
Remapping the world: maps without political borders - spif
http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1971133_1971110_1971105,00.html
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iskander
>Political borders remain among the most fundamental obstacles to human
progress around the world.

citation?

There has been many examples where throwing unrelated groups into the same
country can causes serious strife. Why would it be different on a global
scale? You still have to allocate resources, provide security, make laws
etc...

The author makes this very point further down:

>A more stable and peaceful arrangement for Sudan would be to focus on
independence for Darfur and South Sudan sooner rather than later, allowing
them to rebuild themselves as smaller states at peace with their neighbors
instead of facing Khartoum's persistent and nefarious undermining from within.

So it's not the borders that are an obstacle to 'human progress', it's the
arbitrary way in which they were drawn by colonial powers.

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davedx
I'm not sure if it's valid to draw conclusions that the peace of the E.U. is
due to its relaxing of border controls, and that we can apply this method to
places like the Middle East. I do agree that infrastructure is a key part of
peace for Palestine-Israel, but Israel seems hell-bent on dismantling all of
Palestine's infrastructure and isolating its communities with corridors for
its transport etc. So, good luck convincing Israel to reverse those policies.

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tententwenty
The EU is at a turning point. A single currency without a single fiscal policy
looks to be unworkable. The EU has either to take on more of the
characteristics of a single country or retreat from the current level of
integration.

Yugoslavia was a previous experiment to have no borders between 6/7 small
countries in Europe. The Soviet Union was another, also Czechoslovakia.

The USA fought a very nasty civil war despite being a country with very little
historical baggage by European standards.

I'm far from certain that a US of Europe is the way forward for the EU

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DanielBMarkham
Sometimes an essay, like a good movie, requires a suspension of disbelief. The
writer paints a picture of a future world and the reader is expected to "play
along" with him in order for him to complete and state his vision.

I found I could not suspend disbelief enough to follow along with this writer.
While he means well, using examples like the Sudan or the Kurds is cherry-
picking at the extreme. After all, his thesis is "maps without borders" It's
one thing to look at a government that's been around for 20 years (or, in the
Kurd example, not really existing yet) and make some generalization. It's
another thing entirely to apply such generalizations to the rest of the world.
He failed with this.

He also meandered quite a bit around resources: pipelines, roads, and such.
I'm sure there was a point there, but heck if I could grasp it.

This is just not such a good article. I'd like to see these ideas explored in
a more cogent fashion though. I think there's an interesting concept in there.

~~~
yummyfajitas
Part of the problem is that he isn't even internally consistent.

Sudan is too large, and should be split up. But also: "Africa can become
economically viable only if its plethora of puny economies merge from more
than 50 into just a few."

So what needs to happen? Merging Africa into a few gigantic balkanized states
with no shared interests (like Sudan), or splitting it up into many small city
states, a few of which will be well run?

~~~
iwwr
"a few of which will be well run?"

A few of which will serve as an example for the rest.

But this: "Merging Africa into a few gigantic balkanized states [...] or
splitting it up" is part of the reason they're doing badly. Being a
battleground for foreign intervention has not allowed much in the way of
economic development.

~~~
anamax
> A few of which will serve as an example for the rest.

Africa has always had a few well run countries. Why will their example help
more in the future than it has in the past?

~~~
iwwr
Speaking in the context of a city-state/small-state fragmentation of the
larger African states.

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hetman
It's a nice idea but it's naive to believe everyone is going to adopt similar
ideologies simply because we remove borders. Will everyone be happy to
compromise? People have different ideas about how things should be run, even
the assumption that deep down everyone really wants western style democracy
seems a little arrogant.

Europe succeeded in the relaxation of its borders because this was preceded by
cultural/ideological homogenisation that took a very long time. This can not
be imposed by policy.

I guess the author realises this to an extent and by the end of the article
much more modest goals are being set. Still it all sounds very vague like it's
kind of meant to somehow take care of itself.

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codebot
>why do we lazily accept the continuing existence of Sudan, a >British
colonial construct joining Arab Muslims and African >Christians in Africa's
second largest country

If you're going to divide political borders into "real" ones maybe you should
start with those within the united states instead of mucking around in Africa.
There is always Cascadia.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cascadia_(independence_movement...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cascadia_\(independence_movement\))

and then you could consider making a state out of New York City since the
culture, religion and ethinic mix is radically different than upstate New York
(That is the kind of criteria the author cites).

and realistically, you could look at most of the big states in the US and
split them up if we're going to start remaking political borders just because
they're old or ineffective. I nominate South Jersey as "Snookiandia". Wow this
could be fun!

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Semiapies
Some foreigner (ie, not from either region) starts pontificating about how
political borders should be redrawn in Africa and the Middle East. It must be
Wednesday.

(Not removed - that's just the mind-numbing pitch that he steps back to just
redrawing borders.)

Meh. I wish I could still flag articles, as this is one of those I-feel-
stupider-for-having-read-it essays.

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mccooscoos
"One obstacle to the realization of a Palestinian state is the fact that the
West Bank and the Gaza Strip are not connected." Yet if they were then Israel
wouldn't be connected and there would be a war between Fatah (West Bank) and
Hamas (Gaza).

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crazygringo
Shameless plug... an old site of mine (2005!), which attempts to
democratically draw "non-political" borders within the US, based on user
responses:

<http://commoncensus.org>

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ctdonath
Political borders were created for a reason. Removing borders will make those
reasons apparent again, and instigate the same violent strife which created
them.

