There are lots of micronations in the world—territories or groups of people that claim to be countries
but just… aren’t.
There’s this place: The Free Republic of Liberland, which claims a disputed bit of
riverbank between Croatia and Serbia.
Down South you’ve got Westarctica, the micronation that claims a very large chunk of otherwise
unclaimed land in Antarctica.
And then of course, you have about a dozen of these places in Australia because Australia’s
hardly a country to begin with.
How do we know about all of these places?
Well, because you people won’t stop asking us to make videos about them.
But the fact of the matter is that there usually just isn’t much to say about most micronations—90%
of the time, it’s someone saying something that’s not true and making a whole flag
about it.
But there’s one major exception—a not-quite-country that, by all accounts, should actually be
considered a real country, and it’s called Somaliland.
So let’s talk about what Somaliland is and why, exactly, it isn’t, technically, a country.
Somaliland is here: the horniest part of the horn of Africa.
Now, you might look at this map and say, wait, that’s in Somalia—and you’d be right,
except you’d also be kind of wrong.
You see, this part of Somalia and this part of Somalia have surprisingly little to do
with one another, besides the fact that both have a lot of sand and not a lot of money.
Way, way back in colonial times—which, in the case of Africa, means the 1950s—the
UK and Italy were in a contest to see who could do the most irreparable damage to a
part of the world that they weren’t supposed to be in.
While the British were certainly the reigning champs, Italy was taking an impressive lead,
at least when it came to this region of Africa.
Italy and the UK each controlled part of Somalia; the Brits took a much more hands-off approach
to their half, leaving leadership in the hands of local elders, whereas the Italians were
willing to actually put in the hard work of oppressing people.
As a result, the two halves of Somalia actually gained independence a few days apart from
one another; Somaliland was its own fully-independent country for four days in 1960 until the rest
of Somalia told Italy to shove a meatball in it and joined up with Somaliland to form
a single country.
Now, if history has taught us anything, it’s that jamming two completely culturally disconnected
regions together and calling it a country is awesome and always works.
But this time, for some reason, it didn’t.
Basically, all you need to know is that Somalia is broken up into six or seven major clans,
but most of those clans are down here and don’t like each other very much, whereas
Somaliland is pretty much composed of just one clan—the Isaaq family—which has made
it generally more stable, wealthy, and possible to form a secessionist militia, so they said,
“hey, let’s form a secessionist militia,” and then formed a secessionist militia.
They fought a civil war with the rest of Somalia in the 1980s, and in 1991, Somaliland declared
itself an independent country.
The rest of Somalia—being poor, unstable, and having their own problems to deal with—didn’t
say “yes,” but they also didn’t have the bullets to say “no.”
So, since 1991, Somaliland has operated as its own country.
We have a whole separate video on what makes a country a country, which you can watch after
this if you don’t have anything better to do with six minutes of your precious and fleeting
life, but here’s the gist: the world generally agrees on three basic qualities to define
a country: an independent government, a defined territory, and a permanent population.
And Somaliland very handily ticks all three of these boxes: they have very well-defined
borders with Somalia—although most countries refer to these as “Administrative Boundary
Lines”—they have a permanent population of 5.7 million people, and they have a stable
government with democratic elections.
They also issue their own passports, they have their own flag, they mint their own currency,
they have their own national anthem, and they even maintain some degree of political contact
with Ethiopia, Djibouti, South Africa, Taiwan, Sweden, the UK, and, yes, Liberland.
Remember Liberland from all of those minutes ago?
They might have a population of zero and an economy entirely composed of a cryptocurrency
that can only be traded on a website that doesn’t exist anymore, but hey, at least
they’re recognized by a country that isn’t actually a country.
But that gets us back to the question we’ve been meaning to answer: if Somaliland truly
has everything that a real country needs to have, why isn’t it a country?
Well, the short answer is that they’re not a country because other countries say so;
the only true definition of a country is one that’s internationally recognized as such.
Like, sure, we all know that France is basically just a glorified province of Belgium, but
as long as most major nations call it a country, it’s a country.
So, I guess a better question would be, “why don’t other countries want to recognize
Somaliland?”
And the answer to that is a little more complicated.
The main reason has to do with international organizations in the region like the African
Union and the Arab League, both of whom have tried very hard for many years to get everyone
to pretend like Somaliland doesn’t exist—after all, fighting a decades-long civil war to
split a country in two isn’t exactly something that these groups want to reward with national
recognition and a pat on the head, and their general position is that Africa’s colonial
borders should stay as-is for the sake of stability.
The EU has also generally turned a blind eye to Somaliland because, well, Italy still has
some sentimental feelings for their old colony, as long as you replace the word “sentimental”
with “economic” and “feelings” with the word “feelings” in quotation marks.
And generally, there just aren’t any countries out there that have any particular reason
to stir the pot in the region… that is, until Somaliland finds that oil that they’ve
been talking about.
Now, if this video made you realize that you don’t know a whole lot about what’s going
on in Africa, I would recommend checking out Africa Is Not a Country by Dipo Faloyin—it
was published just earlier this fall, and it’s an amazing exploration of the geopolitical
realities of modern Africa and deconstructs some misconceptions you might have about the
continent.
The best way to read it—especially if the internet has fried your attention span as
much as it’s fried mine—is with Audible.
Audible is an amazing way to consume literature when you’re on the go; being able to listen
to my books while I’m doing dishes, driving to work, or taking a long flight has made
it so much easier to educate and entertain myself anywhere and anytime.
Audible Plus subscriptions come with a massive library of best-selling audiobooks that you
can take with you anywhere, plus if there’s an audiobook you want that’s not part of
their streaming catalog, you can pick up an extra title for free, every single month and
keep it forever.
Plus, hey, if audiobooks aren’t your thing, Audible has thousands of amazing podcasts
like Donor 9623 and Deepest Dive, streamable wherever, whenever.
If you want to give it a try, I’ve got some good news: new members can try Audible free
for 30 days.
Just click the button on-screen or visit Audible.com/HAI or text HAI to 500-500.