Science is definite on this point: our planet has been in existence for 4.5 billion years and the sun will ensure the continuance of organic life for another two billion years or so. Seen from our planet, the only one to be inhabited to this day, as far as we know, it signifies, humanly speaking, the infinite in every direction, the infinite in time as well as in space; just to think of it makes one giddy.
Only one of the species on our planet can consciously live a part of these billions of years. 70, 80, 90 years if all goes well. During their short lease of life these creatures can ask countless questions; they can even ponder over their ability to ask questions. These earthly beings share another trait which unites them and distinguishes them from the other species: their great capacity to suffer. They can suffer acutely and for a lot of time; this is due to their great capacity to know and to their limited capacity to forget.
Unlike the other living species human beings know what suffering is inexorably in wait for them and the suffering they are subjected to may mark them forever. Just think of the pair of parents who have lost an infant and cannot forget. The capacity to suffer is limitless and the capacity to forget is limited. It is the tragic aspect of the state of man.
Due to his great vulnerability men deserve sympathy and compassion. Their condition should induce them, during their short stay on earth to adopt an attitude of forbearance, generosity and kindness. Unfortunately nothing of the sort happens. Many human beings are neither generous nor accommodating. Instead of being conciliatory they demand "the right of self-determination".
If this right is claimed by individuals who want to determine by themselves what is right or wrong they will end up rapidly in a specialized institution for deranged or delinquent persons. Self-determination was, according to professor B.V.A. Roeling, the very essence of criminality which he defined as "the sovereignty of the ego and the instant". "When the demand for self-determination does not proceed from individuals or small gangs but from human communities led by cultural or political leaders, it appears in a different way. The demand becomes a respectable claim and the right to self-determination often becomes a sacred right".
Why is it so? This deserves a debate. What is certain is that the right to self-determination of peoples and nations is the most peremptory cause of wars, hot or cold, of the greatest slaughters, of the greatest injustices and exploitations. On this subject you may read The Anatomy of Peace by Emery Reves (1945).
Behind the notion of "self-determination" collective selfishness is often lurking. One does not say "My Country First" because this is not politically correct but one is in favour of self-determination to be able to think first and foremost about the interests of one's people - which boils down to the same thing. This sacred right which is undeniably the main cause of the sufferings of whole populations is not being called into question by the powerful because they are not ready to undermine the very basis of their national power.
One is struck by the following contradiction: on one hand the unity of mankind should entail a great solidarity; indeed all human beings are the same, not only in their attitude for suffering but also in other fields; all children will play together without problems, all men can with all women give life to healthy children. But on the other hand, the rulers always manage to break the links of solidarity and segregate the population of the Earth according to elements of secondary importance: rivers, coastlines, chains of mountains, differences in languages (they all say the same things with different words), religions (they pray in different fashions), history, habits, standards of living... So as to acquire or keep their power, trifling differences are blown up out of all proportion. They are insisted on as irritating, dramatized, rendered threatening; they are finally translated into lofty criteria of supreme solidarity to create and support nation-states and finally involved as causes to break existing links of solidarity to proclaim and demand the right to "self-determination".
As the Earth becomes smaller and smaller more human groups demand self-determination, urged by potentates or would-be tyrants. Self-determination is desired and advocated to escape from the rules, to acquire weapons, to curtail or suppress human rights, to wage cold wars or as it is the case here [in Belgium] to decide independently and to their selfish advantage on taxes, social security, health policy, foreign trade, the sales of weaponry, advertising for tobacco, traffic and the environment.
At the same time, to reassure the good people, they insist that they want to maintain their solidarity with the other communities - this means, of course, that they keep their right to self-determination which will allow them to decide when and under what conditions and in what measure they wish to preserve the said solidarity. This evolution is considered as normal by many people - according to them it is going "in the sense of history". Nevertheless the question is to know what will happen when the 5 or 6,000 linguistic communities in the world express the same claims as the Flemish or Wallon leaders.