Coincidentally, or otherwise, the Drudge Report tonight offers links to four different separatist movements active today at various levels. The first is an AFP story for Yahoo News on the current situation in breakaway Crimea.
The second is from Canada's National Post and concerns a referendum this weekend in Venice and the surrounding Veneto region gauging interest in a move to become independent of Italy. This one is news to me. As the story reminds us, city-state Venice was independent for centuries.
The third, from Canada's Business News Network, concerns renewed interest in independence in Quebec, after the province's Parti Quebecois Premier called a snap election for April 7. If the PQ wins a majority in the province's parliament, the so-called National Assembly, it is likely they will work toward another referendum on separation. This would be the third such, as we noted on March 14.
Drudge's fourth link is to a story in the U.K.'s The Telegraph. It examines the ramifications of a separation vote in Scotland scheduled for September, this year.
If I were given to making sweeping predictions, I'd say that the concept of national integrity was in trouble, that we are experiencing an outbreak of tribalism in otherwise developed countries. I won't go that far; I do think there is contagion where success in one region will encourage like-minded people in other regions.
I wonder if Vladimir Putin has assessed the risk he takes by heeding a change-of-sovereignty referendum in Crimea? What if the Chechens hold a referendum and want to leave Russia? Maybe the Cossacks also would like to exit?
