Among my favorite countries in the world to study are those countries that exist in fact but are not granted legitimacy by the international community for whatever reason.  While there are supposed to be firm and consistent standards by which nations are to be accepted by their peers, all too often international relations more closely resembles the cliquish and snobby behavior of high school life than it does any rational or just system of law.  Studying the sociology of international recognition would itself be a fruitful exercise, even if it would greatly diminish one’s respect for international institutions like the European Union, United Nations, or African Union.

Nonetheless, I would like to comment a little bit about why maps lie.  The existence of notable cases were nations exist with functioning governments, currencies, legal systems, flags, and all the trappings of nationhood but without recognition on maps or the common understanding of the world demonstrates the arbitrary nature of our understanding of the world around us, even in those areas like politics and international relations where the number of actors is somewhat limited and therefore comprehensible to understand.

It is more accurate to say, though, that maps do not lie, but the people who make them do.  It is therefore more profitable to examine the political motives behind the deceptive people who make maps and who govern and represent international institutions who appear to have an agenda in excluding others from their own club, for their own reasons.  Let us therefore ask what it takes to obtain the respect and acceptance of international institutions beyond merely the claims of justice and existence.

Let us first realize that the recognition of statehood is often something akin to a college diploma, granting one a certain status as a “graduate” from the school of colonial status and conferred with the privileges and responsibilities of statehood, giving one the opportunity to possess armies, send diplomats, engage in international trade, and participate in the various international institutions that exist.  However, some nations of the world are granted that status without having possessed the full portfolio of qualities (including rule over its claimed territories) that are required for genuine nationhood.  When this lamentable situation presents itself forcefully to the world, there is a tendency to deny the truth of the shambolic state of affairs (in a state of anarchy like Somalia for example) and also to deny the legitimate claims of those nations who wish to stand on their own in the international community (like Somaliland).  This is equally true of such states by name only like Pakistan and Afghanistan with substantial areas existing beyond the reach of political control, or other areas like Iraq where important areas (like Kurdistan) or Puntland in Somalia have enjoyed a substantial and lengthy de facto freedom but do not have the apparent desire for international recognition because they enjoy having the freedom of statehood without the responsibilities, or because they enjoy such opportunities for political leadership in a larger union than would be possible in their own territories.

Lest we assume that this aspect of deceptive geography is present merely in the Middle East or Africa or in states where the unholy mixture of tyranny and anarchy are expected, like Pakistan, this fluid aspect of nationhood exists far beyond such obvious case examples.  Let us turn to a couple of examples within Europe itself.  The European Union itself contains one fictitious state in Cyprus, making the false claim that Cyprus is a united island under the rule of its Greek Cypriot majority when in fact there has been an independent and Turkish-supported republic in the northern part of the island for longer than I have been alive, without international recognition or any sort of progress in a peaceful plebiscite to determine the wishes of the Turkish minority in the north for its own statehood or union with the Greek southerners.

Likewise, the example of Moldova provides a couple of lessons in statehood and its perils.  The territory of Moldova consists of two states with dubious legitimacy.  For one, the internationally recognized state of Moldova is itself culturally and historically an area of Romania, and may eventually largely join with that nation and thereby join the European Union by stealth, as it were.  For another, though, Moldova itself contains an area known as the Trans-Dnistr Republic that is largely inhabited by Ukrainians and Russians and has no cultural or historical or linguistic bond with the rest of Moldova and no desire for political union.  Therefore the small state of Moldova, itself of doubtful legitimacy, itself contains a de facto state of even less legitimacy within it.  And who said international relations was boring?

