We're driving through a river right now in the Jeep.
For thousands of years,
humans have drawn lines on the Earth, dividing the planet into nations, but
there are some parts of the world that no empire, nation, or state has been able to tame.
Just the geography here is completely unruly.
Land that is so high,
so rugged, that states have found it impossible to exert control.
We're about to hit 4,000 meters, feeling the effects.
These are called non-state spaces.
Definitely feels like humans were never meant to be here
And the people who
settle in these places sought refuge from borders.
But even here, among the highest mountains in the world,
this stateless lifestyle is coming to an end.
Non-state spaces have always existed, all over the globe. They're usually high
up in mountains, far from the reach of any government and the people who live
here didn't come here by chance. Most of them are communities who fled into the
mountains to evade expanding government forces, some communities were escaping
capture like those in Africa fleeing from the Arab and Atlantic slave trades.
Other groups retreated to remote regions to escape ruling powers who they
opposed, from the Inuit and the Arctic, to the Berbers in North Africa, to the
Jivaroan in the Amazon rainforest. Examples exist all over the globe of
people who chose rugged terrain over taxes, war, famine, and subjugation from
state powers. Today, there are some 5,000 indigenous groups living in 90 countries,
numbering in total around 370 million people worldwide. 70% of those are in
Asia. Most of these groups have integrated into countries, but for those
who reside deep in the mountains, geography has largely held off the
influence of any kind of centralized government.
So I came up here to visit
one community that fled to the mountains 1,200 years ago. Back then the Tibetan
Empire, which was just north of here was pursuing its own state-making project,
its own empire, and it was growing. As the Tibetan Empire grew, its borders
eventually encompassed the Bon religion. This was a religious group that predates
Buddhism. The Bon fought to preserve its culture within the Tibetan Empire. They
resisted the Empire, but eventually failed and instead of assimilated to
this new Empire, they fled and they came here to these mountains, where they
created a life away from the militaries, the taxes, the religion, and the control
of the Tibetan Empire and that life continues today.
Eventually this whole area would be drawn into a modern state, the state of
Nepal. And Tibet, where these people came from, would become China. But these people
don't identify as Chinese, or necessarily Nepali. People here, they wanted the kids
to learn to Tibetan, like as their language, because we are more related
with the Tibetan culture.
The 25 families that live here have their own distinct identity.
They speak their own dialect of Tibetan. They mainly live off the land,
farming and raising animals to survive.
The Himalayan mountain range is particularly rich with these examples of
non-state spaces. So many examples in fact, that a group of anthropologists
argue that this place should actually be its own region. They use the term Zomia
to describe this long range of mountains where people have set up for thousands
of years without the help of governments of states.
The borders of this Zomia
concept encompass a hundred million people. It runs through eight countries,
but is on the periphery of each. The diverse set of peoples living here have
a varying degree of interaction with their country governments. I came to this
region, one of the most remote zones within Zomia, but even here you can feel
that Zomia's stateless days are numbered.
Everywhere you go up here, you see herds of animals, shepherds guiding them
through the mountains. After leaving this Bon village I moved north and came
across a different community, where this family's lifestyle is based almost
entirely on the movement of their animals. We're at 4,200 meters, Tibet is
just right over this hill.
And I'm hanging out with some yak today.
This family's actually nomadic, they're constantly
moving around throughout the year, so they'll be in this pasture for a little
bit while the yak will graze here and eat this grass, and then they'll move on
to another place. Meanwhile the grasses here will have time to regenerate, the
dung from these yak right now will help fertilize the land, and they'll
eventually come back here, maybe next year, and they will find a pasture full
of really wonderful grass that's full of nutrients that their yak can graze again.
And there's no external inputs to this, there's no fertilizer or irrigation infrastructure.
And this whole process and technique hinges on their ability to be
able to move freely throughout this region, which hasn't been a problem for
hundreds of years as this place has been basically rid of any sort of borders or
control. But that's changing very quickly.
