My first meeting with Nick Middleton took place surrounded by globes and atlases testifying to the most exotic corners of our planet. We are in the basement of Stanfords, London's largest travel bookshop, which has been visited by such intrepid explorers as Florence Nightingale, Antarctic explorer Ernest Shackleton, and famous traveler Ranulph Fiennes. However, the purpose of my conversation with Middleton is to learn about countries that are not written about in most of the books sold here.
These states are usually not on maps. Nick calls them unrecognised countries; their names may seem fantastic (Atlantium, Christiania, Elgaland-Vargaland), but they are all real and inhabited by patriotic citizens. Moreover, you have probably been to one of these countries without even knowing it.
It turns out that the world is full of regions of various sizes that have all the external attributes of a real country – a permanent population, a government, a flag, and a currency. Some even issue biometric passports to their citizens. However, for one reason or another, they are not allowed to send representatives to the United Nations, and they are ignored on most world maps.
Nick Middleton, a geographer from the University of Oxford, has mapped these invisible lands in his new book entitled 'Atlas of Unrecognised Countries' (Macmillan, 2015). Flipping through its pages, you feel as if you have entered a parallel universe with a rich but forgotten history and its own unique culture. This parallel universe even has its own international football league.
Middleton's research, as might be expected, began with Narnia. He was reading C.S. Lewis's 'The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe' with his six-year-old daughter and got to the scene where the heroine Lucy, passing fur coats and mothballs, enters a magical land. Something in this story attracted the geographer. He thought that you can end up in a country that is 'unrecognised' from the point of view of other states without magic. However, Middleton did not expect the phenomenon of 'unrecognised' countries to be so widespread. 'When I started studying them, I was astonished by their number,' he says. 'I would have enough material for several such books.'
According to him, there is still no unambiguous definition of what a country is: 'As a geographer, this, to say the least, surprises me.' A document often cited was signed in 1933 during the Pan-American Conference held in Montevideo, the capital of Uruguay. According to the Montevideo Convention, to become a country, a region must have the following characteristics: a defined territory, a permanent population, a government, and the 'capacity to enter into relations with other states.'
However, many countries that meet these criteria are not members of the UN (often considered the ultimate confirmation of statehood). For instance, Taiwan (Republic of China), whose representative sat in the General Assembly. In 1971, mainland China (PRC), which had temporarily lost its UN representation after the civil war, was admitted to the UN in place of Taiwan.
Even with Great Britain, things are not so simple, says Nick Middleton. According to British law, England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland are considered separate countries. They have their own sports teams that compete against each other, but the British have only one representative in the UN. 'So, is England a country? By this criterion, no,' explains Middleton.
As a result, England and Scotland did not make it into his atlas. The final list includes countries that meet the Montevideo Convention – defined territory, population, government – but have no representation in the General Assembly. However, many of them are members of the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization, an alternative organization defending their rights.
Some of the names are familiar to anyone who has ever picked up a newspaper – for example, Taiwan, Tibet, Greenland, and Northern Cyprus. Others are less well-known but no less serious. Middleton gives many examples of local populations trying to regain their sovereignty.
A matter of great concern is the situation around the Republic of Lakota (population 100,000), located right in the center of the United States – east of the Rocky Mountains. Activists demand recognition of a state whose territory includes the Black Hills, sacred to the Lakota Sioux people. The problems for the indigenous people began in the 18th century, and by 1868 they had signed an agreement with the US government guaranteeing their right to inhabit the Black Hills region. Unfortunately, this agreement did not account for the subsequent gold rush – and when prospectors rushed to the sacred lands, the government forgot its commitments.
The Lakota had to wait over a hundred years for an apology: in 1980, a Supreme Court justice ruled that 'there had been no more brutal, cynical, dishonest deal in our history.' The court awarded monetary compensation (nearly $600 million) to the Lakota Sioux, but they refused the money. 'According to them, taking the money would effectively mean acknowledging that the crime was justified,' explains Nick Middleton. In 2007, a delegation went to Washington to announce a formal withdrawal from the United States. Currently, the legal battle for the republic's independence continues.