This is not even to consider that even states whose international recognition is secure often either have substantial areas beyond the force of law (like Mexico’s northern territories or the land of Chiapas in the southeastern part of Mexico, a territory that foolishly decided not to vote for independence from Mexico in the early 1830’s when Central America got its independence from Mexico and has been regretting its decision ever since then with nearly constant rebellions).  This is again true in parts of Europe where substantial disagreement over cultural and ethnic minorities had led nations like Spain, Great Britain, Belgium, and Italy to grant substantial regional autonomy in the hopes of avoiding total dissolution from discontented areas like Catalonia, Scotland, Flanders, and northern Italy from seeking to secede outright.  There is a lot less unity in this world than the peaceful maps of international borders would seem to indicate.

Earlier this week the election results came out about Southern Sudan and their declaration of independence, a vote that has raised hopes in other parts of Africa (like Western Sahara and Somaliland) where independence fever and lengthy and unresolved claims, supported by the de facto control of territory, has been unresolved for decades [1] [2] [3].  This is not even to go into the examples of other areas where a superficial appearance of unity masks either active movements for independence (such as the efforts of Bougainville Islandto become an independent state from Papua New Guinea), frequent votes on independence that come close to victory (Quebec in Canada or Nevis in St. Kitts and Nevis in the Caribbean), or for claims of autonomy that are viewed with disapproval by supposed ‘national’ leadership (like the claims of Zanzibar with regards to Tanzania).

The fact is, if an international news agency wanted to explore the shaky grounds of legitimacy of countries all over the world, it could keep a roving correspondent well employed traveling all over the world in just about every continent, so long as that person did not mind the dangers of traveling to areas like Nagorno-Karabakh, where an independent republic has existed since the 1990’s in area claimed by Azerbaijan but not ruled by it after a war that is still without resolution.  Sometimes, though, de facto states without recognition are somewhat half-recognized as independent states in nearly open understanding because full recognition would alienate a bully whom no one wants to fight and that has enough goods to bribe those it cannot cower, such as is the case with Taiwan’s legitimate claims of statehood and China’s refusal to accept them.

At other times areas, like the West Bank and Gaza Strip, are clearly shown on maps as not being a part of Israel despite lacking any sort of apparent capacity for self-government except for terrorism on other factions or on Israelis.  But then again, the Israelis are just about as close to outcasts as anyone in the international community can get, and so legitimate claims over territories that other nations would possess as a matter of course are denied to it because of political hostility.  As I said earlier, international relations has a lot more in common with High School Musical than it does the high-toned liberalism of a Woodrow Wilson or a Franklin Roosevelt, though both of them certainly felt free to intervene in other recognized states for the benefit of the United States, the subject of one of my encyclopedia entries [4].

Perhaps we fail to recognize the arbitrary nature of states and their fictitious personhood and the immaturity of their actions because to deny the legitimacy of such fictitious people threatens us with deep anarchy that we cannot handle.  It is far easier to pretend as if nations are real and legitimate, or companies, than to accept the arbitrary nature of the way the world works or its lack of justice or reason.  It is too dangerous to accept the truth, and so we keep our eyes screened with pleasant fictions, including maps that divide the earth into a set of mostly solid lines, neglecting the complexity of the picture on the ground below or the existence of competing regimes and deep cleavages within those territories.  We accept the lies on our maps because we often do not want to admit the truth, that our world is far more chaotic and far less under control than we want to believe, and preferring lies to truth we would rather cover our eyes from the ugly truth than to face it, deal with it and make the best of it openly and honestly.

Therefore the lies of our maps stand as condemnation of ourselves, for we choose to accept them rather than accept the bitter truth about what true maps would tell us about ourselves.  The only question we have to ask ourselves is how long will we be content to accept the lies on our maps, and when we will accept the truth and wrestle with it.  For the truth will make us free, but first we have to want to be free, and to accept the responsibilities that freedom entails, and to accept that these responsibilities apply to all.

[1] https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2011/02/07/a-republic-if-you-can-keep-it/

[2] https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2011/01/31/it-pays-to-have-powerfu-friends-a-musing-on-the-african-union/

[3] https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2011/01/13/exploring-some-of-the-implications-of-south-sudan-independence/

[4] https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2011/01/27/a-walking-encyclopedia/