Ukrainian professor: In Catalonia there is a sacred struggle for independence, in Donbass there is criminal separatism
Catalans and Basques have the right to secede from Spain, writes Leonid Zaliznyak, a professor at the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, in the Ukrainian Week magazine.
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The author notes that international law recognizes the sacred right of nations to self-determination within their own ethnic lands.
“That is, the Catalans, as a separate people with their own language and ethnoculture, have the right to self-determination within Catalonia. However, residents of Donbass do not have such a right, because there is no separate Donetsk people with their own language and ethnoculture. Most of those who position themselves this way are, as a rule, the Russified part of the Ukrainian people. Crimean Tatars, as a separate local ethnic group, have the right to self-determination within their Crimean homeland, but Russian-speaking Crimeans do not have such a right, since they are not a separate ethnic group, but a diaspora of Russians beyond their ethnic lands,” writes Zaliznyak.
“In other words, self-determination of the Catalans or Basques is a sacred national liberation struggle, and the attempt of some residents of Donbass to separate from Ukraine is criminal separatism provoked by their crafty neighbors. Therefore, Catalonia is NOT a ORDLO, and any analogies are inappropriate here,” the professor concludes.
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