hungary), or in other places they were succesfull in linguistic or cultural assimilation (e.g. France).

On some level at least, it seems to me that they did respect cultural differences within Europe far more than they did outside Europe. They may not have respected regional autonomy, and they may have arbitrarily created new administrative divisions sometimes, but they also did not, say, lump all of France with all of Spain. Austria-Hungary had kingdoms, archduchies, etc. within it that largely seem to have been culturally defined (Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia-Slavonia, Carniola, etc.), and France still has regions that differ culturally from one another (and for a very long time also differed linguistically).

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Re: Redrawing borders

Postby Saim » 2019-12-30, 4:42

Yes, “Asia” was originally a Greek term for Asia Minor. As far as I know it only extended to include “all of Eurasia minus Europe” in the colonial period. Is there a term for “all of Eurasia minus India” or “all of Eurasia minus the Sinosphere”? “Asia” simply didn’t exist for most of history as a concept because it didn’t need to (neither didnthe Americas or Africa).

What is “France” and what is “Spain”? Both of those countries are ethnolinguistically diverse and of the four languages historically (i.e. before the modern imposition of standardised ‘national’ languages) spoken along the border - Basque, Aragonese, Catalan and Occitan - three of them are spoken in both states. France may “still” have culturally distinct regions, but its administrative subdivisions do not generally correspond to cultural areas and its assimilation of pretty much all minority languages was largely successful.

Croatia had autonomous status within in the Kingdom of Hungary during part of the 1800s but I don’t think most of the subdivisions in the dual monarchy were “culturally defined”, certainly not the primary one (Austria vs Hungary). Plenty of them were ethnically mixed and the division of the unitary Austrian Empire and then Austria-Hungary along ethnic lines was a fraught political issue that resolved itself in the way it did after a lot of conflict with peripheral (Serbian, Romanian, Slovak, etc.) nationalisms.

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Re: Redrawing borders

Postby vijayjohn » 2019-12-30, 5:53

Yes, I get that borders are arbitrary, but that doesn't mean they're all equally arbitrary. In Europe, at least there was historical precedent underlying some parts of the borders. Before France existed, Gaul existed. Before Spain existed, Hispania existed. By contrast, there was no historical precedent underlying the British approach to just hacking South Asia into seven pieces.

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Re: Redrawing borders

Postby Car » 2019-12-30, 10:00

Saim wrote:Croatia had autonomous status within in the Kingdom of Hungary during part of the 1800s but I don’t think most of the subdivisions in the dual monarchy were “culturally defined”, certainly not the primary one (Austria vs Hungary). Plenty of them were ethnically mixed and the division of the unitary Austrian Empire and then Austria-Hungary along ethnic lines was a fraught political issue that resolved itself in the way it did after a lot of conflict with peripheral (Serbian, Romanian, Slovak, etc.) nationalisms.

Austria-Hungary was called "Völkerkerker" ("Peoples' Prison") by people at the time for a reason.
Please correct my mistakes!

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Re: Redrawing borders

Postby Saim » 2019-12-30, 10:34

vijayjohn wrote:Yes, I get that borders are arbitrary, but that doesn't mean they're all equally arbitrary. In Europe, at least there was historical precedent underlying some parts of the borders. Before France existed, Gaul existed. Before Spain existed, Hispania existed. By contrast, there was no historical precedent underlying the British approach to just hacking South Asia into seven pieces.


When did the areas of Gaulish settlement ever correspond to anything close to the borders of modern-day France (or even the Hexagon minus Corsica)? As far as I'm aware the Gauls also inhabited the Po Valley, most of what is now Switzerland (the "Helvetii") and as far north in currently Germanic-speaking areas as Zeeland, whereas much of southern France was inhabited by Aquitanians and Iberians. Not to mention all the maritime parts of France which have nothing to do with the Gauls.

