States’ creations are geopolitical acts, so the “right to decide” of a territory does not exist abstractly. It is a political act and as it can sometimes serve to promote the freedom of peoples, it can sometimes be to divide, neutralize or conquer peoples for the benefit of international powers.
Among the news this summer, we have had three examples of interested use of the right to decide. In August, the Republic of South Ossetia, a secessioned territory of Georgia with de facto Russian military support, has shifted its borders to the south a little and has closed several kilometres. The Ossetians (nomad of Iranian origin) arrived in the Middle Ages to the North Caucasus. Some conquests had allowed him to buy and populate from time to time some small land in the South Caucasus. However, in some villages there was no majority until the seventeenth century. Then the king of Georgia invited them to live in those Georgian lands in exchange for defending their borders and developing their agriculture. The South Ossetia region was institutionalized by the Soviet Union with about 100,000 inhabitants (70 per cent scarce). Today, it is independent in creating a major geostrategic problem for Georgia: on the one hand, it breaks the natural border of the Caucasus mountains by moving from north to south the Russian army; and on the other, it separates the west and east of the country, making mobility difficult. The conclusion is that Georgia ' s normalization and sovereign development are hampered.
If we were to accept that only the people
of Hong Kong can decide their political future, colonialism, its consequences and its use we would justify. If we normalized that imperialism can buy cities with money, subaltern countries would still divide more.
The United States and France are making a similar move with the Kurdish nationalists in Syria. The Kurds (Iranian nomad) appeared in Syria around the 10th century as an ethnic minority. Things changed in the Ottoman territories following the Armenian and Assyrian genocide, the Kurds carried out the massacre at the hands of the Turks and many of the lands we know today as Kurdistan have been acquired thanks to what is known as the first genocide of the twentieth century. But, after the fragmentation of Syria between the United Kingdom and France, the majority villages of the Kurds who were subjected to the new borders of that country were only a few. However, several floods of refugee Kurds who fled Turkey arrived in Syria in the 20th century, which altered the demography of northern Syria, creating new majorities of Kurds in some villages. On this basis, the West has promoted the Democratic Federation of North Syria in the territories of Kurdish majority and in the territories of Arab majority conquered. Thanks to this strategy, the West has divided Syria and questioned its viability, hijacking essential resources for the country, such as water or oil. The United States and France have established their military bases and, following the USA-Turkey summer agreement, the Turks will also patrol in a restricted area of Northern Syria.
Finally, we have Hong Kong. Violent mobilizations have made independent demands to serve the geopolitical interests of the Anglo-Saxon countries, that is, to disturb China. The protesters have protested with flags of the time of the colony in the United Kingdom and the United States. If we admit without further delay that only the citizens of Hong Kong can decide their political future, colonialism, its consequences and its use we would justify. If we normalized that imperialism can buy cities with money, the subordinate countries would still divide more.