Talk:Declaration of independence

Montenegro

Montenegro's had two declarations of independence: the republic's from rump Yugoslavia and the principality's from the Ottoman Empire. Does anyone have an exact date on the first (full and successful) assertion of the second? -LlywelynII (talk) 08:16, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

Old Taiwan discussion

This is a #1 refference!

That statement implies that Taiwan is an independent and sovereign state and is therefore not NPOV. They only say what they do because they equate the ROC with "Taiwan" and the ROC is an independent and sovereign state. As it is worded now, it is too misleading. --Jiang 03:43, 30 Jul 2003 (UTC)

My statement is that supporters of Taiwan independence believe X. X is POV. Saying Y believes X is not POV. My problem with what you said was that it isn't want supporters of Taiwan independence believe. I happen to think that most supporters of TI accept the idea of the Republic of China only out of political convenience, and that Chen Shui-Bian would junk the ROC in a second if he could get away with it.

I added the position of supporters of Chinese unification to add balance.

--Roadrunner

I read an interview on cnn.com a couple years ago in which Chen Shui-bian said something in the lines of "Taiwan is an independent and sovereign country whose official name is the Republic of China, which has been in continued existence since 1912." Indeed, if you go on gov't websites, you'll see comparison charts in which official name of China=PRC and official name of Taiwan=ROC. If they can use that term, why can't we? (Even if it is for "political conveinience".)

Keep in mind that I'm extremely anti-Taiwan independence, and in explain what supporters of TI believe, I don't necessarily believe it myself (and I don't). My purpose is to explain why supporters of Taiwan independence on Taiwan no longer think that a declaration of independence is necessary. Most of them, including Chen, don't care about ROC, and ROC Independence is only means by which they can achieve Taiwan independence.

The notion that ROC is the official name of Taiwan is very new (i.e. you won't see it pre-Lee Tenghui), and moves the situation very much toward Taiwan independence.

This statement is a little murky: "Supporters of Chinese reunification on Taiwan also see no point in a declaration of independence in that they argue that the People's Republic of China has never administered Taiwan and that Taiwan is and should be part of a greater entity of China."

Again, this statement implies that Taiwan is a sovereign and independent state, which reunifications dont believe in.

You can reword that a bit. Keep mind though the reunificationists on Taiwan have the play the same sort of games that TI supporters have to play. I've heard speeches by Soong Chuyu that sound very much like what Chen says. Chen has to talk about ROC. Soong has to talk about Taiwan sovereignty and ROC independence.

Don't they argue that Taiwan independence would be a needless name change, and would do nothing to improve the status quo?

The argument would be that a declaration of independence is not possible right now and would lead to an invasion which no one in Taiwan wants. But the overall strategy is to make ROC=Taiwan, and then gradually get rid of ROC.

One thing that you have been keep in mind in politics is who your adversaries are and what they want. Ultimately, most TI supporters want peace and we all share a single small planet, and so all of us have to compromise and be sort of nice and civil to each other. At the same time, one has to be clear that what I want is very different from what TI supporters want, and while everyone is subscribed to a compromise and truce that defers a lot of the controversial topics, we don't see the world the same way, and we don't want the same things.

--Jiang 03:56, 30 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Is there a general consensus that the new state would be titled Republic of Taiwan? --Jiang

Yes, but I changed the statement from ROT to Taiwan, because it's pretty clear that a formal declaration of ROC independence would also likely trigger some pretty strong action from the PRC. -- Roadrunner

IMO, it is somewhat wrong. since there are 3 sides with 3 POV but only 2 contesting in the article:

- PRC view that taiwan as PART OF CHINA, declaring independence will be view as a challenge to china; aka separatism. NO DECLARATION

- ROC view that since status quo is best, since they are basically already self-ruling anyway. NO DECLARATION/JUST SELF RULE

