The Arizona Republic (newspaper in Phoenix), Sunday, December 27, 1992
Map inset sidebars:
AFRICA
Ethiopia loses northern Eritrea and Tigre to secession and southern
Ogaden to Somalia. Kasai and mineral-rich Katanga secede from Zaire.
Sudan splits into two. South Africa splits into three pieces,
creating "Azania" and "Zululand" in the process.
ASIA
In Russia, new states emerge in the Far East, the Urals, and East and West
Siberia; assorted small ethnic enclaves such as Tatarstan and Dogeston gain
independence, and places like Kaliningrad, Tuva and Buryat become virtually
independent autonomous zones.
India loses Punjab and part of Kashmir, Afghanistan breaks into at least
three ethnic pieces. A large part of Kazakhstan secedes to join Russia.
Despite the longstanding dominance of the Han Chinese, Tibet and Xinjiang
move out on their own. Taiwan is absorbed, while Inner Mongolia merges
with independent Mongolia. Three new areas, Inner, North and Southeast
China, gain autonomy, while developed Guangdong and Shanghai become
quasi-independent economic hubs more like present-day Hong Kong than
Beijing. The Philippines loses Muslim-dominated Mindinao.
AUSTRALIA
Breaks up into four pieces, giving birth to new states like "Swanland,"
named after the river in the west, and "Aboland," offer the aborigines
in the north.
EUROPE
Samiland is carved from the northern Lapp-populated area of Norway,
Sweden and Finland, then joins the northern regions of Canada and
Russia in the new Circumpolar Arctic Confederation.
Brittany splits from France. Belgium disintegrates into the new
states of Wallonia and Flanders.
The long-rebellious Basque and Catalan regions formally leave Spain.
NORTH AMERICA
Canada, as it has been known, disappears altogether.
Over time, even the United States takes on different form,
disintegrating into regions grouped by major industries or
agricultural products.
Mexico separates into four or more distinct pieces.
SOUTH AMERICA
Brazil breaks up into three autonomous pieces.
[MAIN ARTICLE]
Map may be in for quite a face lift
Vast change, explosion of new nations foreseen
By Robin Wright
Los Angeles Times
WASHINGTON --- Imagine a world in which Scotland gains independence from
the United Kingdom and Italy divides in half. Russia and China both
fragment into a dizzying array of new states, and Canada disappears
altogether.
Along the way, a host of new states --- including Samiland, Pushtunistan
and Zululand --- are born.
And those are only a few of the possibilities that a panel of eminent
political geographers predict for the next decade as the world map is
redrawn.
The scope of coming changes in the world's frontiers will be among the
most profound in history, they say, and the pace may set a record.
"What we're dealing with is the re-creation of countries," said William
Wood, the State Department's chief geographer.
Over the next 25 to 30 years, the world roster may increase by 50 percent
or more.
"There'll be more than 300 countries," predicted Saul B. Cohen, past
president of the Association of American Geographers.
Some of the changes these geographers foresee may seem logical probabilities;
others appear outlandish conjectures. But they are made by people whose
occupation is studying the relationship of physical geography and national
borders to political culture, sociology and history.
Moreover, in context, their forecasts for the turn of the century are
hardly out of line. Even before the Summer Games in Barcelona were over
last year and the 172 teams that competed there headed for home, for
example, Olympic planners had started preparing for more than 200
participating states at the 1996 Atlanta Games.
The political geographers do not agree on all the details of the future
world map. But they do agree that recharting the globe will be the
byproduct of several concurrent trends, ranging from the powerful pull
of ethnicity and the spread of democracy to changes in the very concept
of a modern state.
First, some borders will be altered as nations break away from
traditional states, as has happened painfully in Yugoslavia over the
past year and peacefully in Czechoslovakia.
"Borders of present countries or so-called natural boundaries will
increasingly lose their importance when they do not correspond to
well-recognized linguistic and territorial identities," said Fabrizio
Eva, an Italian geographer.
Second, other new countries will be added as the last colonies become
independent countries --- the dominant trend during the second half of
the 20th century and evident most recently when the Soviet empire's
collapse spawned 15 new states.
"We are now in a major new phase of demands for 'self-determination' ---
demands which, if all are acceded to, will result in significant changes
to the world's political map at both state and sub-state levels," said
David B. Knight, chairman of a special Commission on the World Political
Map of the International Geographers Union.
On a third and more sweeping level, the new lines on a map will be
produced by fundamental changes in the role of states, largely in
response to economic and social pressures and political alienation.
"The current changes in the political and economic geography of the world
are as significant as what the world went through after the Treaty of
Westphalia," said George Demko, a geographer and director of the
Rockefeller Center at Dartmouth College.
That 1648 peace accord, ending Europe's Thirty Years War, was a turning
point in the rise of modern states.
"As we're challenging the traditional ideas of state sovereignty,
globalizing economies and communications, and breaking up the last
empires, the geography of the world is unhooking old connections and
hooking up new ones," Demko said.
"Along with borders, the dynamics and functions of states will change, too."
Much of the first two phases in the global reconfiguration may take place
within the next decade, but this part of the process is likely to last
well into the 21st century, geographers said.
And the countries that emerge from the process may bear little
resemblance to today's states.
"Many states won't have armies, only police. And some (new) states will
allow dual citizenship with former host countries, as in the Baltics with
the Russian population, or ethnic groups with their place of origin,"
Cohen said.
A stratified system of governance and power is likely to replace
traditional states.
"At the top will be a stronger United Nations or an equivalent body
responsible for peace, environment and other global issues," predicted
Julian Minghi, U.S. representative to the Geographical Union's
Commission on the World Political Map.
