They Pledge Allegiance to Own Countries

Gregory Green is between countries.

In 1994 he founded The New Free State of Caroline, a small nation-state based on a speck of coral in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. But he lost it five years later in a custody battle with Kiribati, a country that only came into existence itself in 1979.

So now Green, a conceptual artist, is preparing to start again by claiming a pair of small islands in the Indian Ocean.

He’s cagey about exactly where they are.

Unclaimed territory is hard to find these days. Virtually every square inch of the planet’s terrestrial surface has been carved up by the world’s 199 officially recognized nations, leaving nothing for those who want to start their own countries except a few barren rocks sticking out of the Arctic Ocean and maybe a handful of extremely remote coral atolls.

That hasn’t stopped a few bold dreamers from trying. Some of them, like Green, scour maps for as-yet unclaimed territory and try to make it their own through legitimate international channels. Others half-seriously stake out virtual realms in cyberspace or, thinking outside the sphere, boldly go after other planets. A few creative types even try to carve their territory out of existing nations by exploiting technicalities or ambiguities in international law.

Some of these aspiring nation-builders attended a June summit in New York where they shared in the joys and heartbreaks of creating a country from scratch. They were invited for the joint symposium and citizen registration drive by the New School University’s Vera List Center for Art and Politics.

“We claim all the digital territory on the planet,” said Mark Ohe, ambassador to the United States for Elgaland-Vargaland. He pronounces his name as if it were just, “Marco.”

Elgaland-Vargaland also claims all ambiguous territory along the boundaries between other countries, and the oceans for 10 nautical miles beyond the territorial waters of all existing nations. Citizens characterize it as a nation of frontiers.

Not surprisingly, Elgaland-Vargaland’s citizens -- Ohe estimates there are about a thousand -- are all expatriates. Most of them live in Sweden and the New York City area. But they enjoy a rich culture -- Elgaland-Vargaland has a flag, currency, postage stamps and an official song based on an archaic Swedish national anthem.

“It’s not a song I could hum,” Ohe said, apologetically.

Are these guys serious? Hard to tell. Like most invented countries, Elgaland-Vargaland exists mostly in its citizens’ minds.

But when you think about it, beneath all their trappings the world’s “real” countries are essentially just shared notions about how to divide the world’s territory and people. So in a sense, all you have to do to establish your own realm is stake a claim and then convince the world of its legitimacy.

By those criteria, the most successful made-up nation would have to be Sealand. Englishman Roy Bates founded Sealand in 1967 by occupying an abandoned World War II artillery platform 7 miles off the coast of Britain. He proclaimed it an independent state and named himself Prince Roy of Sealand.

Soon after, Bates tested his country’s sovereignty by firing warning shots at a Royal Navy buoy tender passing nearby. He was brought before an English court, but a judge refused to hear the case on the basis that Sealand lay beyond British territorial waters. Since then Britain has extended its territorial waters to a distance of 12 miles from the coast -- but so has Sealand, insisting that the waters between the two countries be split down the middle.

About a decade after the shooting incident, three associates of Bates landed on Sealand with the intention of discussing a business proposition. Bates was not there, but his son Michael the Prince Regent was. A disagreement ensued, and the men ended up imprisoning the prince in Sealand’s kitchen.

Hearing of the situation, the elder Bates immediately flew to Sealand by helicopter and retook the country by force of arms -- or, more accurately, arm (he confronted the intruders with a rifle).

Bates released two of the men right away. But the third held a Sealand passport that Bates had awarded him during a more harmonious era of the young nation’s history. So Bates charged the man with treason and threw him in a brig.

After a few weeks the man’s native land -- a well-known but no longer intact entity called West Germany -- approached the British government to inquire about his whereabouts and condition. The British declined to interfere in Sealand’s affairs.

Confident in its sovereignty, Sealand has embarked on an economic development plan. With the help of a U.S. computer entrepreneur, the Bates family has turned its domain into an offshore “data haven,” where customers can store digital information beyond the reach of less tolerant governments.

Digital media often play a major role in the establishment of nascent nations. On his website, His Serene Majesty Grand Duke Travis of Westarctica claims all of Antarctica between 90 and 150 degrees west longitude. He says he has notified nine countries that “this area will henceforth be known as The Achaean Territory of Antarctica.” The duke has graciously granted all scientific research operations within the realm four years to register their presence with his government.

Roger Kuiper is more of a Mars man. He has some Antarctic claims himself, but his most substantial claims encompass all of Mars, several moons of Saturn and Jupiter, and some swaths of a few other celestial bodies. That’s a pretty impressive empire, considering Kuiper administers it from his Kalamazoo, Mich., apartment.

“The whole idea of creating your own country, your own nation, has a bit of an edge of megalomania about it,” he said.

Green founded the New Free State of Caroline as an artistic statement. He wanted to create a country for all people who feel oppressed by their own lands. And he wanted it to be as real as possible, not just a nice idea.

Green’s art is notorious for its authenticity. He has run into legal problems in the past for his realistic replicas of bombs, both nuclear and conventional, and an installation that proposed a means of dosing 10,000 people with LSD.

Green wants his new nation to be similarly provocative.

After doing some research, he concluded that a piece of land would have to meet three requirements to be suitable for the establishment of a nation-state. First, it would have to be uninhabited. Second, there could be no evidence that the ancestors of any existing indigenous group had ever permanently occupied it. Third, it had to be either unclaimed by any existing nation or subject to a territorial dispute involving two or more states.

The island of Caroline appeared to meet all three criteria when Green founded his country in 1994. It was uninhabited, appeared to have been so for some time and had been claimed over the years by five countries.

So Green threw his hat into the ring. He wrote letters notifying the United Nations and various other international bodies of his intentions on Caroline. He recruited about 2,000 citizens. He designed a flag, established embassies (usually art galleries) in major world cities and set up pirate radio stations to give his citizens access to the airwaves.

Then, in 1999, Green learned of archeological finds showing that prehistoric people once lived on Caroline. That gave Kiribati, a nation of 33 coral reefs inhabited by the descendants of ancient Pacific Islanders, firm possession of the island.

“It was basically Gilligan’s Island,” he said, mourning the loss of a carefree utopia that he’d never set foot on.