TM, ®, Copyright © 2010 Piero Scaruffi All rights reserved.
- (august 2011)
The phantom states of the world.
There are people who live in places that don't exist.
After a long war, Nagorno-Karabakh is no longer part of Azerbajan but not officially part of Armenia either. Transnistria split from Moldova and remains de
facto part of Russia. South Ossetia and Abkhazia split from Georgia and are
recognized as independent by Russia, that recently fought a war
to defend them from Georgia.
Somaliland declared independence during the messy civil war of Somalia and lives
in peace and relative prosperity but not recognized by any country.
Cyprus was admitted to the European Union, a fact that was an insult to the
intelligence of both Europeans and Cypriots alike because the
European-recognized government of Cyprus does not control
Northern Cyprus, which is protected by Turkey;
Kashmir is still split between India and Pakistan;
Kosovo's status is still in a limbo.
The Palestinians of Gaza and the West Bank still don't have a state despite the
fact that even their enemy Israel recognizes them as independent entities.
The Kurds are still
split among Turkey, Iran and Iraq; Chechnya is still part of Russia despite
fighting two wars of independence; Western Sahara is still occupied by Morocco
and many of its original inhabitants live in refugee camps in the desert
of Algeria that makes the Palestinian refugee camps look like luxury resorts;
Tibetans are rapidly being outnumbered by Chinese immigrants
shipped in by the government of mainland China, and ditto for Uighurs in the
Chinese Far East;
the Muslims of Mindanao are still under the military rule of the Philippines;
the Balochis have fought in vain five independence wars against Pakistan;
the Western half of New Guinea is rapidly being colonized by Indonesian
settlers.
Greenland makes tiny Denmark one of the largest countries in the world.
Last but not the least, there is the greatest aberration of our times: Taiwan,
a democratic, preaceful and prosperous country that should be a model for
the entire world but that, instead, the United Nations does not even recognize as existing.
South Sudan is the notable exception, as it just gained independence from Sudan.
Each of these creates international tensions that could explode in new wars.
In some cases the risk is worth it because of the immense resources that the
land hides: Western Sahara fuels Morocco's boom, Tibet turned China into the
main gold producer in the world, Balochistan keeps the Pakistani economy alive
with its rich natural resources, and Kashmir controls water supplies to Pakistan.
But mostly these are cases in which the powers (or at least some powers)
want to preserve "territorial integrity" (i.e. stability) over anything else,
and therefore refuse to recognize the right to independence of the people
who live on that territory.
History is on the side of the occupying powers: if you kill enough
rebels, and wait long enough, eventually the issue disappears (see the Native
Americans in the USA and the countless principalities swallowed by the current
European nations over the centuries).
And history is on the side of the bloodiest separatists: if you spill enough
blood,
eventually some kind of agreement will be reached to grant you independence
or at least autonomy. For example, everybody agrees that the Palestinians
deserve a country, whereas dozens of Tibetans have been setting themselves on
fire between 2011 and 2012 amid the indifference of the international media,
but the media and the world opinion would behave differently if those Tibetans
had blown up airplanes, restaurants and buses like the Palestinians did decades ago.
The period in between, however, can be very costly, both in terms of money
spent by the two belligerent sides and in terms of the humiliating conditions
of the inhabitants. Sometimes the people of these contested places don't even
have a passport. Those who are occupied (by China, Morocco, Indonesia, Russia,
Turkey and so on)
have a passport, and sometimes a really good one, but lost their dignity
(and their movements are limited or they are subjected to racial discrimination
or both).
If nationalism and greed could be finally put aside in the 21st century,
one could envision an agency of sages (the equivalent of what the Vatican
used to be for the Catholic powers) to determine the fate of these
territories and avoid the economic and human costs of a protracted stalemate.
Ideally, this would be a committee of non-politicians working outside the
influence of any government for the sole interest of the affected people.
TM, ®, Copyright © 2010 Piero Scaruffi All rights reserved. Back to the world news | Top of this page
- (march 2011)
My map of the rising powers.
TM, ®, Copyright © 2010 Piero Scaruffi All rights reserved. Back to the world news | Top of this page
2010 articles
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