The government of Abkhazia and the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization take issue with Graeme Wood's "Limbo World."
Foreign Policy, March/April 2010
After spending only a few days in our country, Graeme Wood ("Limbo World,"
January/February 2010) dismissed Abkhazia as a "fake" country filled
with "functionaries in neckties" whose language is a "linguistic freak
show." Wood's flippant tone shows a lack of respect for our people and
history. His misrepresentation of Abkhazia, past and present, is
disappointing and discouraging.
On Dec. 12, in a turnout of 73 percent,
100,740 Abkhazians cast votes for a chief executive. President Sergei
Bagapsh was re-elected with 59.4 percent of the vote in a vigorously
contested race, declared fair and free of fraud by both international
observers and local NGOs.
This is the third presidential election
my country has held since gaining independence from Georgia in a bloody
war 16 years ago. Despite ongoing hostilities from our larger neighbor,
Abkhazia is rebuilding its war-damaged schools and hospitals and
rewriting laws to meet international standards.
We are expanding relations with
countries such as Russia and Turkey, modernizing our tourism industry
so that visitors to the 2014 Sochi Olympics can enjoy our beaches, and
rebuilding libraries so the next generation has the historical
understanding to avoid past mistakes.
I do agree with Wood on one point: The
post-Cold War world has not devised a satisfactory method for
determining a country's legitimacy.
Still, while the justices at the
International Court of Justice in The Hague debate the legitimate
markers of statehood, Abkhazia's people are building a country. Like
the founders of the United States, Abkhazians have sacrificed their
lives and livelihoods for independence and understand that the mantle
of nationhood is earned. We cherish that opportunity. We hope that
someday Wood will return to our country with an open mind and a
willingness to see what we are creating: one nation, indivisible, with
liberty and justice for all.
—Nadir Bitiev
Deputy Official Representative to the President of the Republic of Abkhazia
Sukhum, Abkhazia
We welcome Graeme Wood's analysis of so-called "limbo" states, but
fear that it will remain little more than an enjoyable series of
colorful pen-pictures. His references to "fake countries" and "wannabe
states" are intended to be wry, but undermine the significant role
played by what are more accurately described as "de facto states."
The very real contribution that de facto states make to good
governance and democracy, both regionally and within their own
territories, goes beyond mass production of miniature desk flags. The
glib description of Somalilanders doing "quite a bit of dying for their
land and for their spaghetti" does not progress our understanding, but
worse, risks reinforcing false perceptions.
It's disappointing that little attention is devoted to the fact that
many de facto states enjoy more vibrant democracies and accountable
institutions than many U.N. member states. It fell to Maxim Gundjia,
Abkhazia's deputy foreign minister, to make this point in the article,
referring to the quality of life in Afghanistan.
We must ask why there is such reluctance, in a globalized world, to
open the United Nations beyond its current 192 states. It is, after
all, a community of nations, and to do so would be to democratize the
international system.
Wood's article adds to the growing corpus of articles and study into
de facto states, and we hope it will not be his last on the subject. We
might have hoped that it would dwell on newer ground, but it is
nevertheless important in ensuring that debate about the future global
system does not remain in a state of limbo itself.
—Marino Busdachin
General Secretary
Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization
The Hague, The Netherlands
Graeme Wood replies:
Nadir Bitiev and Marino Busdachin wish that I took limbo states more
seriously. I assure them that I regularly treat more established states
with equal or greater insouciance in my writing and that in my
experience the ability to welcome gentle ribbing is a mark of a country
that has arrived.
I must correct one false impression. Bitiev assumes my description
of the Abkhaz language as a "linguistic freak show" is snide, when in
fact the vice here is jealousy. I wish I spoke a language as eccentric
as his own. Abkhaz (which, incidentally, has produced a rich
literature, some of it available in translation) has 67 consonants and
only one vowel, giving it one of the most skewed ratios of any tongue.
Like many limbo states, Abkhazia was born in a moment of ethnic
conflict, in this case related to Abkhazians' understandable fear that
they would occupy a second-class status in Georgia. Part of ethnic
pride is linguistic pride, so I can understand tetchiness on this
point. But I would encourage Abkhazians to embrace the oddity of their
language, as I have in my so far unsuccessful attempts to learn it.
Source: Foreign Policy
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