19 January 2017

Not On The Map

Some countries just don’t exist.

by Neil Tidmarsh

Never mind dodgy dossiers and fake news – the most audacious recent attempt to blur imagination and reality came at a press conference given in New York by Poland’s foreign minister Witold Waszcsykowski this week.  He was reporting on his progress in lobbying for a seat for his country on the UN Security Council; he had held meetings with officials from twenty countries, he said, including the Caribbean countries Belize and San Escobar.

San Escobar?

No, don’t try looking it up in an atlas.  You won’t find it. It doesn’t exist.

He insisted afterwards that it was a slip of the tongue, but like all the greatest works of the imagination, San Escobar has taken on a life of its own.  It now has its own Twitter account and Facebook page, where you’ll find information about its climate and history and all its latest news (it has just announced visa-free travel with Poland, and plans to erect a statue of Witold Waszczykowski in the Plaza Mayor of its capital).

It wasn’t the only non-existent country in the news this week.

Isis continues to defy the rest of the world and insist that the ‘state’ bit of its acronym is justified, in spite of the continued shrinkage of territory under its control.  On the back foot in Iraq (where regime forces are slowly but surely winning the battle for Mosul) and in Libya (where they were recently driven from Sirte), they have struck back in Syria, proving themselves as ever to be opportunistic land-grabbers ready to exploit a divided country’s internal conflicts.  Last month they re-took Palmyra, and this week they launched a major attack on the city of Deir Ezzor, which they seem to have targeted as a potential base to replace Mosul.

More happily, this week saw better news about another non-existent country, the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (the northern half of Cyprus).  Perhaps I should clarify: the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus is non-existent unless you are a citizen of Turkey (the only country to recognise it) or of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus itself.  And to be fair, the Republic of Cyprus (the southern half of Cyprus) is also non-existent, if you are a citizen of Turkey (the only country which doesn’t recognise it) or of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus.  The island of Cyprus was tragically partitioned between these two political entities in 1974 following an attempted Greek coup and a Turkish invasion.  But this week, at a summit in Geneva, it was reported that the leaders of these two ‘countries’ are very close to a breakthrough agreement which would see Greek Cyprus and Turkish Cyprus reunited as a federal republic.

Remember the fuss last month when the US president-elect spoke on the telephone to the leader of another apparently ‘non-existent’ country, a fuss which had the potential to blow up into World War III?  Two countries claim to be China, and each insists that the other doesn’t exist.  The People’s Republic of China (the big one) insists that the Republic of China (the little one) doesn’t exist, just as the Republic of China (the little one) insists that the Peoples’ Republic of China (the big one) doesn’t exist.

Does the Republic of Korea (i.e. South Korea) exist? Not according to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (i.e. North Korea).  Does the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea exist?  Not according to the Republic of Korea, Estonia, France or Japan.  Does Israel exist?  Not according to 31 other UN member states.  Does the Republic of Armenia (an independent and sovereign state since 1991 and the break-up of the Soviet Union) exist?  Not according to Azerbaijan and Pakistan.  Does the Republic of Kosovo (independent from Serbia since 2008) exist?  Not according to Serbia.  Does the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic, also known as Transdinistria, (declaring itself independent from Moldova in 1990) exist?  Only according to Abkhazia, Nagorno-Karabakh and South Ossetia, three countries which arguably don’t exist anyway.  Does Somaliland (declaring itself independent from Somalia in 1991) exist as a country? Only according to Somaliland itself.

Which brings us to the final non-existent country in the news this week.

One country has just announced that it has been swamped by applicants from UK citizens who want to emigrate there following the Brexit vote and the election of Donald Trump.  Thousands of applications.  So many, in fact, that it has had to stop handing out new passports.  Its head of state, Prince Michael, has just made a public statement about this regrettable but necessary change of policy.

Prince Michael’s country is the Principality of Sealand, a decommissioned Maunsell Sea Fort (a World War II anti-aircraft gun platform) in the North Sea, seven miles from Felixstowe, Suffolk. It has its own flag, currency, stamps, written constitution and national anthem, and later this year will be celebrating its fiftieth anniversary.  Founded after a battle between rival pirate radio broadcasters, it has a suitably swashbuckling history of armed conflict, invasions, foreign mercenaries, attempted coup d’états, hostage-taking, treason, a government in exile, and international diplomatic negotiations.  A quiet and peaceful refuge from the turbulence of today’s Europe and America, indeed!

I wonder if Witold Waszcsykowski has lobbied Sealand to support Poland’s bid for a seat on the UN Security Council?

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