The World

All the news not fit to print
Email | Back to History | Back to the world news | Home | Support this website

TM, ®, Copyright © 2015 Piero Scaruffi All rights reserved.


Articles written after 2011
The phantom states of the world
My map of the rising powers
Articles written before 2011

    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

Email | Back to History | Back to the world news | Home | Support this website

TM, ®, Copyright © 2015 Piero Scaruffi All rights reserved.