AS the fighting in Kosovo and East Timor has died down, Chechnya is again in flames. All three territories have one thing in common: they are in varying stages of a struggle to gain independence.

Speaking in Canada recently, President Clinton advised the French-speaking Quebecois not to vote for independence from Canada, fearing that if every ethnic or linguistic group opted for its own country, we might end up with 800 countries. This fragmentation would, according to the US president, make international trade difficult. Big deal. We have already witnessed a huge proliferation in the membership of the United Nations over the last fifty years; simultaneously, world trade has grown at a phenomenal rate.

Since the birth of modern nationalism at the French Revolution, the notion of any part of the nation-state breaking away has become anathema to the country in question as well as the world community. The word "secession" is in bad odour in international forums, just as secessionists have been placed at par with terrorists. But as nations were carved out of empires, or formed as a result of smaller nation-states merging because of a common culture and faith (Germany and Italy, for example), they included smaller ethnic or religious communities. Many of them now want to opt out of the union forced on them in the past.

So what is so sacrosanct about national frontiers that they can't be revised once they have been established? If you look at the map of Africa, you will notice that many boundaries are straight lines that certainly do not represent natural features like mountains or rivers, or the limits of tribal control. In actual fact, they were drawn in Europe in the last century when colonial powers carved up the continent between themselves. In this bizarre cartographic exercise, tribes were divided arbitrarily, and no attention was paid to tribal animosities as some groups were lumped together. This is one of the principal causes of the bloody conflicts that wrack black Africa today. And yet the Organization of African Unity insists that these colonial boundaries be respected.

The danger the world community foresees in condoning secession is that one such act would set a precedent for others to follow. Again, big deal. If the endless bloodshed and violence being caused by ill-conceived national frontiers can be halted by the emergence of new nation-states, expanding the UN to accommodate them would be a small price to pay.

One psychological problem that is blocking a more pragmatic approach to ethnic aspirations relates to national pride: a state and its people see their strength in terms of geographical landmass and population. Any diminution in either is perceived as a weakening of the country in question, never mind that it may be spending enormous amounts of lives and resources in an effort to keep the would-be secessionists in line. The mantra of territorial integrity has caused more bloodshed than any single cause apart from religion.

Ethnic groups who see themselves as getting a raw deal from the majority often want to leave the union, and invariably, this triggers a conflict of varying degrees of ferocity. The creation of Bangladesh was the result of one such civil war. But by and large, the world is unsympathetic to freedom struggles. The East Timorese struggled for a quarter century against Indonesian occupation before they won support and recognition. The Eritreans fought even longer to throw out the occupying Ethiopians, and they too did so virtually unaided. The Kurds fight on for their own homeland.

Another problem related to Kashmir is the fact that it contains significant numbers of non-Muslims, and given our poor treatment of our own minorities, it is unlikely that they would welcome absorption in Pakistan. It would therefore make eminent sense for them to have a state of their own, or to join India. Giving Kashmiris a free and unfettered choice to decide their own future surely makes better sense than the endless conflict between India and Pakistan which is ultimately to do with how much land each controls. Neither is interested in the welfare of the Kashmiri people.

The cliched Indian argument against giving Kashmiris the right to choose is that this would set a bad example to other states in the Indian Union, and they might start demanding a similar right to secede. So? Must Kashmir supply the glue to hold the Indian Union together? (We should remember that traditionally, glue was made by boiling the bones of horses). Another thing to remember is that in terms of history, a united India is a relatively recent phenomenon. If the Soviet Union can break up, why can't more states emerge out of New Delhi's control?

Similarly, if Chechnya or Dagestan want to opt out of Russia, Russian troops cannot forever stifle these aspirations. After all, these territories were conquered by the Russians two centuries ago, and their people have never accepted Moscow's rule, rising against their Slavic overlords time and again. Apply any yardstick of modern statehood, and you have a strong case for their independence from Russia.Basically, we are talking about a post-nationalist world here, a world in which good governance and economic prosperity are the binding force that guarantee cohesion, and not grandiose notions of territorial integrity. In this world, the use of armed force to keep a group within the national fold would be an admission of failure, and would invite international censure and in extreme cases, sanctions.

I strongly suspect that the next century will witness the emergence of many new states, and size will no longer count for much in a world in which technology, trade and finance will become truly global. National frontiers and outmoded notions of sovereignty will count for far less as small countries form large trading blocs. This brave new world will emerge whether we like it or not, so we may as well get over our hang-ups.