Aspirations for Self Determination Motivate Mideast and Balkan Struggles

By Nicholas Voulangas

The issue in the succession of tragedies in the Middle East is not terrorism or aggression. It is not appeasement or legitimacy. Nor is it jobs or oil. The issue is self determination. Selectively smothered in its cradle for three quarters of this century, it has never ceased its struggle to breathe the freedom promised in Versailles in 1919.

It is the same issue that convulsed Europe for a full century of conflicts, and which was recognized by Woodrow Wilson, America's president during World War I. He introduced a new concept into the lexicon of diplomacy: "Self determination is not a mere phrase," he explained. "It is an imperative principle of action, which statesmen will henceforth ignore at their peril. "

The intractable problems we face in the Near East today are not of recent origin. They are not just the lingering debris of the Cold War. Nor are they the echoes of Munich or Hitlerism. They are, instead, from the continuum of history, reaching back to the events that ignited the spirit of nationalism the French revolution and the Napoleonic Era.

Fertile Soil

The Declaration of the Rights of Man (1791), those universal ideals expressed by the French Revolution, found fertile soil in the mountains and valleys of the Balkan Peninsula. Those proud and ancient peoples Greeks, Serbians, Montenegrins, Romanians, Bulgarians, Albanians long submerged under Ottoman rule, soon awakened to their origins and rose in a long struggle for independence which took them to the eve of the first World War.

President Woodrow Wilson came to the Conference of Versailles with a clear vision for permanent peace. His 14 Points were founded on a world of cooperation through law, universaI justice and self determination for all peoples. The Treaty of Versailles incorporated these principles.

The American public, however, couldn't grasp its broader implications. The Senate rejected the treaty and the 14 points for lack of the vision the 20th century demanded. The US abdication of its role in 1919 as a new world power set the stage for subsequent failures during the 20 short years between the two world wars.

Today we are confronted with the ominous consequences of having failed to understand the history of the Near East. The central dynamism in this region is an unrelenting struggle for self-determination.

The United States has yet to recognize, however, that it can neither create nor impose security and stability in this region with a policy based solely on a balance of power. Permanent security and stability can be achieved only in a climate of general tranquility within a community of nations commonly enjoying equality, participation and justice.

The Implications of Nationalism

President Wilson understood fully the implications of requited nationalistic aspirations. Point 12 of his 14 Points spoke for all the submerged peoples of the Near East:

"The Turkish portions of the present Ottoman Empire should be assured a secure sovereignty, but the other nationalities which are now under Turkish rule should be assured an undoubted security of life and an absolutely unmolested opportunity of autonomous development. . . " (Address to Congress, Jan. 8, 1918, one year before the first session of the Versailles conference).

With the Versailles Treaty rejected by the Senate, and Wilson gone from the world scene, there was no major figure committed to the new postwar order as charted by the 14 points.

More concerned with settling the grievances of the past, the victorious imperialist powers (France, Great Britain, Italy, Japan) were free to rearrange the new balance of power for the 1920s. There appeared to be no hope that the 20th century would break with the past and attain a distinctive identity by embracing the principles of international justice, the rule of law and self-determination.

America's abdication of its unique responsibility to the new world order at that time assured the withering of those principles. The leadership vacuum created by our abstention from the League of Nations assured the return to the anarchy of the previous century.

In a speech to returning veterans in 1919, Wilson warned the nation that if the US did not accept the peace treaty, America would have to "send her boys back to fight. " In 20 short years the nation and the world came to understand the truth of that warning.

In the decades since World War II, the peoples of Africa and the Far East have largely achieved their selfdetermination. Only some peoples of the Near East have yet to realize their "unalienable rights!"

America's dominance in the region through most of the postwar period has been characterized by a consistently callous disregard for the universal rights of all of the region's people. It has openly and covertly pursued policies and plots to depose centers of authority and impose or support opposing leadership or ideology. These constantly shifting centers of power produce a chaotic momentum of their own, locking the region in a perpetual orbit of instability.

"Self determination ... is an imperative principle of action, which statesmen will henceforth ignore at their peril."

Who in the Western world today possesses the stature of Woodrow Wilson? Who speaks for the Armenians today? Who speaks for the Kurds, Lebanese, Palestinians or Cypriots now? Who quotes the eternal truths that Wilson spoke? We hear nothing but distortions of history that drive the region to the edge of the abyss. The time has come for a return to sanity. It could begin with a major diplomatic gathering on the scale of the great peace conferences in history.

The European Community must assume the leadership responsibility. It is ideally suited by history, diplomacy, geography, organization and reputation to initiate and conduct such a conference. The United Nations must be a major and equal participant under the leadership of the secretary general.

This century opened in the smoke of the struggle for selfdetermination. This century closes choking on the acrid smell of war, the ceaseless struggle for those "rights" proclaimed and promised so long ago, but still unrealized by many.

From the Balkan mountains to the fringes of the Soviet Union and to the sands of the Middle East, the indigenous peoples are linked by the same histories of oppression and aspirations. Their struggles will continue until all of their nations have achieved equality as well as security. Statesmen will ignore these realities of history at their peril.

Dr. Nicholas Voulangas is a member of the history faculty at Salem State College in Massachusetts.