MILITANT SEPARATISM IN WESTERN EUROPE AND NORTH AMERICA, 1965—1975
From 1965 to 1975 members of ethnic minorities scattered across Spain, France, the United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland, and Canada engaged in violent separatist campaigns. This thesis identifies these separatist groups and their leading thinkers, demonstrates the existence of a transnational separatist cohort, and defines the substance and rationale of their shared ideology, which it terms ‘militant separatism.’ Militant separatism coalesced at a time when these states were experiencing economic growth, quality of living was generally on the rise, and supranational institutions codified more rights than ever before. Such conditions induced, rather than reduced, tensions in the regions where militant separatism arose. Contrary to existing theories hypothesising violent radicalism as the politics of poverty and instability, this thesis evidences how militant-separatists attempted to exploit discordances between the promises and aspirations of the state and the experiences of everyday life for citizens in their ethnic communities, manipulating pre-existing social tensions for separatist ends. The leaders of these groups crafted a multi-issue policy platform, which included championing linguistic preservation and socialism, pursuing violence allegedly in the context of a ‘just war,’ and self- identifying as colonial subjects and freedom fighters. In fact, in this context, the much- debated theory of the ‘domino effect’ of overseas revolutions is found to be accurate, as militant-separatists attempted to ideologically emulate Global South revolutionaries, as well as adopt their guerrilla methods. The findings of this thesis also testify to the powerful radicalising potential behind emotive political rhetoric. Incorporating the anti-establishment argumentation of nineteenth and early-twentieth century anarchists, militant-separatists focused on engaging audiences’ feelings through appeals to emotion, rather than using facts and figures to evidence state abuses. Acknowledging and encouraging anger over perceived personal and social injustices, nostalgia, nativism, and populism, militant-separatists hoped to appeal to people disaffected with the massive socio-political and economic changes of the period. Unsuccessful though it was, militant separatism galvanised thousands around the world. Its origins, praxis, and failure serve to inform understandings of nationalism, political thought, and radicalisation.
nationalism, terrorism, Cold War, ethno-nationalism, violence, post-war
Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations