Much has been written about the ongoing efforts by globalists and the international establishment to centralize political and economic power. From the European Union, the African Union, and the Union of South American States all the way to the United Nations, would-be transnational authorities are fervently seeking to consolidate and expand their power over increasingly large swaths of humanity. At the same time, though, with citizens becoming increasingly weary of being ruled by far-away, unaccountable forces, secession movements around the world are exploding.
Nowhere are independence movements more numerous and more vocal at the moment than in Europe. As the emerging Brussels-based super-state seeks to finalize its smashing of national sovereignty and self-government across the bloc, whole nations are increasingly in open revolt. In the United Kingdom, for example — itself facing the increasingly likely prospect of Scottish secession — polls show the public is ready to peacefully extricate the nation from the EU as soon as possible. The political class has done its best to contain the anti-EU fervor, but to little avail.
“In much of the world, small countries are hoping to retain their independence, whilst portions of larger countries are trying to establish their independence,” wrote economist Jeff Thomas in International Man, a finance-oriented publication. “Understandably, they’re meeting with resistance, as it’s usually the areas that are the net-contributors to the larger economy that seek independence, whilst the areas that are the net-recipients wish to take the conglomerate approach (and to continue to eat their neighbor’s lunch).”
Moves to break away from central governments, Thomas continued, are “invariably a bottom-up effort — created by the people.” Efforts to create “a conglomerate state,” on the other hand, tend to be “top-down — created by the political class,” he said, adding that while in the past that was often done through warfare, today, it often happens via treaties. “Political leaders invariably have an insatiable appetite for gobbling up as much real estate as possible,” Thomas observed.
Indeed, across Europe, which has been united into a pseudo-federation via treaties and agreements imposed on the public from the top down, political parties openly hoping to withdraw from the controversial union are increasingly leading in the polls. In France, the anti-EU National Front has been surging, most recently shocking the political establishment with its massive gains in local elections this month.
Based on surveys, the pro-sovereignty Dutch Freedom Party, meanwhile, appears set to dominate the upcoming elections to the European Parliament. Both of those parties, along with others from across Europe, are now working together to form an anti-EU alliance in the super-state’s pseudo-legislature. The end goal: restore liberty, self-government, and national sovereignty in the face of an increasingly hostile entity in Brussels.
At the same time, national governments across much of Europe — especially in the economically battered south — are also facing secession movements that are threatening to rip apart nations. In Spain, for example, the Basque region has long been seeking independence. More recently, separatist sentiment across the Catalan region has become increasingly widespread as well, with millions of Catalonian citizens flooding into Barcelona to demand their own nation. Spanish authorities are currently resisting growing public pressure for a referendum on independence in the region, but it is not yet clear that it can be contained forever.
Spain, of course, is hardly alone. In the United Kingdom, a September referendum could see Scotland finally regain its independence from the British government. The most recent polls show the Scottish pro-independence movement within striking distance of victory — despite the fact that unlike many other secessionist hotspots around the globe, Scotland receives more from the central government than it sends in. Across Wales, too, secession fever is reportedly on the rise.
In Belgium, already widely viewed as a sort of Frankenstein-like mishmash of disparate peoples under an artificially created “nation” — something that more than a few EU critics have seized on as an appropriate metaphor for the super-state itself, which is based in Belgium’s Brussels — efforts to split up peacefully are also growing in popularity. Neither the Flemish nor the Walloons were ever particularly enamored with the current arrangement, and with the economic havoc escalating, those sentiments have only been inflamed.
With the implosion of the Italian economy, once largely marginalized independence movements have recently erupted into massive secessionist fever across Italy as well. Nowhere, perhaps, was that more obvious than in Venice, once a powerful and independent city-state. In a referendum held last month, a stunning 89 percent of voters were in favor of seceding from the Italian government and the economic disaster it has sparked. Italian authorities were not amused.
In the relatively wealthy Piedmont region, as well as the island of Sardinia, secession fever is raging too. Many citizens in both areas, which were once united, are hoping to split from Italy and possibly be annexed by non-EU, liberty-minded Switzerland. Italian authorities have responded to the various secession movements by deploying troops, seizing weapons, and arresting dozens of suspected secessionists. However, that is unlikely to calm the situation down, according to analysts.
Indeed, experts say it is all part of a global trend. “We are now experiencing a strong return of little nations, small and prosperous countries, able to interact with each other in the global world,” European history professor Paolo Bernardini at Italy’s University of Insubria told United Press International. “The entire world is moving towards fragmentation, a positive fragmentation, where local traditions mingle with global exchanges.”
Of course, Europe is hardly alone in the explosion of secession movements and resurgence of long-simmering separatism. The world’s newest nation, South Sudan, became independent from its Islamo-socialist oppressors in Khartoum in mid-2011 only after a long and hard fight. In South Africa, meanwhile, growing numbers of European-descent Afrikaners, fed up with corrupt and discriminatory rule by the African National Congress-South African Communist Party regime, are pushing for an independent homeland as well.
Across Asia, secession and independence movements are gaining ground, too, even under brutally repressive regimes. The Communist Party dictatorship in Beijing, for example, despite its efforts to ethnically cleanse occupied Tibet and fill it with ethnic Han Chinese, is still facing constant opposition from the remote formerly independent mountain nation. Separatists in the East have also become increasingly vocal — and in some cases violent — in the push for liberation from the communist regime. In Yemen, meanwhile, the south is once again clamoring for independence despite efforts by the Obama-backed central regime to quash the movement.
In North America, French-speaking Quebec is often viewed as the most likely potential candidate for secession from its national government in the near term, even after a recent defeat for the separatist party there. Across the United States, though, facing an increasingly out-of-control federal government, the topic is once again in the national headlines, and more serious efforts are starting to emerge. In 2012, citizens from more than 30 states submitted petitions to the White House for independence signed by many tens of thousands. That might have been just the beginning.
Of course, in independent-minded Texas, secessionist rhetoric has never been far from the surface, even among the highest elected officials. Vermont also has a strong pro-independence streak. Many Alaskans, too, often flirt with the idea of an independent nation free from far-away Washington, D.C., bureaucrats and politicians. Now, even in Wisconsin, state Republican Party leaders are dealing with the issue of secession, with a resolution on whether or not to support the state’s right to secede from the union set to be voted on in early May.
At the same time, regions within American states are also contemplating and working toward secession from their current state governments. From New York and Colorado to California, growing efforts by conservative-minded regions to liberate themselves from increasingly out-of-touch “progressive” state governments are ballooning as well. The process will be tough, but it is not impossible.
While peoples worldwide increasingly seek to break away from far-away rulers for various reasons, the globalist establishment is determined to see the opposite happen. Instead of smaller, independent nations in control of their own destiny, internationalists are working fiendishly to both regionalize and globalize political and economic power. The EU may be the most obvious and advanced example, but the trend is happening all over the globe. With the public increasingly beginning to push back, though, the borders on future world maps remain far from certain.
Alex Newman, a foreign correspondent for The New American, is currently based in Europe. He can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @ALEXNEWMAN_JOU.
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