- 'ROT' view (pro-independence), believing Taiwan should be responsible to only itself, and abandon it's china claims. DECLARATION/NAME CHANGE

it should be noted that ROC and PRC are still in a state of civil wars, and ROC technically still have claims over china. since the pro-independence took power, it has been working to distance ROC from claims on china; the only thing it could change since name change is deadly. imo self rule doesn't necessarily grant ROC access the international organization and is treated 2nd class by all the major countries. only small states are willing to deal with taiwan as an equal. without the declaration of independence, no one can interact with ROC other than as a faction of a civil war/since itself isn't willing to officially consider itself as a separate state. Akinkhoo 16:50, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

---

Lists

Is there a possibility of having a separate article like, Lists of Declarations of Independence? What qualifies DoIs to be included in the list of example DoIs? Probably half the nations on Earth have DoIs, almost all of which are interesting to read. --seav 11:54, 1 Sep 2003 (UTC)

MIxed up article

Who mixed up two different legal concepts??? A Unilateral Declaration of Independence (always capitalised) and often written as UDI, is an extra-legal declaration of independence that never becomes a reality because it is not accepted by the international community.

Examples:

• Rhodesia in the mid 1960s
• the Irish Republic in 1919

A Declaration of Independence is a legal declaration that may be extra-legal and accepted subsequently or which may be declared in full conformity with international law and accepted immediately (which is why it is different and so belongs on a different page!).

They are two different things with different legal meanings, different procedural modalities and different legal outcomes. What the heck are the two doing merged in this page? (And what the heck is independence doing lowercased? A Declaration of Independence is capitalised because it refers to a formal document whereas when written as an independence declaration it is lowercased, because one refers to a specific legal document by name, one refers generically to the process. More of this nutty lowercasing of things that are formally uppercased, like a when someone tried to lowercase Letter of Credence even though it is uppercased when referring to the formal name of a legal document, lowercased when written generically of as credentials. Yet more nutty semi-literary on wikipedia. When people edit pages about legal and constitutional topics it would help if they actually knew what they are doing!!!

So now all the UDI pages on wikipedia point to the wrong page, not to mention the wrong facts, and a definition that is wrong for a UDI and a DI!!! FearÉIREANN 01:43, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I do not think that the Declaration of Arbroath can be called a UDI or indeed a Declaration of Independence. Scotland had regained its independence by 1314, with the decisive victory at Bannockburn in that year. The Declaration of Arbroath, which was written some six years later, simply sought papal recognition of that independence - it did not "declare" it in the usual sense of a declaration of independence, of announcing a severance: it neither recognised that Scotland had ever de jure been anything other than independent of England, nor proclaimed a severance from England (which a UDI would have involved). That is not at all to doubt its significance as a document, particularly as an exceptionally early assertion of a legal right to depose a King (the Scottish, not the English, monarch). It could be described as "akin" or "similar" to a declaration of independence, not least as it affirms that independence and also sets out many of the claims and grievances of the nation; but it is not the same thing.139.149.1.203 11:24, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

71.200.2.198 (talk) 22:30, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

South Africa

South Africa free from the Westminister in 1996? South Africa gained full independence as a republic in 1961 and left the commonwealth, but was that independence and constitution never recognized by the UK? —This unsigned comment was added by 81.233.220.208 (talk • contribs) 12:36, August 17, 2005.

What about the CSA

Wasn't the the CSA's declaration of independence unilateral as well? Cameron Nedland —This unsigned comment was added by 66.205.108.8 (talk • contribs) 20:33, September 17, 2005.

United States Declaration of Independence

Where is it?!? It's not even linked on this page. I would assume that a large amount of English-speaking users are looking for the U.S. Declaration. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 198.30.57.38 (talk) 01:20, 30 March 2007 (UTC).

