Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 01:37, 9 March 2008

2003

Which advocates of the Palestinian homeland claim the various parts of "the land formerly known as Palestine"? Do the so-called "Palestinians" claim all of Israel, or what? (Not arguing, just want to put the answer into some articles.) --Ed Poor

Cute how the desire for a Palestinian homeland is deemed irredentist, but there was no parallel discussion on the desire for a Jewish homeland. Fixed. Martin 22:16, 24 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Change

For a more clear-cut history and different, clearer, POV I'm going to change the Israeli & Palestinian list items. JoeHenzi 09:04, 24 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Do irredentist actions qualify as irredentism? I would submit that Mao Tse Tung's occupation of Xingjiang and Tibet were both irredentist in nature.

Bathrobe 07:37, 6 May 2005 (UTC)

Somewhat interesting how you mix and match nomenclature systems. Mao Tse Tung is Wade-Giles Chinese romanization, Xingjiang is an incorrect version of the Hanyu Pinyin Chinese romanization favored by the PRC, and Tibet, if memory serves correctly, is derived from the name of the indigenous population for the territory. If you use Tibet, why not use East Turkestan in lieu of Xinjiang? If you use Mao Tse Tung, why not Sinkiang for Xinjiang? If you use Xinjiang, why not Xizang in lieu of Tibet?

I only noticed this dig now. I am quite happy to mix and match romanisations. Are you trying to imply I should religiously follow the official Chinese romanisation system? I am writing English, not Chinese. (By the way, 'Xingjiang' was a typo).

Bathrobe 01:02, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Oh, by the way, why is PRC claims to Taiwan considered irredentist? It looks more like the result of an unresolved civil war, where one government retreated to the territory, and the other government is prevented from laying the killing blow by other powers. If I understand properly, irredentist means the territory was snatched by a foreign power. Thus, you could properly call Chinese claims to Southeastern Siberia irredentist. I'm wrong, am I? Instr 10:02, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

Er, somewhere I don't have a book anymore...formal geopolitical theory has a precise definition of irredentisms, but I don't have the tomes anymore; and it's not in Ratzel I remember, but in a pair of So-and-so-and-So-and-so writers in a textbook on political geography, name forgotten. They were the guys who coined the term shatterbelt, in reference to places like the Caucasus, Palestine/Mid-East, Balkans, Central America, Southeast Asia (the era of the textbook was '60s-70s); irrendentism wasn't their term of course but they cited a definition for it and a bunch of examples, some of which I don't see on the main page as yet which I'll add when I can find some cites/details. There were two main categories;

1) conflicting claims or "fuzzy boundary", intermingling of ethnic territories and dynastic jangle-ups, i.e. where nation-state boundaries differed from, or were indefinable by, the geography of nationality and/or of dynastic claims (as in Eastern and Central Europe, for centuries the cause of much warfare and boundary-fiddling). This is the category that nearly everything on the obverse main page is in, and which includes things I'll list below; then there's ones that fit a third, disqualified category (from the definition/meaning as I was taught it 30 years ago, which means nothing except that that's what was taught then) which will follow the two operative ones, the second of which is:

2) isolated pockets of territory, sometimes fragmented along a boundary that on small-scale maps looks like an ordinary line, even a more or less straight line; but on large-scale maps it's revealed to be a belt of "islands" of each country in the either; the most famous and intricate of these is the Bengal-Bangladesh boundary, and to some degree Bangladesh-Assam, where Moslem principalities, villages and towns went this way and Hindu villages and towns went that. And like the map of renaissance and medieval dynastic Europe, it wasn't so much consolidated territory as inherited title that deterimined where the different cards lay between what would become two different countries. Farmland, delta, riverine waterways, not something easy to consolidate anyway. Can't think of any more of these at present but there's a few; just none as extensive as India-Bangladesh, other than the "original case", as if you have a real up-close look at the modern Italian-Austrian boundary, and even more so at pre-World War II and pre-World War I boundaries you'll see that there's all these little "islands" of territory - partly caused by realities of mountain terrain and access. In the other sense the Alto Adige is a Germanic/Austrian irredentism in Italy, because of its German character and mixed dialect of Italian and German (or there once was such a thing, anyway; probably standardized out now, I wouldn't know). I think the Dutch-German boundary is quite a bit like this too, and also the Dutch-Belgian one. West Berlin of course was one when East Germany was still separate.

Pre-unification Germany and Italy were one big interlocking irrendetist jigsaw puzzle, with one duchy or princedom owning ten or twenty or thirty different non-contiguous chunks of land.

