Bolivia, Spain, and "Balkanization": imagining "countries" in the 21st century

Do you know how many countries are in the world?
By many accounts, the number today is about 195.

How long have there been this many countries in the world?
Well, 100 years ago, we didn't have such staples as Finland, either Korea, Vietnam, Turkey, India, Morocco, etc.
50 years ago, we didn't have Jamaica, Kuwait, Singapore, and other household names.

Most of these thoughtforms we call countries evolved very recently, even though we somehow think of them as fairly solid institutions right now.

How many countries will the planet have in 20 or 50 or 100 years?
What is a country, anyway? (Is it the same thing as a nation or a state?) (What does it mean to have one?)
Is it even a good idea to have countries?


Let's leave the hard questions for a minute, and turn to the news of the moment.


*

Is Bolivia about to become "balkanized"? This week, Bolivia has come to a "state of crisis", as the department of Santa Cruz declared autonomy. The referendum on autonomy was declared illegal by the president, Evo Morales, and widespread protesting and riots have broken out, as the declaration of autonomy threatens to split the country.

Anxious eyes in Spain are watching the situation closely, much as they did when Kosovo went independent in February of this year. In Spain, anything that speaks of autonomy or independence provokes concerns that it will provide a precedent for the Spanish provinces that desire more autonomy.

From an article in Deutsche Welle, written prior to Kosova's independence:

If Kosovo declares independence from Serbia, it will set a powerful precedent for movements from Spain to Scotland, all wanting to rewrite the map of Europe and form their own independent states, according to experts. "There is a real risk that the quasi-dogma of the intangibility of borders which has existed since the end of the World War II will fall," French political scientist Jean-Yves Camus of the Paris-based IRIS institute told AFP. "This would benefit movements which seek to rewrite the map of Europe based on ethnic, linguistic or cultural criteria," added Camus, a specialist on separatist movements in Europe.


Why is it that the breakup of a country seems inherently scary somehow?

Do we have a basic, unquestioned bias that a large country is a good thing?

Why does every situation in which a region is seeking more autonomy from a federal government produce fears of "balkanization"?

I'll start by addressing the latter of these questions. One thing I would emphasize is that in reality, none of these situations -- in Spain, Bolivia, or Kosova -- bear much resemblance to each other at all. I don't find them comparable, and I'll explain why. While I'm certainly not a political expert, I have personally been to all these places, so what follows is my informal, travelers' understanding of the respective situations:


Kosova

In Kosova, we have a group of people who have been violently persecuted by the state they were claiming independence from, and quite recently. The ethnic Albanian Kosovars remember having to flee their homes from Serbian violence and hide in the mountains, for this happened less than a decade ago; these are fresh memories of oppression. Imagine being a young person growing up in Kosova, having your school closed to you because you are not Serbian, and then having your parents lose their jobs because they are not Serbian, and then having violence and warfare come to your neighborhood.

Imagine being a university student, and having most of the students expelled by being from a certain ethnic group ... then having a church from some other religion being erected in the university quad, right next to the library, smack in the open middle of your campus. This is what I saw at the University of Pristina: a church which never ended up being used, and stood empty with barbed wire around it, since the war began before the church was fully finished... in 2003 it stood trash-laden, surrounded by Roma camps; maybe it is put to use now, or transformed into somethng else.

Tolerance Campaign: UN-sponsored billboards picturing ethnic Albanians, Serbs, and Roma, with the caption - We are all Kosovars.

Spain

Spain, however, could demonstrate that the de-unification of a country does not have to end in the kind of warfare and violence experienced in the Bakans. There are several regions which flirt with the idea of autonomy, to differing degrees, including Catalonia, the Basque country, Navarre, and Galicia. While Franco was repressive towards the regional differences in Spain -- banning the Basque and Catalan languages up to 1975 -- these regions, aside from the occasional ETA attack, now get along quite civilly. You will see independence-related slogans on the streets, and protests and rallies, but for the most part, things are peaceful: Catalunya and the Basque country simply want to determine what to do with their own tax revenues and be able to speak their languages. They are not racist or hostile towards their neighbors; they get along as all nations in the European community do. These regions get along mostly-harmoniously with greater Spain, and enrich it.

Peaceful Basque independence rally and concert, in a village outside San Sebastian

And polls have shown that the majority of people in the Basque country don't even favor independence -- just one third are pro-independence, and only a small minority agree with ETA's terrorist tactics.

The central government has dealt with the regional challenges maturely, all in all: "Zapatero's Socialists ... believe increasing decentralization creates a modern, tolerant country where an understanding of each region's special characteristics helps keep separatism at bay."[citation]


Bolivia


So: why can't Bolivia have a model of government like Spain, where the regional departments have more control, asks Bolivia? Other countries have states or provinces, with their own regional police forces, for example...

If you're viewing Bolivia and Spain as equivalent, it is a reasonable question. But what's going on in Bolivia has to do with natural resource control and indigenous racism; it has to do with colonial conflicts that never quite got resolved. The department voting for autonomy, Santa Cruz, is whiter and richer than the rest of Bolivia. They want the ability to control the revenue from the natural gas under their land. The populist president, Evo Morales, and the Altiplano region of the country are indigenous, and want the gas to provide for all of Bolivia; they call the referendum illegal. From the Guardian:

"My family is voting for autonomy because the Indians want to dominate us," said Olga Tordolla, a woman in a largely indigenous quarter of Santa Cruz city known as Plan Tres Mil. "They are racist, they hate white people."

