Wednesday, September 25, 2024

 The death of an independent state:

 People worldwide, almost countless millions, continue to cling to a state as their preferred form of political organisation. We need only recall the powerful attraction of self-determination and political independence based on the state for the people of Asia, Africa, and the Middle East during the demise of European colonialism and for the people of Eastern Europe during the demise of the Soviet empire.


 When states fragment, as in the case of Yugoslavia at the end of the Cold War, the fragments turn out to be new (in the case of Baluchistan's old one). In terms of history, all these main movements toward the sovereign state occurred recently, in the half of the twentieth century.

 Individuals' security, freedom, and prosperity are based primarily on the state and state system. Individual security does not stand on a global political or legal organisation; such an institution does not exist to protect a person's security and rights. 

Where security is dependent on other social organisations, such as family or the clan, as is happening in the Iranian-occupied Baluchistan, that is because the state has failed as an organisation. The Baluch are trying to make the best of a bad situation. Iran has failed the Baluch, but it does not mean that The Baluch have given up on the state system. The Baluch want what the people of many other states already have: a developed and democratic state for themselves. The Baluch does not stand for the revitalisation of the Persian colonial system.

Mehrab Sarjov is a political activist based in the UK, advocates for an independent Balochistan from Iran.

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