Oh yeah - Nagorno-Karabakh, and its Azeri counterpart to the south of Armenia; and the like in the region; not Abhkazia though sometimes the Ossetias are considered irredentisms in Georgia and Russia respectively, but really they're an incipient state like the rest of the ethnic mess in that area (which thankfully isn't as interspersed as the interethnic irredentisms of village live in Bosnia or the Sanjak or the Krajina during the Yugoslavian Wars). I think maybe the Turkish-Syrian boundary is a little messed up, too. As with rebel splinters or absorbed states/peoples, incipient states don't count. It's more a question of border-crossing, or border-smudgingk, that "classical irredentism" is about.

Sometimes protruding pockets of territory, like Sopron, have been referred to as this kind of irredentism; nearly-surrounded apparently counts in some way. Guantanamo, Ceuta, Tangiers, etc.

3) This is the third, negatory category, things that are not irredentisms but get called them: Rebellious splinters do not count (Taiwan, technically - according to CCP and KMT political theory alike - neither is Tibet nor Eastern Turkestan as these were, though self-governing, theoretically suzerain to the Chinese Emperor.

Also not counting as irredentistic, in classic terms, are ordinary territorial disputes and the boundaries that shift with them, like the Golan Heights or the infamous (and if it were not for the high mortality rate rather farcical) 1979 war by China to try to seize some of North Vietnam while the Soviet Union was busy in Afghanistan; there were territorial-pocket No.2 irredentisms in this area and may still be; and along the Thai and Myanmar borders with China, and with each other, and also between Myanmar and Assam and also between Laos and Thailand and so on, for much the same reasons as between Bengal and Bihar.

Also "not counting" are occupied territories or displaced boundaries, other than when ancient claims are revived against contemporary boundaries, as in the Hungarian vision of a "Great Hungary" incorporating Croatia, Transylvania and Slovakia, plus lost Ruthenia (now in Ukraine) or Greater Serbia; and there are "dead issues" like East Prussia, the remaining splinter of which there is no question of returning to Germany (despite obvious advantages and local agitation for same for purely economic reasons, not national sentiment as all in Kaliningrad/Koenigsburg now are Russian). Polish designs on Ukrainian Galicia fall into this category; or the Dano-German boundary, at times in the past farther south, at times farther north, but now a dead issue.

Also "not counting" would be cases where the actual terms of a boundary treaty conflict with the reality of the boundary on the ground, but there is no dispute. A good example of this is the Canadian-US boundary from Manitoba westward, along the 49th Parallel. Because its survey was done with older instruments - and across forbidding terrain to boot, it's often off as much as by a hundred yards, to the tune of hundreds (thousands?) of square miles between Boundary Bay and the southwestern corner of "The Angle" in Minnesota (another potential dispute of the same kind, but shelved at the time of survey). Even across the Whatcom County-Fraser Valley boundary there is significant variation at different border crossings (can't remember which way it goes; I think Sumas WA should be in Canada by about 50 yards, and the Douglas border crossing buildings should be the border, not the Peace Arch; something like that; on Point Roberts the Canadian checkpoint is south of the 49th Parallel, I remember that. Deal is that there was some legalistic foresight when the treaty was drafted, as the boundary was to be the line as surveyed, not the actual line of the 49th Parallel. Simplified things when it came down to stuff like this; and was also the reason The Angle had not been resurveyed when the "mistake" was realized by the British half of the party and the joint expedition was decamped half a degree (a degree?) to the south, and the 49th Parallel re-commeced from there - rather than at Lake of the Woods, as had been the terms of the Treaty as to the point of commencement. But because it was the line as legally surveyed, because the legal survey party had surveyed it, it was now the boundary, and could not be revised without renegotiation and amendment. Muskeg and marsh for the most part, so the British demurred and went on without much fuss, although it was hell to pay over the Boundary Bay-Point Robets thing - Point Roberts is a category 2 irredentism, sort of - it has direct marine contact with its political mainland so it's not really irredentistic, but it is sort of.

Short list and more later:

• China's claims to the Northeast Frontier Province and Ladakh and, um, Nepal and Bhutan (Sikkim is technically Chinese constitutionally, as it was subject to Lhasa and Lhasa was subject to the Celestial Emperor; on the other hand, as gets pointed out by Tibetan nationalists, the Son of Heaven and the Ocean of Wisdom exchanged mutual suzerainties, the Dragon Throne gaining temporal suzerainty over Tibet (but not interference in government, other than to ratify the selection of the DL) while the Living Buddha gained spiritual sovereignty over China; theoretically the Buddhist Emperor was as subject, or more, to the Dalai Lama than a European king was to the Pope. Why a Communist Republic would assert the political claims of a hated imperial system and its dynasty on the one hand, and claim the prerogatives of associated religious authority (and the territory associated with that authority, much like a giant self-governing archbishopric on the Roof of the World, a mega-Salzburg.

• The claims to Eastern Turkestan are vaguer and get murkier when you bring in the White Russians who helped establish that name in the 1920s and 1930s, when the KMT and CCP couldn't do f-all about it; and that Kashgar and other cities in the area, as Khanates, go back thousands of years, perhaps to the days when the Tarim basin mummies roamed the region, and until intensive Han settlement moved in (like Tibet, and Manchuria and Inner Mongolia before them) the area may have been subject to political claims by the Manchu Empire and its various political heirs, it's not identifiably Chinese by culture, nor is Tibet.

• Western Mauretania/Moroccan Sahara; was that on the other page?
• that northern strip of Chad that Qaddafi has invaded a couple of times, only to get booted back by the French
• Kvenland, a Finnic-speaking ethnic area of northern Norway (the Kvens are not a majority, and no more native to the region than the Norwegians - the area is Sami originally - but it's a hot potato and even the way I put that will probably get somebody weigh in here against my choice of terminology.....sigh.). Not really an irrdentism, as Finland doesn't actually want the place, but the Kvens mumble about joining up with the Finnish-mixed provinces of northern Sweden (?? or something like that).
• Technically Karelia is an irrdentism, and the mix of Slav and Russian ethnicities along that boundary has shifted it back and forth over the centuries. Most Karelians are Russified culturally though some speak Finnish; there's no remaining cultural similarities after decades of Stalinism, and I'm sure the Finns in Finland aren't really interested in territorial expansion, and although their Karelian cousins are pretty much Russified they're still technically an irredentism by the fuzzy-boundary definition.
• Iranian (and before Iran, Persian royal/imperial) rule of bits of Azeri, Arab (Khuzi), Kurd, Baluchi and other border-ethnic regions/peoples
• Tamil Eelam, in its own way, although it comes from a migration rather than a political boundary imposed atop a social one;
• in the same way Kosovo Albanians were relative newcomers to that specific region vs the Serbs; if it was part of Albania it would have been an irredentism because Serbia claimed it, even though it was national sentiment, not historical populations, that underlay the claim; over a battle lost, not won, no less.
• Skåne, the county/province of Sweden across from Denmark, originally part of Denmark. Pretty much a dead issue between the kingdoms but apparently the people of Lund and Malmo, whose dialect is more like Danish than Stockholmese, occasionally make rumbles about getting a better deal from Copenhagen.
• I'll think of more. Once you get going it's endless

Territorial disputes

An example of a territorial dispute without irredentism? --Error 18:12, 31 July 2005 (UTC)

"Fifty-four forty or fight"! --Wetman 00:19, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

No, that was explicity an irredentism - overlapping imperial/national claims, albeit overlapping into supposed empty territory (actually the Oregon Country/Columbia District was home to 1/4 of the aboriginal people on the continent or more, with some long-term resident chieftaincies and histories traceable back, in some cases, centuries). The Puget Sound region was briefly irredentist, though largely unknown in this capacity, as British colonial politicians agitated for its repossession after the Oregon Treaty, and wanted to invade it during the American Civil War. The Fenian Raids from the American side (which never came) were part of an American irredentism campaign to go to 54-40 (this is long after Jackson and Polk I'm talking about; more like 1870s-80s).

A territorial dispute without irredentism would be that island that Denmark and Canada almost launched the nukes over this last year; some rock up in the straits between Greenland and Ellesmere. Norway's and Russia's dispute over Jan Mayen Land and other localities might constitute as a territorial dispute that's not an irredentism; national histories and populations are not involved; only ambitions and egos. Historically another that comes to mind is Spanish control, or attempted control, of the Netherlands, and the Austrians turn at it after Holland split itself off.Skookum1 09:55, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Albania

