The communists thought they could eliminate tribal instincts. It doesn’t work. It’s imprinted on most humans on a instinctual level to gravitate to those that look similar and culturally similar. Even if you got rid of every single nation and group in the world today, in few hundred years new groups would arise.
This is why although I believe in basic human rights I don’t believe in the definition as currently defined. We have to revisit this issue to come to definitions we all agree on and actually follow not the current virtue signaling for others to treat us as exact equals in their homelands but then not offer them same treatment in our homelands.
In ancient Athens only Greek males could be citizens. Today we have universal democracy. On one side it’s great if one is a minority. And in theory that’s what we should want for the whole world. In practice few want to give up their homelands.
One option is to tweak human rights and democracy definitions so that at least in some nations that do care about indigenous homelands that there were two types of citizens. The indigenous citizens that controls the government… and everyone else with a basic level of rights but that can’t vote or vote for a subset of issues related to them (No slaves and woman could still vote) . The latter type of citizen would be sort of like a work visa. As long as the second type isn’t causing trouble, they could stay indefinitely and be equal in other respects. Also have some sort of option for assimilation for any minorities true in love with the dominant culture.. (at the discretion of the dominant group)
To make it work every minority would need to have a homeland and there would have to be a few neutral nations where the rest could go This way if someone doesn’t like being a second tier citizen in somewhere else’s homeland they could leave to go to their own homeland. Win win for everyone.
Alas most aren’t interested in actual principled solutions to this contradiction between homelands and human rights. They prefer to complain how persecuted their minorities are in someone else’s homeland than contradict themselves with their own. IMO this contradiction of treatment is the biggest source of conflict not just today but all of human history. Round and round we go.