Hispania wasn't a cultural area, there was never a Hispanian ethnic group or language. Pre-Roman Hispania was inhabited by all sorts of peoples, from Celts (Asturs, Celtiberians, Lusitanians and Galaecians), to Iberians and Aquitanians, among others. Not to mention the fact that well, Portugal, Gibraltar and Andorra all exist.

Honestly if you're going to look for the roots of modern Spain or France in Hispania or Gaul then what's the difference to comparing the modern-day Republic of India to the Mughal Empire or the Mauryan Empire?

Car wrote:Austria-Hungary was called "Völkerkerker" ("Peoples' Prison") by people at the time for a reason.


I knew this from the Serbian expression tamnica naroda, thanks for teaching me the German equivalent. :D It's interesting that in Serbian and German you don't use the most obvious term for prison (zatvor, Gefängnis), whereas in English you default back to "prison".

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Re: Redrawing borders

Postby Car » 2019-12-30, 10:54

Saim wrote:When did the areas of Gaulish settlement ever correspond to anything close to the borders of modern-day France (or even the Hexagon minus Corsica)? As far as I'm aware the Gauls also inhabited the Po Valley, most of what is now Switzerland (the "Helvetii") and as far north in currently Germanic-speaking areas as Zeeland, whereas much of southern France was inhabited by Aquitanians and Iberians. Not to mention all the maritime parts of France which have nothing to do with the Gauls.

And even in more modern times, there were the langues d'oïl and the langues d'oc. So even when they had adopted Latin, it (or what developed out of it) still differed a lot.

Car wrote:Austria-Hungary was called "Völkerkerker" ("Peoples' Prison") by people at the time for a reason.


I knew this from the Serbian expression tamnica naroda, thanks for teaching me the German equivalent. :D It's interesting that in Serbian and German you don't use the most obvious term for prison (zatvor, Gefängnis), whereas in English you default back to "prison".[/quote]

You're welcome. When looking for a translation, some people said the German term is even used in English. Actually, a Kerker is a type of Gefängnis, see the definition duden.de gives. Is that the same/similar for zatvor?
Please correct my mistakes!

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Re: Redrawing borders

Postby Saim » 2019-12-30, 11:32

I think the term for a modern prison would be zatvor, my mum reckons that tamnica is pretty much the same thing but more archaic. I’ve personally only heard the term in the expression tamnica naroda and in rap music. Enciklopedija.hr (http://enciklopedija.hr/natuknica.aspx?id=60340 ) seems to think tamnica refers to prisons in earlier time periods with dark and isolated cells (so similar to 1a) for Kerker in Duden) but that it can also be used as a “stylistically coloured” term for a prison sentence.

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Re: Redrawing borders

Postby Car » 2019-12-30, 11:37

Thanks for the explanation.
Please correct my mistakes!

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Re: Redrawing borders

Postby Naava » 2019-12-30, 12:39

vijayjohn wrote:You know how certain European powers divided up some of their colonial possessions according to their own whims instead of how the indigenous people themselves would have divided them up? I wonder how someone might have divided up Europe according to their own whims if they had conquered it.

I'm not sure if this what you had in mind, but IMO Finns, Karelians, and Saamis have had fun in the hands of Swedes and Russians during the past 700 years. Of course they weren't colonizers from another continent, but they never really asked "would this separate the people living there" or "are we putting an artifical border in the middle of a culturally homogenous area" before taking the lands either.

For example, the treaty of Nöteborg cut the lands where Finns lived in two in 1323:
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(An interesting side note: the same border shows up in surprising ways even today, eg. in health:)
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Then there's the border between Sweden and Finland that cut Meänmaa in two in 1809:
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Same has happened to the Karelian people:
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White Karelia and Olonets Karelia (East Karelia) were taken by Novgorod/Russia and North and South Karelia (green areas within Finnish borders) by Sweden in the Middle Ages. Ladoga Karelia, Border Karelia, and Karelian Isthmus (rest of the green areas) have been moved from Karelians to Novgorod to Sweden to Russia to Finland to Russia during the past 800 years or so. (And I really mean during: Novgorod got these areas in the 1280s, Sweden took them in 1323, Russia took them back in 1809, Finland got them in 1917, and then they were given to the Soviet Union (/Russia) in 1945. Nowadays they belong to the Leningrad oblast, while the East Karelian areas are now known as the Republic of Karelia.)

