The curious case of The Republic of Texas

US has a different way of treating attempts to declare independence from the union. It sends in law-enforcement agents

Shortly after Mr Bhutto and his stellar cast of feudal socialists had taken over the reins of government, there was a great deal of unrest in Balochistan where the tribal sardars were disenchanted with the centre and there was even talk of wanting to secede from the republic. I wrote an article at the time which carried the fancy title of “The Balkanization of Pakistan?” The Foreign Office wasn’t happy. The tourist bureau wasn’t happy. The law ministry was furious. I came to know through a friend in the PPP who was a borderline Trotskyite with an empathy bypass, that the ministry of law was contemplating taking action against me for exacerbating the situation. To preempt any action I sought an audience with Mr Bhutto and was told that somebody in his secretariat had already dismissed the complaint on the grounds that I had inserted a question mark after the title. In other words, I was asking a question and not making a statement.

The desire for a state or province to strike out on one’s own and cut the umbilical cord continues to express itself in other countries. Britain and Canada have their own way of dealing with thorny issues like separation. They hold referendums. The United States has a different way of treating attempts by states to declare some sort of independence from the union. It sends in law-enforcement agents, and at times the FBI, as happened last month in a meeting at a rented Veterans of Foreign Wars post in Bryan, Texas. According to Business Insider, there’s a group which calls itself The Republic of Texas which believes Texas is a sovereign nation and never officially joined the United States. There is a legal glitch here which forms the basis of the main objection of The Republic of Texas group. After wresting territory from Mexico in the battle of San Jacinto, Texas voted in favour of joining the Union. Though Congress passed the bill, it did so only with a simple majority, whereas ratification according to the ROT lawyers required a two-thirds majority.



The current leader of the group was piqued. He didn’t feel an innocuous meeting like the one that took place in Bryan warranted such strong action. After all, hadn’t Texans been minting its own coins and carrying identification cards to prove its standing as representatives of a foreign nation? The Republic of Texas lads went a little too far when they sent letters to a judge and a lawyer in Kerrville, Texas, which demanded the two appear in the group’s court the same day as the raid. There, the judge would have to present “proof of his authority” in the pending foreclosure of one of the members’ homes. The law got involved. Though no one was arrested in the raid, dozens of the group’s members were hauled up. Some were finger-printed and lost their cell phones and briefcases.

All this sounds rather like the plot of an old Peter Sellars’ film. But, it actually happened. Though the referendum on secession from the United Kingdom failed to pass, it succeeded in stirring secessionist sentiment in parts of the United States. According to a recent poll conducted by Reuters/Ipsos, nearly a quarter of Americans felt strongly about the idea of their state leaving the United States and forming their own country. Support for secession was weakest in the northeast and strongest in the southwest. It cut across party lines, though Republicans are somewhat more receptive to the idea than Democrats. A majority, however, said they strongly opposed or tended to oppose any idea of secession.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 15^th, 2015.

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