He places such regional groupings as the European Community on the
second tier, while the tiny ethnically and linguistically based
miniature states of the future will be the lowest level.
Already, at least 17 regional blocs --- from Latin America's Southern
Cone Common Market to Central Asia's Economic Cooperation Organization
--- are reshaping the globe. The latest is the new continental pact
forming the North American Free Trade Agreement, completed earlier
this month among the United States, Canada and Mexico and awaiting
confirmation by those countries' legislatures.
"It's a bit radical," Minghi conceded of the idea that today's large
countries will break up to become tomorrow's tiny states. "But it's
what we're evolving toward."
To avoid being marginalized in traditional states, for example,
communities are increasingly likely to seek smaller alternatives that
are more familiar, convenient and accountable to them, a trend more
important in larger or densely populated states. The possibilities
range from Canada's Quebec to Iraq's Kurdistan.
The dimensions of change are almost certain to provoke an international
debate over the next decade on a basic issue: Should the world's current
powers give priority to the right of self-determination, thereby
potentially threatening the current configuration of states? Or should
they be committed to preserving territorial integrity --- potentially
at the expense of individual rights?
The United States was founded on the principle of self-determination, but
since the onset of global change in 1989, Washington has supported
territorial integrity in both Yugoslavia and Iraq --- largely due to
fears of fragmentation and its rippling effect both in the Balkans and
the Persian Gulf.
"The tendency now and in the future will be to preserve the status quo,"
said the State Department's Wood. "The United Nations is the best
example. Its member states are recognized governments with control
over defined space."
But experts at this month's 27th International Geographical Congress
in Washington suggested self-determination often will prevail.
More than ever before, "political movements are inclined toward a
subdivision within states," said Eva, the Italian geographer.
Because up to a third of the world's current states face border
challenges either from neighboring nations or from minorities at home,
geographers already are urging steps to prevent repetitions of the
bloody conflict in what used to be Yugoslavia.
"What we will need is a U.N. commission on border modification to
adjudicate and initiate negotiations before fighting erupts," said
H.J. de Blij of Georgetown University.
In the longer term, the political geographers think the importance of
borders will actually wane, as economic and technological interdependence
span not only states, but continents.
"The notion of boundaries as we've known them, in terms of absolute
sovereignty and legalities, will in time dwindle," Minghi said.
In the meantime, however, the number of states will grow.
"For the next decade, we cannot stop the trend," Eva said. "Afterward,
the wish for cooperation will prevail.
"I am a pessimist for the next decade, but I'm optimistic over the
long term."
PREDICTING HOW THE WORLD WILL SHAPE UP
Los Angeles Times
A Log Angeles Times panel of political geographers offered several rules of
thumb about what physical features help determine whether a state will work
or fail. Among them:
* Long, thin states are problematic --- "Elongated states run infrastructure
risks that more compact states do not have," said H.J. de Blij of
Georgetown University's Foreign Service Institute. Over long distances,
highways, air links, social-service facilities and other basic needs
are costlier and less efficient. Remoteness also spawns alienation.
Example: Italy may split between the industrialized north and the rural
and poorer south.
"In northern Italy, there's a strong anti-Rome movement. People aren't
anti-Italian, but they don't want to subsidize a massive bureaucracy,
throwing money away on the south," said Julian Minghi, U.S. representative
to the International Geographical Union's Commission on the World
Political Map. "They want a separate economy and cultural identity
in the north."
* Topography can spell trouble --- If ethnic, social or economic
disparities correlate with stark differences in a country's topography,
it can exacerbate pressure for border changes.
Example: Peru is seen as a candidate for partition dividing the interior
mountains --- home to poorer Indians and mestizos --- and the comparatively
affluent, European-dominated coast.
* Large states tend to have large problems --- "On the one hand, large
states have a variety of resources and a lot of people to recruit for
the army," Minghi said. "But at the same time, they have a tremendous
area to defend and to integrate politically."
Examples: India, Russia, Kazakhstan, Sudan, Zaire, China, Brazil and Canada.
[INSET]
RE-MAPPING NORTH AMERICA
Some may think of the U.S. borders as some of the most permanent in the
world, but even the United States is not immune from forces that a panel
of political geographers sees reshaping the globe.
UNITED STATES AND CANADA
The western United States and Canadian provinces integrate their economies
with Asia's Pacific Rim. Alaska, British Columbia, Washington and Oregon
also may be emboldened to create their own "zone," either autonomous or
independent.
Geographers tentatively dub the new state, stretching from the Arctic's
Beaufort Sea to the sunny climes of northern California, "Pacifica."
Even after losing "Pacifica" and "Angelica," the United States may be
vulnerable to further splits. A map designed by Stanley D. Brunn, an
International Geographical Union panelist from the University of Kentucky,
divides America into nine other independent or autonomous zones, not
necessarily coinciding with current state boundaries.
They include Gulf Coast Zone, pulling together Florida with the
southern parts(ports?) of Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana, and an
industry state grouping all of Michigan and Wisconsin, northern chunks
of Illinois, Indiana and Ohio, and western Pennsylvania.
CANADA
Canada is wrangling to keep Quebec part of the country. Over time,
Canada's stranded Maritimes could join the United States, while Alberta
and Saskatchewan merge and go on their way and the Indian- and
Eskimo-deominated north joins a polar confederation.
UNITED STATES AND MEXICO
On the other U.S. border, the increasingly fuzzy demarcation line between
the United States and Mexico could evolve into another new zone,
tentatively called, "Angelica" by geographers. The rest of Mexico
may then fragment into three or more parts.
--
Terry W. Colvin, Sierra Vista, Arizona (USA) < fortean1@mindspring.com >
Alternate: < terry_colvin@hotmail.com >
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