It is interesting to note that back in the middle 1990’s, Mr Tatchell went through a phase of being reviled by the gay press whilst being championed by various leftist papers. Today, the gay community, regardless of politics, has come to universally respect the work that Tatchell has done in the public sphere as well as the support and campaigning he has conducted on behalf of many LGBT people harassed by heterosexual institutions.

In recent years, thanks to Tatchell’s work and presence, we have seen parts of the left reveal themselves as women and homo-haters, other parts as Jew-haters and yet others as genuinely concerned with universal human rights. When Tatchell wrote about the need for self-governance in Cornwall, the shrill denunciations on the Grauniad’s Comment is Free bear-pit revealed many liberals to be hysterical London-focussed Brits – but others were interested enough to think about things from a new angle.

But it is mostly for his compassion and humility that Tatchell has won this award. It is well-deserved and long overdue.

“27 years since he first came to prominence at the Bermondsey by-election ”

He first came to prominance at the World Youth Festival in East Berlin, some years earlier.

Oh, and he wasn’t a trotskyist.

I respect his persistence, but I still think he’s a damn fool.

Its more the law of good intentions and unintended consequences.

it is not so much that I have a problem with the principled principle of self determination as much as its implementation is simply impossible.

The number of ethnicities that want sovereign states (the usual outcome of a desire for self determination) cannot have them, even if there were enough territories to go around, for these reasons;

Historical,

every movement for national liberation that I have studied ( and i would suggest it is a universal though I am open to being proven wrong)has through the political and social necessity of gaining power for secession and new national institution building, must engage with a coalition of nationalist forces against the status quo.

The resultant new nationalism then, is no longer a left or secular form, but always a frail hybrid of;

Political nationalism including secular and democratic forms, but also monarchies or traditional clan based sovereignty (demos),

ethno-cultural nationalism, that is exclusionary by its nature of other ethnicities (ethos) which it increasingly harshly defines itself against.

religious nationalism overlapping with but also undermining secular nationalism and increasing pressure against religious minorities.

The Baluch people are one of those ethnicities that has a degree of contiguity (like the Kurds) across nation state borders, however there are also discontiguous pockets of Baluch people found in the region betwixt and between other ethnic groups.

My general rule is not to support the creation of any new nations in the world they have caused enough trouble.

But there ia a particular problem with Nations in the tribal areas of Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran (and far more widely in Muslim dominant regions) that applies to the Baluch as much as to the Pashtun or Tajik;

That of the organising principle of political power, of sovereingty itself, along clan lines.

A nation almost entirely consisting of tribes and clans within tribes as Afghanistan has always been is inherently unstable.

All institutions of the state will be subsumed whithin and divided between tribe and clan. if any kind of electoral system persists it will be tribally and clan block vote delivery by clan leaders trading political favours in exchange for reward.

Without a strong central state the secular will be dissolved and women will become again exchange items in clan politics.

So paradoxicaly the best hope for the secular progressive left is not sovereign self determination but a strong central state that grants a high degree of autonomy to its tribes but not so much they threaten the state itself.

This is the reason why some people are perplexed by the iranian left that they accuse of persian chauvinism, that while they are bitterly opposed to the islamist state they are also opposed to seperatist tendeancies.

They are often called reactionary chauvinists.

I don’t doubt there is some chauvinism, but there is also a realization of the necessity of a central state where sovereignty lies and equal citizenship can be mandatory, compared to a clan based political system where the subordination of women (and individual rights) is always mandatory.

If we always support all demands for self determination (rather than he civicand political rights that progressives see as coming from that but are not necessarily) we will end up with a lot of at the best, ruritanias, like Montenegro, and at the worst the Taliban.

After all the Taliban are a modernist movement with a territorially ambitious nationalism, the product of being spun with Islamist nationalism , and ancient tribal, clan based political sovereignty.

The position of women and minorities under the Taliban is worse than either under the customry law of the traditional clans, or a neo-traditionalist state like Saudi Arabia, or the Islamist republic of Iran.

It is hard to imagine that you could produce a society that was worse for women than those three, but spinning contemporary islamic political sovereignty ideas with nationalist ones over a tribal base with lots of guns in a conflict fueled region (where continuous conflict , or feud is an authentic expression of traditional clan and tribal political culture) will produce such things.

The alternative to existance whithin a pakistani state appears to be Talibanisation, not a pretty outcome.

I very much want to add my agreement.

Exactly.

“Peter’s flaw is to reflexively see all Baluchi’s (or Muslims or Tibetans or whatever) as the good guys as the poor victims, whereas there are some very nasty Baluchi sunni headbangers who are more talibanesque than anything else.”

Sorry, not true. I have supported the secular, left Baluch and their just struggle for self-determination.

You are however right: there are reactionary, feudal elements in Baluch society too, and the Taliban has gained a foothold in some parts of Baluchistan.

But none of this invalidates or refutes the fundamental injustice that the Baluch people were forcibly incorporated into Pakistan without their consent.

Their right to self-determination is fundamental – but not fundamentalist.

I see myself (metaphorically) as one of many small streams of consciousness and activism. Together, with millions of other small streams we make a mighty river (people power) that can transform the political landscape – hopefully for the better.

I would imagine he’d like people to vote Green in the general election as well, what with him being a candidate and all…