by Jack D. Forbes

About the author: Jack D. Forbes is a professor of native American studies and anthropology at the University of California in Davis. Forbes is the author of Columbus and Other Cannibals.

A great many national, ethnic, and language groups do not possess their own sovereign states. Many do not even control local units of government or, if they do, these units may be devoid of genuine authority. A large number of such groups are divided by inter-state boundaries and are prevented from exercising ethnic unity.

Much of the world’s warfare and unrest arises from a failure to find means, short of war, for resolving the problems of stateless nationalities, linguistic minorities, and ethnic groups. One has only to list the locations of current or recent wars: Yugoslavia, Turkey, Iran, Iraq...