The Economist has an interesting mostly legally-oriented piece
on
Whether secession in Crimea would be legal
as a matter of national and international law.
on
Whether secession in Crimea would be legal
as a matter of national and international law.
Given our own roots in the Baltic, which currently has a significant Russian population, we can understand those who view this entire matter emotionally and politically, but it is a tough question when looked at objectively through the lens of the law, if only because we, as many others, support the free determination of peoples to select their own governments.
"Liberty" becomes a difficult issue in regions shared by various nationalities or even differing political and/or religious views.
Not too long ago, in fact, the Governor of the State of Texas in America raised the issue of the secession of that State from the United States, and indeed, America still suffers greatly from its own Civil War of secession fought over a century and a half ago, which was resolved by force in the favor of unity.
Wherever people unite together for mutual advantage, there are always disadvantages as well. That is why majorities must protect minorities in their own land, to keep the specter of secession from raising its head.
Still, if one looks at a modern map of the world, in spite of countless battles and wars, what has really changed over the millennia in terms of borders? Most areas, especially in Europe, are still inhabited and ruled by the nationalities of their inhabitants, regardless of the prevailing political, economic, social or religious systems in force.
Indeed, as we point out in our megalithic research, it appears to us that many of these borders in Europe were set ca. 5000 years ago by megalithic monuments and sites, i.e. border stones.
Many megalithic sites in Europe seem to mark political "language barriers", i.e. national language divisions that have prevailed over long periods of time -- these large groupings are not "natural" in terms of dialogue distribution, perhaps because those megalithically-marked borders were set at some ancient time and served to mark off large "tribal" territories, leading to "national" languages in those territories.
We think that this period of territorial division in Europe took place around 3117 B.C. and could be said to be recalled in the Bible (King James Bible at the Bible Gateway):
- Genesis 10:25 "And unto Eber were born two sons: the name of one was Peleg; for in his days was the earth divided; and his brother's name was Joktan." [emphasis added]
"According to Genesis 10:25 and 1 Chronicles 1:19, it was during the time of Peleg that "the earth was divided"....
The meaning of the earth being divided is usually taken to refer to a patriarchal division of the world...." [emphasis added]
Our own chronology of the world by astronomy would put the era of Peleg to 2638 BC, which corresponds to the reign of Khasekhemwy (Chasechemui) in Ancient Egypt, a Pharaoh we take to be the ancient king who inserted the first 480-year (viz. 479-year according to his monument) calendric intercalation to the calendar, an intercalary period also used in the Bible (1 Kings 6).
480 (viz. 479) years prior to that puts us at 3117 B.C., which we have used for some time as the most significant ancient cardinal calendric date in our study of the history of civilization -- and that date also looks like the date of territorial division of Europe and the Ancient Near East, based, presumably, on the making of an ancient land survey via astronomy of the then known world, according to which such a territorial division of land could then be made.
Prior to that was arguably the legendary Tower of Babel, when all peoples spoke only one language. After the division, the common language became differentiated, as modern linguistics has recognized e.g. for Indo-European.