Similar battles are taking place on all continents. For example, in Africa there is the Kingdom of Barotseland with a population of 3.5 million, which is trying to secede from Zambia, and also Ogoni Land, formally within the borders of Nigeria. Both territories declared independence in 2012.
A year later, the Republic of Murrawarri was founded in Australia, whose Aboriginal people wrote a letter to Queen Elizabeth II asking her to prove her legitimate right to govern their land. The Murrawarri gave the queen 30 days, but the answer was silence. Then the Aborigines formally declared their claim to govern their homeland.
Not all the countries mentioned in Middleton's book have such an ancient history. Often their founders are eccentric individuals who hope to organize a new, more just state.
As an example, the author cites the small Australian 'principality' of Hutt River, founded by a family of farmers in an attempt to bypass the wheat-growing quota set by the government. Soon they had their own titles, currency and postal service. According to Middleton, in Hutt River 'printing and selling of postage stamps is thriving' (initially letters were sent via Canada). After several decades, the government got tired of fighting with local farmers: members of the Casley family no longer have to pay Australian taxes.
In Europe, one should mention Forvik, one of the Shetland Islands – a mini-state in northern Scotland founded by an Englishman in the name of ensuring transparent governance, the Principality of Sealand in the North Sea off the British coast, and Christiania – an enclave in the heart of Copenhagen.
The latter was created in 1971 by squatters who settled in former army barracks. On September 26, 1971, they declared independence and 'direct democracy', expressed in the fact that every resident (currently 850) can vote on any important issue. Until now, the Danish government has turned a blind eye to their activities: for example, marijuana smoking is allowed in Christiania, while outside it violates Danish laws (although the Christianians themselves have decided to ban hard drugs on their territory).
All these extravagant examples, however, did not prompt Middleton to try to found a state himself. 'Having studied so many stories of oppression of people, I do not think that such a question should be approached lightly,' he says. 'For many, it is a matter of life and death.'
Despite all efforts to achieve independence, it is unlikely that residents of many unrecognized countries will succeed in gaining worldwide recognition, the geographer believes. 'If I had to support one of them, I would choose Greenland,' he says. This autonomous region of Denmark is already governed from within, which is often seen as a first step towards formal recognition of independence.
Given that we cannot even agree on the definition of a country, perhaps it is worth reconsidering the concept of the nation-state as such?
Nick Middleton cites Antarctica – a continent whose rights are peacefully shared among members of the international community – as an example that it is not necessary to carve up the land into small pieces. Perhaps this is just the beginning. On the last pages of Middleton's atlas, two radical examples are given that make us think about the meaning we attach to the word 'country'.
Take, for example, Atlantium. Its capital, Concordia, is located in a remote Australian province, whose population consists mainly of kangaroos. But this is only about the administrative part: Atlantium positions itself as a 'non-territorial' state – any person, wherever he is, can become its citizen. Here is what is said on its website: 'In an era when people around the world are increasingly united by common interests and goals, Atlantium offers an alternative to the discriminatory historical practice whereby a person acquires nationality by chance, by birth, or by circumstance.'
Finally, there is Elgaland-Vargaland, invented by two Swedish artists. According to their idea, the country consists of patches of neutral territory around the world, including land on the borders of other countries and sea beyond their territorial waters. Thus, you pass through Elgaland-Vargaland every time you travel abroad.
Of all the countries Nick Middleton considered, this one is most similar to the Narnia that inspired him – because the artists claim that in sleep or in dreams we also cross borders and temporarily find ourselves in the state of Elgaland-Vargaland.
However, Atlantium and Elgaland-Vargaland can hardly expect to be taken seriously by most people – Middleton respects their creators primarily for attempting to provoke a public discussion on international relations. 'All of them raise the question that countries as we know them are not the only legitimate way of organizing life on Earth,' he writes in his book.
One thing is certain: constant changes are happening in the world. 'None of my peers thought the Soviet Union would collapse – everything can change unexpectedly,' the author emphasizes. New countries constantly appear, and old ones disappear. Someday, in the distant future, any territory we know may turn out to be a non-existent country.