I’m currently in an argument with someone in which I’m claiming that partitioning a nation should pretty much never be considered, because in all cases of a nation being divided by another power the seperate regions have fought amongst each other. The person I was debating disagreed that this was the case, but couldn’t think of any examples.
I’m worried that i’m wrong, now. Are there any examples of a situation in which another power has seperated a nation that didn’t end up with those two (or more) parts fighting, or at least having bad blood between each other?
Generally the reason a nation, or part of one, wants partition is that there’s already bad blood between regions, nationalities, religious groups, or whatever. But there have been instances:
Czechoslovakia --> Czech Republic and Slovakia. The Slovaks always felt unduly dominated by the Czechs during the years of union, which was more a population-size and cultural problem than any real intent to be dominant. AFAIK they are quite content to be friendly sister nations.
Scandinavia: At some point in history you can show any of the three Scandinavian nations in political, military, and cultural dominance over the other two. Who hated it, and rebelled. But in the past century (quickly bypassing WWII) they’ve been as close as any three nations anywhere.
Benelux: The Kingdom of the Netherlands was partitioned in 1839 (de facto from 1830) into a Dutch-speaking Calvinist north and a Flemish- and Walloon-French-speaking Catholic south. The Grand Duchy of Luxembourg was split between the two, with the western half becoming a Belgian province and the eastern half remaining in personal union with the Kingdom of the Netherlands under the House of Orange, until Salic Law split the two in 1890. But apparently from the day they split they seem to have worked together to avoid dominance by the two larger neighboring nations, and to expand their own economies.
Czechoslovakia itself was carved out of Austria-Hungary after WWII. It was generally successful; the Czechs and Slovaks worked together for a long time, and there was no bad blood between it and the other Austro-Hungarian countries.
Austria-Hungary, though that was at least partially determined by the people involved. Still, it was the Allied victors in WWI that formalized it.
East and West Germany never fought each other, although its fair to say that there was no love lost between the two governments.
I think its important to note, though, that the vast majority of political partitions of the last century have been due to the implosion of overextended, polyglot empires (Ottoman, Austria-Hungary, USSR, European colonial empires). While outside powers often played a strong hand in shaping the contours of the post-imperial landscape, a bundle of newly independent nations was going to emerge from the wreckage no matter what.
Belgium-Netherlands is a bad example, as it was already divided by 1578 de facto, through external force. The 19th-c “union” was temporary and forcible.
Yugoslavia is a counter example in which outside powers created a unified political entity that previously did not exist, that later fell apart due to internal tensions.
If Iraq were to undergo partition it would be as somewhat similar case. It is an artificial conglomeration created by outside powers from three disparate regions of the Ottoman Empire.
One might argue that in these cases partition would have been better from the outset. An artificial union imposed from outside may be worse than a partition. Many cases of conflict in Africa have similar roots in unions artificially imposed by colonial powers.
The Soviet Union separated into 15 separate republics, and while many of them have had internal conflicts I don’t think any of them have had major beefs with each other.
Granted, this was not an example of being separated by an outside power…
Not to suggest that we should go around chopping up people’s countries, but I think it’s worth noting that in many of the cases where dividing a nation didn’t work, there’s no particular reason to think things would have worked out any better if they’d been left intact. Sometimes it may just be a choice between civil war and the other kind.
However, the totality of British colonies in North America was never a nation or a state in any real sense. What is now Canada was already quite distinct from the 13 Colonies - which is why they didn’t join in the Revolution - and in any event, even the Colonies did not have a strongly unified national identity, as evidenced by later events. You can’t really say that the events of 1773-1783 “divided” a North American nation. There was no nation to divide.
French Indochina was partioned largely on ethnic lines upon independence. While there certainly was plenty of conflict, by and large it was not based on ethnic differences but on political ones. The worst conflict arose because of the political partition of a single ethnic group, the Vietnamese, rather than partitions between ethnic groups.
Interesting cases. What of cases where a nation was created by outside powers and then later voluntarily partitioned. Like post colonial India before splitting? In some ways the split was not forced, but perhaps the “joining” was forced and therefore the split was heavily influenced by outside powers, if not required by them. Hope that makes sense…
India itself is a good case in which ethnically diverse areas were artificially combined into one political unit by the colonial power, Britain. While partition between India and Pakistan was bloody, it was at the behest of the Muslim minority, rather than something “imposed” by the British. Even so, Pakistan itself split violently into the present Pakistan and Bangladesh, which had little in common besides religion.
Actually, perhaps the best example of two nations living fairly comfortably in close proximity after partitioning was imposed by an outside party is right where Colibri is. Following the end of Gran Colombia in (IIRC) the 1830s, Ecuador and Venezuela split off from New Granada, which retained the name Colombia. But it was larger than the present nation of that name, extending into Central America to the border of Costa Rica (itself recently independent from the Central American Federation). In 1903, the inhabitants of that northern strip rebelled and declared independence. But the background story is interesting. Colombia, you see, was not particularly interested in seeing a U.S.-owned canal across its northern extremity. The rebels were glad to have the support of the U.S. Navy and Marines, who didn’t intervene but lurked menacingly. Successful in their revolt, they declared the Republic of Panama and signed a treaty with Teddy Roosevelt giving the U.S. a long term lease on the Canal Zone. And in general, Panama and Colombia have gotten along since.
