Discuss the issues that separatism has brought to different areas of the world (40 Marks)

Separatism is an attempt by a regional group within a country or across the borders of one or more countries, to gain more political control from central governments over the areas in which they live. There are many different reasons for why separatism occurs around the world, these can include: the feeling of being economically inferior to other areas within the same country the fact that they are often in an outlying location to the political centre and the feeling or being mistreated due to being an ethnic minority like the Kurds in Iraq or a religious minority like the Christians in Sudan.
Separatism can lead to a wide range of issues around the world that range from the collapse of governments and civil wars to, more political disputes and peaceful protests. Separatism does not always have to be aggressive in the past those desiring more autonomy have used a wide range of means to get their campaign noticed by the powers that be. However these ‘means’ have are set upon a broad spectrum where they can vary from the peaceful and harmless establishment of societies with clear separate identities, such as the Bretons in France, to terrorism, and in some extreme cases, outright civil war. A recent example of separatism devolving into civil war is in East Timor, where the Tamil Tigers have fought for independence for over three decades.
There are two sub-categories of separatism, discreet separatism is where the group who seeks autonomy is confined to a territory claimed by a group as theirs and in which they currently live but form a part of a much larger country. A good example of discreet separatism is the Basque region in Spain, where the Basque people seek and independent state of their own, separate from Spanish control in Madrid. The other sub-category is diaspora separatism; this is where disparate groups of an ethnic minority live in many different locations, which have no territory as their own, unlike the Basques, but seek to have their own nation. The Kurds are a good example of diaspora separatism with over thirty million Kurds spread out over the borders of Northern Iraq, Turkey and Syria as well as thousands living abroad, thirty thousand of which reside in the UK.
An example of where Separatism has led to violence is between the Kurds and the major surrounding political powers (Syria, Turkey, Iraq and Iran) who oppose the idea of an independent Kurdistan for fear of destabilisation in their own countries. Primarily Turkey who would lose a sizeable chunk of land to a new Kurdistan and similar tracts of land in Iran and Iraq, this fact has led to decades of violent conflict and political oppression and persecution against the Kurds, a fine example of this is during Saddam Hussein’s reign in Iraq where he vehemently sought to remove Kurds from Northern Iraq though a campaign of deportation and mass executions, these attacks where called ‘Anfal’ a word which has come to represent the entire genocide over the decades. One particularly notable act of violence was the Halabja chemical attack in 1988 where Hussein ordered chemical attacks in which nearly 5,000 civilians were killed. It is violence and persecutions like this where extreme separatism arouses and eventually leads to more widespread problems.
Turkey on the other hand is not totally innocent of the persecution of the Kurds, although it has not gone to the extremes of Iraq yet the Turkish army has still been brutal in its approach. In the early eighties, the Kurdistan Workers Party began a campaign of armed guerrilla warfare against Turkey which cost the lives of nearly 35,000 people. The ordinary Kurds were once again the victims of this campaign. More than three thousand villages were burned by the Turkish army in retaliation for supposedly cooperating with the Kurdistan Workers Party and those who fled to the larger cities were met with a life of depravation and poverty because Kurds were seen as social outcasts and largely ignored in terms of welfare by the Turkish state.
On the other hand however, not all separatist movements end in turmoil and conflict. The Scottish National Party is an excellent example where separatism is being solved peacefully, their methods include marches, protests and voting, most notably the recent Scottish independence referendum, which was narrowly, defeated 55-45 in favour of a non-independent Scotland. The motive behind the Scottish move for independence is the belief that the only way to preserve and save their native Gaelic language and culture is to leave the UK and become their own separate nation. In order to dissuade Scotland from becoming independent (largely due to the presence of oil in the North Sea off the Scottish coast) the English government offers financial and social support to Scotland. This leads to some resentment amongst the English public as they believe that it is unfair that they have to pay part of their taxes towards the funding of Scottish students university fees, for example.

However and attempt at peaceful negotiation does not always stay peaceful as the Kurds managed to get some of their representatives elected to the Turkish parliament in the early 1990s even though they were legally elected the Kurdish members of parliament were stripped of their constitutional immunity and dragged out of the parliament by the police and be arrested with no official reason given for their arrest.
To conclude, it is easy to see how Separatism can quickly devolve into violent conflict and destabilise a government if the movement has enough force (Crimean crisis) and it is easy to see how separatist movements have effects on the Social and Economic wellbeing of those involved, a good example being the economic divide in Belgium between those who live in the rich Flanders region and the poorer industrial Wallonia region. However it can be seen in the better developed countries when there is well established government in power there tends not to be aggression and instead a more peaceful resolution. This can be shown by the fact that Scotland and the England have not had violent clashes since the battle of Pinkie Cleugh in 1547.