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History will be made in August 2003 when odd-looking flags will be streaming in the wind and tunes unheard will turn out as national anthems: the famous Finlandia house will be filled with kings, presidents and representatives of self-made states. Furthermore the old bunkers of Harakka island will be turned into temporary embassies where anybody courageous enough to pay a visit has the chance to get to know what micronations are all about. Even applications for citizenship are available for those who take a liking to any particular micronation to be found there! All this takes place during the performance festival Amorph!03, which hosts the first ever summit of micronations at 29-31 August 2003 in Helsinki. Sounds like a big boys’ role-playing game? We believe that a more thorough reflection on the micronation issue can open new doors for discussions about the basics of power relations of today’s world, as well as the possibilities and problems of networking across borders.
Micronations have something very fascinating about them – discussions seem to bring out passionate reactions. The issue provokes us to consider the conflicts of our time: for example on the one hand the basic human need of assembling in groups, on the other hand our society’s celebration of extreme individualism. Micronations remind us of the childhood´s game «If I was the king, I would command that…». As children we didn’t see the issue of power as complicated as we do now. All these things touch our dreams of freedom as well as our deep fears of being restricted to our own worlds.
Micronations can demonstrate beautifully how the mechanisms of nation-building are functioning, especially in regard to national histories, which rather present an appropriately acceptable past than an accurate version of history. Just playing with the idea of starting your own country reminds us of how much our daily life is influenced by state authority. Printing money, designing stamps and issuing passports leads into a power game with the larger states. The question is how far does one have to go before the state will interfere? Our first thought was that the state couldn´t care less, that these projects are easily regarded just as games. But examples such as Sealand and Ladonia prove that micronationprojects can lead into an intervention within the political arena which the state might regard as problematic.
The lack of participation is one of the major deficiencies of democracy. For example in most democratic countries the average citizen casts a vote only every 4 or 5 years. It is interesting to speculate about how the inner dynamics of a micronation works from this point of view: as people aren´t usually born into a micronation, their citizens have made a concious choice to apply for a citizenship. This makes a big difference in the attitude towards your country: one can suppose that the citizens of micronations assume quite an active role and political responsibility in their new country. However, these kind of assumptions are unpredictable, as the citizenship of a micronation can often have quite surprising connotations, not related to a citizenship in a normal state. This publication, as well as the whole Amorph!03 conference, tries to shed light on the micronations’ thoughts about citizenship. Documents will present the necessary materials and basic information of the phenomenon of micronations.
Since the Amorph!03 summit is an experiment, we can only speculate it’s outcome and the meaning of bringing the selected micronations together for the first time ever. During Amorph!03 we will see how the micronations can interact with each other: one of the definitions of statehood is the capacity to enter into relations with other states. We will carefully document this event in order to afterwards produce a second publication entitled Protocols.
Helsinki, July 24, 2003
Tellervo Kalleinen and Oliver Kochta
Curators of Amorph!03
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