This is The Republic of Molossia. It’s got a dictator, a national instrument and a national
system of measurement. For example an African Bush Elephant, which, luckily aren’t native
to Molossia, would weigh roughly 6.7 Grand Fenwicks. You see, it is smaller than a football
pitch and surrounded by Nevada USA. But Molossia isn’t a country, at least not according
to all of these other countries.
Molossia is a Micronation. Micronations are small, self-proclaimed entities that claim
to be independent sovereign states. However, they don’t have acknowledgement of any other
recognised sovereign state and therefore are widely dismissed. There’s a LOT of them
take Austenasia for example, created by father son Emperors Terry and Jonathan… you guessed
it Auten. They’ve got a flag a national anthem and even a so called “civil war”.
So, why aren’t these entities recognised as countries? Why can’t I write a strongly
worded letter to the government letting them know I’m succeeding from the United Kingdom
and claiming my house as the sovereign territory of a country made out of my name…
Maybe not.
Clearly we need to work out what makes a country a country. Technically there’s a difference
between countries and sovereign states, in that Scotland and Greenland are countries
but aren’t sovereign states (even if they don’t like it). But for simplicity, and
because sovereign is difficult to spell, I’ll just call them countries.
There are two theories on what makes a country. Constitutive or Declarative. Other than their
inability to roll of the tongue they’re fairly different. Constitutive just requires
a country to be recognised by other countries. But the more widely followed Declarative theory
has the following requirements.
Anyway, let’s test our criteria against Molossia. Who, by the way, have their own
time zone, see all of these countries use “non-standard” time zones, ones that are
not a round hour different from Greenwich mean time, normally by half an hour, it’s already a little confusing,
but Molossia had to one up them. They are an irritating 39 minutes ahead of Pacific
Time. Or 21 minutes behind mountain time.
Anyway, back to the criteria and the first two are easy. Kevin Baugh lives in Molossia along with his wife,
two children and four dogs, who are apparently full citizens. Molossia claims Baugh’s house
and property as its sovereign territory so it clearly has defined territory, even if
the state of Nevada might not like it.
Number three is more tricky, Kevin is the self declared President but he does have an
advisory National Assembly. You would probably call him a dictator but the United Nations
members list, another test of countryness, is host to several arguable dictatorships
like Iran, Belarus and Kazakhstan.
Onto number four, and this is where Molossia get stuck. In theory it can have the CAPACITY
to enter relations with other nations but it would rely on the other nations wanting
to do so. Which almost none of them do. However, some micronations have claimed to have held
relations with world powers. The Principality of Sealand has a really interesting history,
including one event in 1978, when a German lawyer and his hired mercenaries stormed the
country with speedboats, jet skis and helicopters. Which might sound odd until you realise that
Sealand lives up to its name. Anyway, the invasion failed and the German man was captured.
Here comes the important bit. During hostage negotiations, Germany sent one of its diplomats
to Sealand. Visits from official diplomats are often seen as badges of legitimacy. Therefore
you could argue that they had entered relations with another country.
So, are micronations really countries? No, not really. But all it would take is a few
countries to begin recognising one of them and there would be a debate. And the Micronations
we’ve talked about so far have been the lucky ones. The Republic of Rose Island was
an artificial structure 11km off of the coast of Italy. It had a restaurant, bar, nightclub
and post office. Unfortunately, the Italian government saw it as a tourist trap trying
to avoid taxes and promptly invaded and seized the structure. They then strapped explosives
to the supports and blew it into non-existence.
Micronations and their validity are basically in the hands of the recognised powers. Unfortunately,
these tend to be the Micronation is claiming land from. And if you listened at all in history,
you know, they kinda don’t like that. So you might not be able to make your own REAL
country but you can set up your own micronation around your house and have coins,
passports and ban things at customs like walruses.
Walruses are certainly banned and plastic shopping bags
are definitely not allowed because they're also terrible for the enviroment.
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