And then there's Sápmi that stretches over four countries:
► Show Spoiler

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Re: Redrawing borders

Postby vijayjohn » 2019-12-30, 18:24

That's not really what I meant, but it's still interesting, so thanks for sharing! :)
Saim wrote:When did the areas of Gaulish settlement ever correspond to anything close to the borders of modern-day France (or even the Hexagon minus Corsica)? As far as I'm aware the Gauls also inhabited the Po Valley, most of what is now Switzerland (the "Helvetii") and as far north in currently Germanic-speaking areas as Zeeland, whereas much of southern France was inhabited by Aquitanians and Iberians.

That is a lot closer to the areas of Gaulish settlement than probably most colonial divisions were to anything. It certainly makes more sense than splitting most of South Asia (and parts of modern-day Yemen, Burma, and Thailand) into this (note that this goes all the way to the middle of Odisha):
Image
This (the smaller territories on this map are Aden and Socotra):
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And this:
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Not to mention all the maritime parts of France which have nothing to do with the Gauls.

You mean Aquitania, Corsica, French Guiana, Guadeloupe, Martinique, Mayotte, and Réunion?
Hispania wasn't a cultural area, there was never a Hispanian ethnic group or language. Pre-Roman Hispania was inhabited by all sorts of peoples, from Celts (Asturs, Celtiberians, Lusitanians and Galaecians), to Iberians and Aquitanians, among others. Not to mention the fact that well, Portugal, Gibraltar and Andorra all exist.

Okay, but it was the Roman name for the Iberian Peninsula, which at least is a geographical area.
Honestly if you're going to look for the roots of modern Spain or France in Hispania or Gaul then what's the difference to comparing the modern-day Republic of India to the Mughal Empire or the Mauryan Empire?

Not much because all three of those are most of South Asia.

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Re: Redrawing borders

Postby Linguaphile » 2019-12-31, 5:24

Here are some examples of borders created by someone else's "own whims instead of how the indigenous people themselves would have divided them up" (to use Vijay's quote) from around Europe.
Yes, in general they are smaller areas than what Vijay is referring to and they were decided by people who were geographically closer to them, but still, I'm not sure that makes any difference to the people who actually live there. (To an individual it doesn't make much difference how large or small the area is if friends and family or livelihood are on both sides of the border; nor does the distance between an individual and the decision-makers have much impact on how they feel about it.)

Brown part is culturally Setu territory (split by Estonian-Russian border).
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Saatse (circled) on Estonian-Russian border in the Setu area: "until recently the Estonian villages of Sesniki, Ulitina and Saatse were effectively enclaves, as by road they could only be reached by travelling 900 metres (3,000 ft) through Russian territory"
Image

Podmotsa, Estonia (the photo is the view of Kulje Church in Russia as seen from Podmotsa):
"Podmotsa village is located on the border of Estonia which is also incidentally the border of the European Union; 100 m across the lake, there is Russia. When the border was still open, a priest from Kulje church on the Russian side came to Podmotsa tsässon together with people from Kulje to celebrate Pentecost. Crosses and icons arriving by boat or raft from the other shore of the bay marked the beginning of the feast." source
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Saami-speaking areas spanning four countries (keep in mind that traditionally theirs is a nomadic culture).
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Historical Saami herding districts:
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Basque-speaking areas
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Berlin 1986
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2012 - West and East Berlin as seen from space:
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2011 - Western and eastern Germany:
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Kaliningrad
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Gibraltar (British territory attached to Spain) and Ceuta (Spanish territory attached to Morocco)
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Llívia, a bit of Spain surrounded by France - in this case the residents did get to choose and this is how it turned out:
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