Terrorists Find That Having Your Own State Is Highly Overrated

A few months ago, I found an entry on WikiHow on the topic: How To Start Your Own Country. I made a mental note--and sent myself a copy of the article to put on my Google email account for safe keeping. I figured that at some point it would be a handy article to have to make a point.

Now it looks like I'm too late.

According to the article:

Anyone can start their own country! That doesn't mean that people will recognize it, but hey, they generally won't stop you from trying--as long as they don't see it as a threat. So if you'd like to do your own thing in your own country, here's how to establish a micronation.

It then goes on to give you the 5 basic steps

1. Find territory for your micronation
   
2. Declare your independence
   
3. Set up a government and constitution
   
4. Acquire citizens
   
5. Decide on symbols for your country
   

The instructions are basic, and seem doable. Under the first step for finding terrirtory you'll find:

Most micronationalists use their houses, land no one wants, or land on other planets. Some micronations exist on land unclaimed by other countries because of a loophole in a treaty. The Republic of Indian Stream, for example, was on land between the U.S. and Canada but is not under the jurisdiction of either because of ambiguous terms in the Treaty of Paris. If you can't find land, though, make some! One millionaire activist piled sand onto a reef located in the Pacific Ocean south of Fiji and created an artificial island to start the Republic of Minerva. But if you're not rich enough to make land, then just make it up--some of the more lighthearted micronations claim land on imaginary continents or planets.

So far, so good--but now it seems that countries based on land are somewhat passe.

In Do the Palestinians Really Want a State?, Robert D. Kaplan writes about the novel ideas expressed in a new paper, The Power of Statelessness by Jakub Grygiel.

Kaplan takes the position that Israel bears a good deal of responsibility for the current situation, but also brings in Grygiel to explain the Palestinian side:

Statehood is no longer a goal, he writes. Many stateless groups “do not aspire to have a state,” for they are more capable of achieving their objectives without one. Instead of actively seeking statehood to address their weakness, as Zionist Jews did in an earlier phase of history, groups like the Palestinians now embrace their statelessness as a source of power.

New communication technologies allow people to achieve virtual unity without a state, even as new military technologies give stateless groups a lethal capacity that in former decades could be attained only by states. Grygiel explains that it is now “highly desirable” not to have a state—for a state is a target that can be destroyed or damaged, and hence pressured politically. It was the very quasi-statehood achieved by Hamas in the Gaza Strip that made it easier for Israel to bomb it. A state entails responsibilities that limit a people’s freedom of action. A group like Hezbollah in Lebanon, the author notes, could probably take over the Lebanese state today, but why would it want to? Why would it want responsibility for providing safety and services to all Lebanese? Why would it want to provide the Israelis with so many tempting targets of reprisal? Statelessness offers a level of “impunity” from retaliation.

But the most tempting aspect of statelessness is that it permits a people to savor the pleasures of religious zeal, extremist ideologies, and moral absolutes, without having to make the kinds of messy, mundane compromises that accompany the work of looking after a geographical space.

It's that last paragraph where I think Kaplan's quote of Grygiel undercuts his point. Islam is more than a religion in the Western sense--in addition to religious tenets and rituals, Islam also has its own language and a strong sense of land and territory. 

Kaplan overlooks the strong bond in Islam between 'religious zeal' on the one hand and 'geographical space' on the other--Islam finds nothing messy or mundane about that linkage at all: land is part and parcel of the religious obligations. And there are no compromises, since Sharia law is the rule.

Leanne Piggott, a lecturer in at the University of Sydney and a director of Academic Programs of the Centre for International Security Studies had a similar insight from a different angle in an article she wrote in July 2004 about the Hague's decision on Israel's Security Fence--Judges' ruling rewrites UN Charter on self-defence:

THE advisory opinion brought down by the International Court of Justice last Friday in relation to Israel's separation barrier has implications far beyond the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Buried deep in the text of its opinion is a bombshell that purports to radically rewrite the rules of international law governing the inherent right of states to defend themselves and their citizens.

The ICJ recognises that this right is enshrined in Article 51 of the UN Charter. But the ICJ then says that this right is limited to self-defence in the case of armed attack "by one state against another state". That limitation does not appear anywhere in the text of Article 51 itself. Article 51 recognises that states have an inherent right of self-defence "if an armed attack occurs". It does not say that the armed attack must have been carried out by, or be attributable to, another state.

The distinction is critical in the on-going struggle against international terrorism. Although every act of terrorism necessarily originates in territory (or aboard a ship or aircraft) that is owned or occupied by a sovereign state, it does not follow that every such act of terrorism is supported by that state, and attributable to it in a legal sense.

The ICJ is now saying that if terrorists based in the territory of state A attack state B without the passive or active support of state A, state B may not have the right to defend itself from future attack by striking back at the terrorist base – despite Article 51.[emphasis added]

From Piggott's perspective, this is a pragmatic as opposed to a philosophical one for the terrorists.

Hizbollah benefits from this kind of interpretation of international law, but does it want to preserve that kind of splintered situation? Hizbollah is an armed faction--one of many, not necessarily a situation that suits its interests. 

Grygiel asks, "Why would it want responsibility for providing safety and services to all Lebanese?" 

The answer is that being able to provide services to the Lebanese differentiates it from being merely a leech that does nothing more than invite attack and destruction from Israel. It allows Hizbollah to create the myth of providing services and not being merely a terrorist organization--and it attracts dedicated followers. This is a situation any terrorist organization under similar situations would face.

Technorati Tag: Terrorism.