The federal government rejected the referendum as an "illegal survey" and an attempt by greedy, paler-skinned Bolivians to continue the social and economic exclusion of indigenous people which dates back to the Spanish conquest.

This conflict is about the exploitation of resources, in a more dramatic way than the conflicts in Spain or Kosova are. To have Santa Cruz secede is to open the natural gas to foreign exploitation, and Morales would like to keep the gas in the hands of Bolivians.

Llallagua, Bolivia -- Miners support president Evo Morales

Is there U.S. involvement in this situation? Roger Burbach in the blog Bolivia Rising argues that there is:

The illegal referendum held on Sunday to declare autonomy in Santa Cruz, Bolivia’s richest province, is backed by the Bush administration in an attempt to halt the leftward drift of South America. ... Evo Morales, the first indigenous president of the country, bluntly declares: “The imperialist project is to try to carve up Bolivia, and with that to carve up South America because it is the epicenter of great changes that are advancing on a world scale.”

The US ambassador, Philip Goldberg, who was appointed by the Bush administration in September 2006, has maneuvered behind the scenes to support the political forces opposed to Morales and his governing party, the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS). It is notable that Goldberg came to Bolivia from Pristina, Kosovo, where as the US Chief of Mission, he played a central role in orchestrating Kosovo’s independence from Serbia, which it had been a province of for centuries.

While I personally wouldn't put it past the U.S. to meddle this way-- they do have a long history of this around the world-- it is also suggested that this is "a homegrown issue." Jim Schultz, the director of the Democracy Center in Cochabamba (and a really kind, smart guy) recently was interviewed by Amy Goodman on the radio program Democracy Now. He explained that the current referendum is something that has been going on for a long time, and the significant point he made is that the oligarchs have managed to turn their wish for power into a regional issue that people on the streets support. Schutlz reported that both a taxi driver and a woman selling gum on the street in Santa Cruz declared that they don't want to be sending their money to the central government. While it used to be the indigenous people vs. the wealthy elite of Euro-descent, it is now the people vs. the people, and that is a difficult situation.

While I support the autonomy of Kosova and am ambivalent about the benefits of autonomy for the Spanish provinces, I wouldn't support autonomy for Santa Cruz (and the other gas-and-oil rich provinces that are also having referendums on autonomy) because it seems like yet another stratagem to screw the indigenous people out of resources and wealth that should be theirs to share in. It would destroy Morales's project to actually have a people make use of their resources. I was trying to cross Bolivia on May 1, 2006, when Morales nationalized the gas. Troops guarded gas stations on trucks; the mood was strange; but it was a remarkable symbolic gesture in saying the wealth from the land belonged in the hands of the people, and not multinational corporations. Movements towards decentralisation and autonomy should be used to give a people a homeland where they are safe from oppression and can practice their culture; these movements shouldn't be used to sell out a people.

These matters are complicated and controversial, but the basic point I was trying to make is that one disintegrating state does not equal another. It is difficult to imagine the Spanish coming into Catalonia and forcing the Catalunyans to flee to the mountains to avoid death, for example; Catalunya is no Kosova and Bolivia is no Spain. Each situation must be understood on its own terms; these situations don't provide precedents for one another in actuality.



SEPARATION ANXIETY


In the United States, the idea that borders are inviolable likely comes from the Civil War; its pain inscribed somewhere in our collective consciousness.

But Europe is already full of small states: so where does this fear of separation come from? Again, memories of war:

European stability since World War II has rested on the concept that borders are inviolable, even if they contain within them regions of other nationalities.

The break-up of Czechoslovakia was the result of mutual agreement, and that is precisely what the Europeans want. They do not want Kosovo to set a precedent for Belgian Walloons wanting out of Belgium. To a great extent the world wars of the 20th century were triggered by borders not matching nationalities. [citation]


But people can exist in small states peacefully without war: Europe generally proves this. To believe that decentralization results in war is to take a dim view of humanity.

Before I close this epic, I'd like to point out that the idea of nations is flawed. Countries are fictional entities. I do not think there is actually such a thing as the "United States", in reality.

And in too many cases, the arbitrary creation of these nations has caused much pain. Look at the current war in Sudan: caused in great part by how the Brits drew colonial borders.

Our bizarre sentimental attachment to countries might do more harm than it does good.
Often, the sentimental feelings we have about countries are simply tools that other interests use to manipulate us. Do you have a nation in your heart? Is it your country you love, or your culture? Your country is the force that takes a third of your hard-earned income and goes and bombs other countries with it. Your culture is the tapestry of traditions and values that makes your life meaningful. And regions of cultures can (and do) exist without nations.

A return to regionalism is exactly what the world needs. But how will we stop ourselves from being overrun by the Chinese, without our big federal army? the skeptic asks. Well, the EU is a decent example of a coalition of nations that works together to build a power bloque. I wish the United States functioned in the same way, as a coalition of nations rather than weakened states (I suspect it will in the future, but that's another post).

Perhaps this century can become truly cosmopolitan and global; where we will abandon these thoughtforms of countries, and honor the cultures we live in. Where we don't allow business interests to manipulate our feelings, or our hatred for others, into warfare on the basis of these "countries"; where we can live regionally, for the benefit of our bioregion, harmoniously with nearby regions.