This is where the Tibetan language is spoken. The many communities in these
mountains have always considered themselves Tibetan, moving freely into
Tibet for trade and religious practices, but in 1950 China controversially
annexed Tibet. They eventually negotiated this border line with Nepal. Notice that
it goes right through what these people think of as Tibet. The yak grazers I met
are mostly based down here on the Nepal side, and luckily for them this border
only existed in theory. The yak grazers continue to graze their animals deep
into Tibet, as they had for hundreds of years, but over the
years China started getting rich, which came with a renewed desire to project
its influence and protect its borders, especially in Tibet where people were
fleeing to get away from Chinese rule. China now had the money, technology,
geopolitical motive to start taming this region. They started crushing protests
from Tibetans and setting up military infrastructure on the Tibetan Plateau
and in 1999 they built this fence on the border, marking the end of the unfettered
mobility that these people had depended on for centuries in this non-state space.
This place that had been too high for borders, suddenly had to adapt to the
first concept of boundaries and control coming from far away governments.
I wanted to go see this fence. At over 15,000 feet above sea
level, it has to be one of the highest borders on Earth.
So I'm on the windy
Tibetan Plateau, looking at the border but we're half a kilometer away and
something really weird has happened. My driver who's Nepali stopped and said we
can't go any further. I was like well we're on Nepali sovereign territory, why
would why couldn't we just go up to the fence? You'd be able to do this at every
other country I've ever been to. He said no, the Chinese will come over and they'll
snatch us. Now we're still very much on the Nepali, side but the Chinese come in
here routinely to ask questions, to even detain people randomly. They have
surveillance, they have watch towers even on the Nepali side. China now has
the technology and political motive to exert control in this remote and rugged
region, to militarize its border here.
This isn't the only effort by a faraway government to tame this region. The
governments of Nepal, India, and China are also building the first roads here.
It's a lofty goal.
So we've got a landslide on the road, which means we can
go no further in the Jeep. And we're gonna have to hike. The thinking here is
that a road system could serve as a trade artery through the Himalaya Mountains,
eventually. We're stuck again, this time on a waterfall with a 200-foot
cliff by the side of it. And so yes, while these state forces are slowly
encroaching on this terrain, it's going to be long work and it's not going to be
easy. They're slowly chipping away, but man this place just was never meant to
be tamed.
Nepal is sandwiched between
the two largest countries on Earth, divided by these massive Himalaya Mountains.
A road would create an enormous trade opportunity between these countries.
So there's been a blitz of construction
projects aimed at creating a viable road through this mountain pass. The Indian
government is funding projects like this bridge, and locals told me that the
Chinese government routinely sends building materials to help construction.
The road still has a long way to go before it can sustain large flows of
goods, but even now the road is reshaping the relationship that these communities
have with the outside world, shifting their economy from bartering to cash-based
markets where residents can create businesses around cheap goods from China.
And as always with change, there are winners and losers.
Everything here is made of yak.
This tent, which is made entirely of yak wool.
Yak cheese,
Tea with yak butter in it.
Drinking yak milk, which is extremely delicious.
These people who are used to bartering and are used to living off of the
products of their animals, are having a hard time integrating, having a hard time
finding a space in this new economy that is based on cash, is based on big
international flows of goods.
That Bon community whose customs had been so well preserved in these
mountains, have also felt the effects of this road.
People are leaving. Children especially. Parents want to educate their
kids and they are sending them to India or to Kathmandu to get educated. A lot of
these kids will go their entire childhood without actually being in this community.
You have to remember these people set up in the mountains
specifically to preserve their tradition
and culture, and so to see it disappear overnight
due to these modernizing forces, is giving people a lot of anxiety. The way
they've solved this is that they're building this school, that is based on
educating children in the Bon tradition and the language of this community.
But despite the disruptive effects of the road, most people I talk to are still
happy it's here.
For centuries people have escaped
modern civilization by fleeing to the mountains, but now generations later, for
some these mountains can feel more like a trap than a refuge.