Micronation
Example
Discussion
Micronations vs 'Microcultures'
Franz Nahrada:
"Many, if not all MicroNations rely to some extent on the sovereignty of "their" macronation, they have come to some kind of agreement or modus vivendi - this is a sharp distinction to things like those sovereign citizens movements that are facing crackdowns and permanent confrontation.
No matter how serious and existential the claim of people here for sovereignty is - motivations for the creation of micronations include a wide spectrum from theoretical experimentation to political protest, artistic expression, deep self-realization or even just personal entertainment - I think they all are wise enough to understand that is a matter of skillful and creative disobedience while understanding the limits that make micronational endeavors survive and which Erwin Strauss has described so well in "Start Your Own Country"
Micronations are a historically recent phenomenon - which I strongly suggest is a child of the Counterculture Movement of the Sixties. Many attempts of the sixties and seventies like Sealand or Hutt River Province were what Lonely Planets Guide calls "Serious Business". But the advent of the internet changed everything
Between role-playing, political laboratory and artistic intervention, more and more micronations are trying to shape their community and create a collective feeling by reaching out. Thus I think it is more than the repeating story of "the many 'wacky' young men deciding that life is unfair and setting up a nation in their bedroom" (Jo Sargent, writing in The Geographical Magazine about the lonely Planet Guide to Micronations).
And this is exactly the reason for my speech here: Micronations are IMHO an expression of cultural creativity that reflects the growing inadequacy of our existing national narratives facing the emerging global society. Still there is this paradox: they express themselves in the language and symbolism of the very forces they are confronted with - does that mean it is a kind of identification with the aggressor? Or is it rather a subversive move to mock the "Makronational Narratives" that we chose not to buy into?
Maybe this questions will soon be obsolete, since we face an unprecedented and very swift transition to authoritarianism even in and especially in Western democracies and therefore the erosion of the fragile ground of civil liberties on which the micronational phenomenon could flourish, relatively undisturbed, for decades . ˧
But this is exactly the reason I decided to come here and talk to you. We have to counter the growing restrictions that on one hand come under the guise of protecting some identities - we have seen that shift to "identity politics" wildly in the recent years - , but on the other hand threat anybody who questions the state - like Germany’s Minister of the Internal Security, Nancy Faeser, Socialist party, said that citizens must no longer be allowed to even mock the government, once a cornerstone of democracy and free speech. Anything that might endanger the "welfare of the state", even a harmless joke, could be met my the brute force of the state. And yes, we have increasingly been witnessing, that this is meant seriously. ˧
I think it is just fair to meet this development - which is quite openly and boldly connected to the synchronous aim to make the respective nation "ready for war" - with an entirely different project and perspective. So I want to remind you of a dream a Swiss author - who for decades used the alias P.M., but recently lifted the veil, his real name is Hans Widmer) - already had in the early eighties: that the future of this planet should not consist of nations, neither big nor small, but of millions of village-sized MicroCultures. Seriously. And that the connection of these Villages is not based on "hard" nations, but "soft" regions.
(http://www.dorfwiki.org/wiki.cgi?FranzNahrada/Speech_Micro_Euro_Summit_2024)
More information
A directory of micronations and related libertarian projects:
- Free Citadels: "Explore the organisations that plan and build freedom communities".
URL = https://freecitadels.com