Need to do this in two, because the answer is too long. Please do not post in between. Thx.
Part I.
No ethnic group "deserves" anything. If an ethnic group can "deserve" a state, then you can also say an ethnic group "deserves" punishment for something.
Firstly, a national homeland does not equal a state, it can be a region with far reaching autonomy or part of a federation.
Secondly, it is a bizarre argument, one does in no way follow from the other. Saying that because an ethnic group or people has a rights it can also "deserve" something negative is incorrect. If I say the Greenlandic people deserves to have Greenland as a homeland, I have said nothing about any other collective responsibility or culpability (for what?). I have simply stated an opinion. Nations, peoples and cultures are not collectively responsible (only individuals and legal entities like companies, municipalities or states are responsible), but they still ought to have rights as they form the basis for most peoples identity (seen worldwide). The idea that you can not have rights without responsibility is moralistic mumbo-jumbo. It doesn't even make sense on the individual level, where basic human rights exists irrespective of whether are responsible for your actions and it makes even less sense when applied to cultures or ethnic groups.
If you want to make this point, you need to argue why? it is by no means self evident or logical.
Once established ethnic groups are usually quite stable over time. Again, lets use Greenlanders as an example. Prior to the mid 19th century they had no common identity, but still recognized each other as related when they met. Once the creation of a common written language developed and interaction increased they came to see each other as a people inhabiting the same island, even while their are three rather distinct Inuit languages they continue to do so. This definition might be "arbitrary" since it might as well have been three peoples, but once established it is fairly stable and durable. Either an ethnicity is ancient (like the Japanese), or has ancient ties (like the Danish) or forged from different groups and consolidated after the establishment of written languages (many sub-Saharan ethnicities). Ethnicities are not some ever floating ever changing mass. It is generally quite easy to establish what ethnicity
actual people identify with. So while this may sound like very important, it is empirically not, and it is not outsiders who divide, but the people who self identify as x or y.
(notice that I do not mean ethnicity in the superfluous "Italian-American" like definition, but entities that are central to peoples identity - deeper than national allegiance)
Firstly, keep religion out of this.
Secondly. The important thing is what people want. Saying that people have a right to something does not equal that they should necessarily use that right. If I say the Welsh have the right to form a separate nation state, that doesn't mean that they have to split from the UK, or that a minority should be allowed to do it. Only that I recognize that right, and that if at some point people of Welsh stock became a minority in Wales, I would still argue a majority of them would have the right to establish a Welsh speaking autonomous area somewhere.
Pure strawmaning. I am not arguing Australia, Brazil or Canada should be dissolved. Of course multiethnic and multicultural countries can exist and thrive. I am just arguing that people shouldn't be forced to live in them and that every ethnic group deserves somewhere were their culture and language is the dominant. The intolerance consists of the idea that multiculturalism should be universal, that we should have no choice.
Very hyperbolic. Homo sapiens is a species, not a people. A national homeland can easily be a secular liberal democracy and respect human rights - incl. minority rights (most European countries fulfill those criteria).
Why would it be a defeat for multiculturalism that it can not be global? Being
one succesful model of organizing human societies ought to be enough. Forcing everyone to live in multicultural societies makes multiculturalism unpopular. Why not give people a choice?
Says who? Why not respect the will of the people. If they occupy a territory and wants to make it a state, why shouldn't they? (provided it can be done without infringing on the rights of others, but we are talking principles here).
Wouldn't that be up to the people? You know, democracy?
Why should all countries be alike? We already have those countries you describe, why force everyone to chose that model?
This is also very easy to say, when you belong to a large and dominant culture, but in reality it means small and vulnerable people have little protection of their culture. They are forced to be minorities in countries dominated by other cultures and languages and can not do anything to protect their own culture - like insists their language should be used by everyone. In your logic if 30.000 Danes immigrated to Greenland due to some mineral boom, we should just be allowed to reverse the promotion of Greenlandic as official language, even if their entire identity is connected to preserving the language (one of the hardest to learn in the world, so no immigrants use it).
There isn't one path that a belief in the right to a homeland takes you. Nationalism can be harmful and taken to excess, but so can religion, atheism, individualism, Socialism, hedonism or any other set of beliefs. As previously said I think this connection with collective responsibility is illogical and quite frankly bogus.
Why not? That would be the best way to secure their rights.
