When should a group of people be allowed to secede from a country?

The whole South Ossetia debacle in late August got me thinking about when it should be considered acceptable for a part of a country to secede and the rest of the world should back them up. What criteria should be applied in order to lead to other nations to step in and support the cessation. Various groups these days claim differences based on culture (Quebec) or religion (Kashmir). But is that simply enough?

Pretty much every group that wants to leave a country is because they are a minority when it comes to power and they simply don't like the way things are done. That's fine, but isn't that just tough? I mean there will always be a minority in any society along any metric you decide to measure people. And people tend to cluster around like-minded people, so finding pockets of minority groups in a country is not difficult.

But when a group of people are not only not being allowed to self-rule but are having their basic beliefs trampled upon by other people in a fundamental way, then I can understand splitting off. If you lived in a country that did not allow you to practice your religion or speak your cultural tongue at home, I could understand wanting to leave. Oppression of basic rights is wrong and shouldn't be allowed. And if letting a chunk of a country rule themselves is easier than forcing a country to behave, then so be it.

But wanting to break away just because you disagree doesn't seem to justify it. If you don't identify with the majority of the populace, then you either need to learn to deal with the fact you are not going to get your way or you might need to move to a place where your views are more appreciated.

Take Quebec. The Quebecois say they want to break away from Canada because of cultural differences. But in no way are their basic rights being trampled on that allow the Quebecois to be their own cultural group. Canada is a bilingual country to accomodate them; packaging of goods here are bilingual to make Quebec happy. No one has prevented the speaking of French. No one is forcing the Quebecois to identify with some other group in order to stay in this country.

Should Canada let them secede? I say not unless they are more trouble than they are worth. Luckily the Quebecois only try to break away politically. Other groups around the world, though, are not as civil and end up starting fights and can even being to enforce their own laws that go against the country's laws. In those cases, the instigators are breaking the law and should be punished under the nation's laws. Forcing yourselves to not be worth it through violence is not going to make anyone want to support you. But if the group is just whining, running their own false elections, etc., I say leave them alone. They are not hurting anyone so who cares. If they want to try to play a global version of House then so be it.

But you might be thinking I don't understand since I am not part of a minority in another country. Fine, then let's allow every ethnic and religious group that lives in a geographically central location to become their own country if they so desire. How many new countries would that lead to? Would entire nations cease to exist because they got so chopped up that they couldn't sustain themselves independently? Wouldn't then wars come about to take over these newly shrunk nations? It just sounds like chaos.

To sum up, if a group of people are not having their fundamental rights trampled on (and if you really want to attack me with the whole "what are fundamental rights?" question, then let's go with what the UN says) and the country the people live in will not straighten out, then let them secede. But otherwise the group should learn to live within the country they are at or consider moving to a place where there views are more agreed upon.