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RE: If voting made a difference, they'd make it illegal... Wait.
I upvoted your post for presenting your opinion on nationalism and secession rights. I would however ask if we can discern a grass root movement for separation vs separation movement instigated by a foreign government for that government gains. Hence your examples of Catalan people, Crimea and Donetsk may be apples and oranges, IMHO. Are Catalan people planning to join Portugal after the separation? What do you think?
You have a good point. Of course, Crimea wanting to join Russia is different from Catalonia wanting to become an independent country. However, I wanted to point out the reaction of governments to self-determination of a group of people in their country. Both Catalonia and, for example, Crimea held a referendum to decide the future of their country. Although the intent was different in the two cases, the reaction of the ruling governments was the same: they deemed it illegal.
Thanks for reading!
Have you checked your facts? Wasn't the Crimea referendum held AFTER the annexation from Ukraine, when it was defacto under the Russian government rule, the Russian troops on the streets? And the ruling government deemed it illegal?
I know it's Steemit, not NY Times, so anything goes, but... Thank you for reading my comment.
You're right. Russia had already occupied Crimea before the referendum took place. However, I'm referring to the de jure government that claimed sovereignty over the territory, not the de facto government that was empirically in charge. This doesn't change my argument: the government that supposedly should have had jurisdiction over Crimea deemed both the referendum and the Russian occupation illegal.
Thanks again for engaging!