Apropos nation-building

Serious Black, Montag, 30. August 2021, 10:08 (vor 1184 Tagen) @ Serious Black

Somaliland’s nonrecognition is an instance of international law, international order, the inviolability of incumbent states, and other such elevated and abstract principles standing in opposition to both common sense and whatever values—peace, self-determination, democracy—the so-called West claims to believe in. “The world has proven to have the wrong criteria,” said Ayan Mahamoud, Somaliland’s former diplomatic representative in the U.K. “To get attention you need to be a troublemaker. The fact that you’re a normal functioning country is not important. Bad behavior gets attention.”

[...]

In the case of Somaliland, Western decision-makers seem to believe that the fixity of the existing state system, and its notional connection to something called the global order, should outweigh the other supposedly highest aim of any political community since 1989, or maybe 1945, or maybe 1776: The organic creation of peaceful, democratic self-governance. As it stands, the international community’s preferred solution to Somaliland’s sovereignty question—reabsorption into the failed Somali state, whose capacity for governance tops out at policing a handful of neighborhoods in Mogadishu during daylight hours—is clearly untenable, maybe even insane.

[...]

Simply by existing, it is Taiwan’s lot in life to undermine the regime in Beijing, which is as noble a purpose as any country has at the moment, whatever the world thinks of its legitimacy as a political entity. In Somaliland, Taiwan is going a step further, aiding in the advancement of ideas and practices that could pose an existential threat to the regime in Beijing on a long enough timeline. Taiwan’s democratic development fund donated $2 million to make the elections in Somaliland happen, which is $2 million more than the United States seems to have contributed, and which marks a touching moment in the history of peoples who insist on forging their own way, regardless of what anyone else thinks.

https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/an-almost-country-in-the-desert