It is a little unfair to claim that it is Albania that is claiming territory in Kosovo and other areas of the former Yugslavia where Albanians are present. Kosovar Albanians, for example, seek independence from Belgrade rule rather than unity with Tiranë. Of course, if their venture is succesful then it will be a different thing altogether should Kosovo and Albania merge to create one greater national state. If ever this were the plan until now, it has not officially been published and besides, it is neither here nor there: Kosovar Albanians have since making headway in the 90's spoken of independence, ie.an independent Kosovo under Kosovan Albanian rule and not Republic of Albania. as such it would be folly for this new proposed state with almost 90% of its people composing the principle population to hand over sovereignty to an already existing independent state. Celtmist 20:21, 10 September 2005

Certainly the article should describe Irredentism without evincing it. --00:20, 11 September 2005 (UTC)

Constitutional irredentism

I have deleted this paragraph since it does not seem to be an example of irredentism:

Australia While not an irredentist claim, Section 6 of the Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act names New Zealand as a State. "The States" shall mean such of the colonies of New South Wales, New Zealand, Queensland, Tasmania, Victoria, Western Australia, and South Australia, including the northern territory of South Australia. New Zealand was part of the colony of New South Wales until 1841.

See Talk:Constitution_of_Australia#New_Zealand. Thincat 12:54, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

I think that the Falklands should also be removed, in fact it is an even clearer case - the islands' inhabitants are ethnically British, not Argentinian (and as far as I know this was also the case before the Falklands' War). Amorphia 19:39, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

The Falklands (by whatever name) were initially claimed by France, but France passed them on to Spain. I think it must have been 18th century, as Bouganville was involved (please check). The British then invaded the islands (which war against the French? - there were so many :-) ) and supplied settlers, whose decedents live there today. Some think 200 years of squatting is enough (see Australia) while others don't (see South Africa). France originally had some settlers, but they were resettled elsewhere (French Canada?), but Spain never really settled the islands. Argentina, as the successor state to Spain, maintained the claim for sovereignty based on legal ownership, rather than by ethnicity. The point then is to decide if irredentism covers the inheritance of legal ownership or claim, as well as ethnic considerations. I think there is a fair claim based on equivalent outcome - a reasonable but contentious claim. Badja (talk) 10:21, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Tibetan Irredentism

Unlike Ladakh, Bhutan and Sikkim (which China no longer claims), Aksai Chin and Arunachal Pradesh are considered as part of Tibet Proper.

If there is a Tibetan irredentist claim, it should be over the provinces of "Inner Tibet" (from the Chinese viewpoint) or East and North Tibet, besides Ladakh, Lahaul and and the artificially manufactured and intrinsically alien identity "Arunachal"; parts of Tibet now included in Bhutan and the State of Mustang and other historic Tibetan lands included in Nepal. WikiSceptic 08:50, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Since there is no longer a Tibetan sovereign state, then any "claims" that Tibet might have to administer lands outside the current region called "Tibet" fall into one of two categories:

¤ Tibetan wishes for lands of the Older "Greater" Tibetan honmeland transferred to Qinghai and Sichuan to return to the modern Tibetan region

¤ Chinese claims (on behalf of Tibet) to lands located in other states on the grounds that they formerly belonged to the Older "Greater" Tibetan honmeland, which China regards as being traditionally part of China.

--Big Adamsky 15:30, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Tibet (and Xinjiang)?

I've made some edit. The cases of Tibet and Xinjiang have nothing to do with Chinese Irrendentism. Unlike those areas which China formally renounced , Tibet and Xinjiang have been continuously claimed by the sucessive Chinese governments, from the Qing monarchy to the Republics of KMT and CCP. Even though Tibet once declared independence in 1913, one year later Lhasa clearly renounced such claim by signing the Simla Agreement which reaffirmed her political subordination to China ("under the suzerainty of China"). In the case of Xinjiang, the area which was effectively controled by the short-lived East Turkestan Republic(s) formed only a small portion (city of Kashgar and the "Three Districts": Ili, Altay and Tarbagatay ) of present-day Xinjiang, so its more an example of the ability of a regional area to exert its local authority over the central government (ROC during civil war) than an existence of an All-Xinjiang (E.Turkestan) sovereign state, needless to say international recognition.--219.79.120.224 17:04, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

If your IP address turns out to be based in the People's Republic, your motives for these statements are all too clear. Of course, I've run into post-modern KMT types who also vociferously claim that China's claims to Tibet supersede any Tibetan aspirations for restored independence. That's right; "restored independence". The Qing-Lhasa relationship was one of shared suzerainty, with the Dalai Lama above Manchu Emperor on spiritual matters, the Manchu Emperor theoretically suzerain in temporal matters; much like the relationship between the HRE and the Pope, with formerly self-governing Tibet as the Papal State. I.e. Tibet/the Papal State was self-governing and self-administering, with no direct control from the Emperor. The Emperor's only power "over" Tibet was to ratify the selection of the Dalai Lama AND THAT's IT. Chinese money was not used, Chinese taxes were not levied, Chinese officials were not in place, Chinese was not in official or public use. TIBET WAS NOT CHINESE, but that doesn't stop the propagandists from constantly trying to wheedle that the Tibetans have no right to it.....

