Now that I get more and more of my news from the radio (thanks to Cablevision, Inc. for that and my lack of frequent posting), I've been hearing a lot about the tsunami's horrible death toll and the relief efforts.

I've also noticed that many of the reports are coming from Banda Aceh, the capital of Indonesia's Aceh province, which I had last heard about because of the efforts of the Muslim separatist movement there.

As we all know, politics aren't just the result of human endavors, but are always shaped and influenced by environmental forces–geography, scarcity of resources, agricultural output, and so forth. This earthquake and tidal wave have hit, interestingly enough, two of the more nationally contentious parts of South Asia, Sri Lanka and Aceh.

Both regions have sub-state national movements, and both have been heavily affected by the tsunami. I've been wondering a lot recently about the effects the disaster will have on the separatists' ambitions. Basically, my feeling is that if the national governments do a better job than local authorities in disaster relief, separatism is dead for at least another generation; but if the respective national goverments fail to provide adequately, this could be the tipping point that forms a new Aceh or Tamil Tiger state in Sri Lanka. Many institutions have been wholly destroyed by the tsunamis, leaving behind a unique opportunity to start from scratch.

Readers, what do you think?