All separatists, by instinct, follow the same strategy.
Whether a separatist is working at the family-level or at the national level, he or she employs a historically known, but still effective, tactic: accusing others as oppressors.
Their standard strategy has three ingredients:
- That injustice is being done to them.
- They are being sidelined.
- Other interest-groups are getting favourable treatment
Separatists always want to shift the blame on others. They always search outside to seek suitable justification for their separatism. If they fail to find any, they create something out of their own imagination and attribute that to larger society.
Those who do not want to live with you, but still cannot move outside without putting the blame on you, always use this tactic. They make your life hell. They start bullying tactics. They become super-aggressive. They accuse you of being insensitive. They accuse you of being partial. They shout you are conspiring to throw them out.
What do they achieve by all this?
Autonomy!
Yes. They declare non-cooperation movement. “Since you are not treating me well, I will not co-operate with you” is their standard argument.
In order to avoid heap of abuses, accusations and allegations, slowly you will move into a shell. You will confine yourself to a corner. You will become an introvert. As psychologically unprepared, you will be apprehensive about the outcome. You concede defeat in the psywar.
Psywar is the first step before the real war. It weakens you well before the start of the real war.
You let them dictate their own terms for them. You will also start appeasing them. Sometimes you hate them, but most of the time you fear them. You even let them set the rules of the game in which you are a reluctant participant. You don’t even know the game you are forced to play with them.
After your concession, you give them complete autonomy, hoping that would bring some peace. Actually, in the correct perspective, it was they who got autonomy after defeating you!
As always, autonomy is the first step in the way of total secession.
At this stage you will become completely helpless. You will try to save your territory. You will try to save your family. You will try to save your time-honoured, altruistic values. You will try to restore peace.
Although you are fed up, you are afraid of getting undue blame by the world.
Here, “you” means a helpless liberal democratic state, or even a family elder.
Liberal democracies, or noble elders of the family, always encounter these questions: How to stop secession? How to put an end to the sorrow of the society? How to avoid violence? How not to be bullied? How to win?
Even if these victims are ready to let the secessionists go, their major problem is:
How to avoid the blame?
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