I've always found it ironic that Chinese nationalism - communistic or fascistic - invokes the Buddhistic relationship between the Qing Emperor - "the hated Manchu" - and the Dalai Lama as the basis of China's claims to Tibet, and justification for the bloodthirsty invasion and rape of that country and its ongoing colonization by Han industry and settlers, who never before would have dared enter "the Secret Kingdom". Han nationalists using Manchu treaties to justify themselves; all pretty pathetic. That there were no Tang, Yuan or Sung dynasty treaties with Tibet, and that before its pacifism Tibet was suzerain over large areas of China, they seem to want to forget mentioning. But the Manchu? Well, they may have been hated. They certainly are convenient, propaganda-wise, though, aren't they?

China used Tibetan irredentisms as an excuse for the Ladakh conflict and also its inroads into Arunachal Pradesh, and also as regards its onetime political statements about annexing Nepal, Sikkim and Bhutan (all, in the old days, technically subject to Lhasa). Skookum1 19:52, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

PS I was very vigilant on talk.politics.tibet about policing Chinese lies about Tibet; and will be advising my pro-Tibetan colleagues about the new entry in the propaganda sweepstakes here on Wiki. CCP/KMT propagandists BEWARE.Skookum1 19:52, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Yawn.....The exact name, that you and your intelligent-pro-Tibet colleagues may not know, is "Cho-yon". It's an exact term applied in Protector-Lama relationship (the example of HRE-Pope does not fit well, see below). Furthermore, the Qing-Tibetan relation was not simply religious Cho-yon and the Emperor-Lama relationship itself was not equal at all but rather one of superior to inferior(The Patron established protectorate while the Lama provide spritual guidance). For example, the Ordinance For the Government of Tibet, jointly drafted by the Dalai Lama, the Panchen Lama and a Military General named Fukangan, and later promulgated by the Emperor in 1793, clearly decided on the organization of the Tibetan locality.. The Three-Priests-One-Secular system of Kashag Government which still existed until 1959, was established according to the Emperor's earlier decree in 1751 and codified in the 1793 Ordinance. And according to the Ordinance, the Imperial Resident Minister in Tibet (formal name of Amban), but not the Emperor himself, was placed on a par with the Dalai Lama and the Panchen Lama. The Resident Minister, unlike HRE over the Papal State, was in absolute charge of financial, diplomatic and trade matters(of course including local levies/taxation and the coin-minting facilities). Instances existed when the Emperors, Mandate of Heaven, exercised its sovereign rights by punishing and even deposing the Dalai Lama and other high-rank local officials . Please also kindly update your "knowledge" that the Amban's decrees and notices (namely Che Ling), which could be seen on streets in Qing-era Lhasa, were written in Chinese. DL's Seals and Appointment Certificates bestowed by the Emperors were written in four langauages including Chinese.

Kashag government indeed paid no tax to Beijing, but neither do TAR and HKSAR need to pay nowadays, and both HKSAR and RAEM even have its own currencies while CCP officials were nonexistance, anyone who has basic knowledge would not say these regions are independent of PRC!....."HONG KONG WAS NOT CHINESE"?

Even before those Ordinances were promulgated, the Chinese Emperor had had final say on the Tibetan affairs, since the 1720s the Chinese court has set up government in Tibet under Military General Yenshin and stationed a 3000-man garrison(Han, Manchu and Mongol) in Lhasa. The Government under General Yenshin, in the words of a Christian Missionary who witnessed it, "had absolute dominion over Tibet"

When the earliest British Mission first arrived at Tibet in the mid-18th century, the Tibetan leadership clearly told them that their country is a subject of the Chinese Empire and "all contacts had to be through Beijing". It clearly shows Bejing's responsibility for Tibet's diplomacy and external trade, and the Mission eventually released their report in 1775 defining the status of Tibet:

"The Emperor of China is acknowledged as the sovereign of the country; the appointment to the first offices in the States is made by his order, and in all measures of consequence reference is first had to the Court of Peking"