By "it's not even linked on this page", you probably mean "not linked conveniently at the top". And that would reeeeeaaallly be stretching the worldwide view thing, sorry. Additionally, the articles Revolutionary war and Civil war, you should find, do not have such links at the top either, because again, that would be U.S.-specific usage. 66.195.211.27 00:07, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

I feel this page, along with others, should be neutral, therefore, US gets its own U section. :p
Blindman shady 04:09, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

When 300 million people use a term to refer exclusively to one concept, that constitutes notability suffient to warrant special notation. When Americans speak of "The Declaration of Indepedence", they mean their own, not any declaration. Using a non-American meaning of the term, with no mention of the US one, is blatant nonneutralitry. With the exception of the Scottish one, all the declarations follow the US one chronologically, and most follow, to some extent or another, the US one ideologically. Looking at other articles, "Fourth of July" not only mentions the US use, but is redirected to that use. And the "Independence Day" article mentions that it is also the name of a film. Tell me, in what world is the fact that there is a film named "Independence Day" of notability sufficient to be mentioned on the top of the page, but the fact the Americans use the term "The Declaration of Independence" exclusively to their own is not? Furthermore, even when the term is preceded by the word "the", it is redirected to this page. I'm going to add a mention of the US usage. If anyone reverts this edit without changing the "The Declaration of Independence" redirect, they will be instigating an edit war. "The Declaration of Independence" should not redirect to a page that make no mention of the US usage, and I'm not willing to compromise on that.Heqwm (talk) 04:18, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

I would have to agree. Maybe 95 percent of the time in English "Declaration of Independence" denotes the American one. It logically follows that 95 percent of the people who type in "Declaration of Independence" on the English-language wikipedia are looking for the American one. The disambiguation note was accidentally removed by a well-meaning editor trying to revert vandalism, but it needs to be restored. --SchutteGod (talk) 16:38, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

Why is there any disagreement about this? As it has been stated above, Americans and many others mean only one thing when they say "The Declaration of Independence." Pragmatically speaking, this ought to be enough reason for the link to exist. In addition, the fact that nearly all declarations of independence derive their descriptions as such (not to mention their ideologies) from an original phrase in "The Declaration of Indpendence" illustrates the correct relationship between the two concepts. I suggest that somehow "The" be worked into it, as a disambiguation, because it is a definite article--which is to say that it refers to one thing, rather than a host of things, which "Declaration of independence" appears to refer to, with its list-like format. Consensus is supposed to be reached before changing something within the article, but no one is disagreeing with the last three comments now, over the course of over two years now. So even though someone got rid of the disambiguation again, I'm going to assume that there is in fact consensus, and change it back--that is unless that person, or another, would to like to voice their opinion. Brianpetersn (talk) 00:24, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Arbitrary break in discussion

I've just reinstated the hatnote again. Per WP:TITLE, "declaration of independence" is recognizable, natural, concise, and a common name for the United States document across the English-speaking world. As other have noted, the United States document served as a model for many following similar documents, making it a prototype and giving it a special status in the language. With few exceptions, the unqualified phrase "declaration of independence" refers to the United States document. The fact that it lacks specificity means that it is warranted to have Declaration of independence serve as a glorified disambiguation page, but the United States document requires more prominent placement within that page than do the other documents. —Bill Price (nyb) 02:42, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Hatnote was removed here and I am reinstating it following prior talk page consensus. —Bill Price (nyb) 05:47, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

MIxed up article

Why is the Declaration of Independence of Paraguay stated in Wikipedia as 1811 but then it is not in this list? 88.101.188.33 (talk) 17:21, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

hi —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.200.18.34 (talk) 02:03, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

years missing

Somebody should add the years that states declared UDI. Kransky (talk) 10:16, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

First use of the phrase?

Though the "Oath of Abjuration" was clearly A declaration of independence, I notice that it does not use the phrase "declaration of independence". Is the United States version the first that actually called itself a "declaration of independence", or whatever the equivalent translation would be? -BaronGrackle (talk) 04:32, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

First State recognising Indonesia's Independence

where is the source of the first state recognising Indonesian independence? it was not australia, but mesir (egypt)
source in Indonesian: http://forum.tarbiyahdaily.com/viewtopic.php?f=53&t=150
When I went to school in Indonesia, we're always taught that "Mesir"/Egypt was the first state to recognise Indonesia's Independence w_tanoto (talk) 13:25, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Sources that I have that suggest Australia was the first state to recognise Indonesia include a statement by the former Foreign Minister Kransky (talk) 13:57, 3 June 2008 (UTC).

I see. thanks for the link. but Australia was not the first state to recognise Indonesia. I have changed it to Egypt based on several links over the internet (mostly in Indonesian), and Indonesian history school textbooks. w_tanoto (talk) 15:34, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Taiwan

This is not a page about Taiwan; it's a page about declarations of independence. I cut short the discussion of Taiwan a lot, and just linked to the Taiwan article which either does or should mention these issues in detail. I added Iraqi Kurdistan as another example of a region that is de facto independent but does not declare itself as such. I linked to autonomous regions since that's often what these places call themselves. Bhudson (talk) 18:08, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Georgia (U.S. state)

Should we have entries for countries that aren't independent anymore? Admiral Norton ^(talk) 11:04, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

New Zealand

NZ's parent is described as "United Kingdom" - this isn't correct; New Zealand came into existence in 1835 with the assistance of a British Resident but the idea was to proclaim NZ's sovereignty, rather than its independence - it wasn't a dominion or realm of the United Kingdom or any other nation at that point, but there were concerns that France would claim it. (Interestingly, 5 years later the newly independent NZ would become part of the British Empire with the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi).

Could I suggest that "United Kingdom" is replaced by "formation" or "union", with whatever word is chosen linking to the main article?

Cheers, This flag once was red^propaganda_deeds 15:50, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

I've removed the implication that independence was from the United Kingdom, leaving an "—". I've also noted that the UK was the first state to recognise NZ's sovereignty and independence. This is an unusual case - a declaration of independence which didn't result in independence from another state: perhaps it's worth a note or comment? (Or would the existing link to Declaration of the Independence of New Zealand suffice?) TFOWR^propaganda 14:16, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

Further support for keeping the USA-related hatnote

I was interesting in trying to quantify how many mentions of "Declaration of Independence" in Google results pertain to the American document and how many pertain to other documents of the same name. I failed, however, because the American document is absolutely and utterly pervasive. I tried the following query:

"declaration of independence" -jefferson -"united states" -america -"july 4th" -"4th of july" -usa -1776 -congress -philadelphia -hancock -"revolutionary war" -"american revolution"

Still, an overwhelming number of results point to the American document. I take this as powerful evidence that the US document meets the criteria of WP:TITLE far better than does any other document, and so deleting it from the hatnote (as so many have tried to do) is misguided at best and obfuscatory at worst. The simple truth is that we aren't violating NPOV or "global viewpoint" issues if an overwhelming preponderance of English-language references to a "declaration of independence" refer to the American document by default, even stripped of context. The question of what "common usage" is is an empirical question, and I think that this Googling experiment provides sufficient evidence that the American document is the clear default "declaration of independence" in the English language. —Bill Price (nyb) 18:11, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

I've been told to bring to the talk page my edit to correct what I initially thought was a pretty straightforward case of an over-enthusiastic American editor, probably in junior high, putting a note at the top of the page to direct readers to the US declaration of independence, as if it somehow took priority over everyone else's. To my dismay I've found that this is being seriously defended. It is irrelevant that most mentions on the internet refer to the US one, or that American bloggers or whoever talking about "the declaration of independence" unqualified mean the USA's version. This is probably a reflection of many things, including the preponderance of American sources on the web (it's only to be expected that when someone from the USA talks about the declaration of independence that they mean their own country's, so this should not surprise us). Using the findings presented above to justify giving the USA's document priority on Wikipedia is an unjustified leap. It looks totally ridiculous to anyone outside the USA, and I would hope to anyone in the USA who has avoided the insularity and limited exposure to foreign perspectives on the world that is unfortunately the norm there. You probably think I'm trolling by now, but I'm really not. A link to the US document is in the table, same as every other country's. Readers who are incapable of finding "United States" in an alphabetical list are probably not going to get very much out of reading the article that link would lead them to. Extending American exceptionalism to this page by putting a special link at the top for any Americans who are terrified by the possiblity that their country is not the center of the universe is pointless, patronizing, amateurish and childishly nationalistic. I've reverted it again. Please don't put it back. Terminal emulator (talk) 20:55, 23 April 2011 (UTC)