323 – Taking Note of Old Europe

A – “Now you’re thinking of Europe as Germany and France. I don’t. I think that’s Old Europe. If you look at the entire NATO Europe today, the center of gravity is shifting to the East. And there are a lot of new members. And if you just take the list of all the members of NATO and all of those who have been invited in recently — what is it? Twenty-six, something like that? — you’re right. Germany has been a problem, and France has been a problem (…)”

Q – “But opinion polls –”

A – “But — just a minute. Just a minute. But you look at vast numbers of other countries in Europe. They’re not with France and Germany on this, they’re with the United States.”

That exchange, in 2003, between then US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and (Dutch) TV journalist Charles Groenhuijsen, was about the level of support in Europe for American designs on Iraq. Rumsfeld ruffled the feathers of traditional US allies in Western Europe by suggesting that their opposition to US invasion plans mattered less now the ‘centre of gravity’ in Europe had shifted towards Eastern European states. These states, only recently freed from the Soviet yoke, were more appreciative of US foreign policy than Western European countries, Rumsfeld suggested.

There are other definitions of what “Old Europe” is. The time before the French Revolution (1789), when royalty ruled, privileged few profited and the masses were voiceless serfs, has sometimes been called ”Old Europe” (although more commonly defined as the Ancien Regime). Europe is also old demographically – low birthrates combining with long life expectancy to make the average age of Europeans the highest in the world.

And Europe is part of the “Old World”, because it was known to the Ancients (this also included parts of Africa and Asia), as opposed to the “New World” (i.e. the American continent, only opened up to European exploration, expansion and exploitation from 1492 onward).

“Old Europe” is also the name of this work by artist Justine Smith, composed of the national bank notes of all European countries. The Europe in this map is “old” in that it is composed of bank notes as they existed before the introduction of the single European currency. On January 1, 2002, coins and bank notes in euro replaced the national currencies of most EU member countries at that time.

The Eurozone now comprises 15 of Europe’s 27 member states, with three older members actively having opted out (i.e. the UK, Denmark and Sweden) and most of the newer members slated for inclusion (once their economy performs within certain parameters). Here are the present members of the Eurozone, with their former currencies:

• Austria (schilling)
• Belgium (franc)
• Cyprus (pound)
• Finland (markka)
• France (franc)
• Germany (mark)
• Greece (drachma)
• Ireland (pound)
• Italy (lira)
• Luxembourg (franc, pegged 1:1 to the Belgian franc)
• Malta (lira)
• Netherlands (guilder)
• Portugal (escudo)
• Slovenia (tolar – cognate with dollar)
• Spain (peseta)

Slovakia is slated to join on January 1, 2009, thereafter retiring its national currency, the koruna. As with all other Eastern European countries that have joined the EU (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria) was obliged at its accession to adopt the euro. The others will do so when the conditions are met.

The euro is also the de facto currency of a number of European countries that are not members of the European Union (a precondition to be de jure part of the Eurozone): the Vatican, Monaco and San Marino (Liechtenstein uses the Swiss franc, by the way), and the former Yugoslav republics of Kosovo and Montenegro.

The euro has defied prophecies of monetary doom, becoming a strong and internationally respected currency, steadily gaining on the dollar. It has also eliminated the costly necessity of converting currencies within (most of) the European Union. I don’t know if this is true or if it is euro-propaganda, but to illustrate the negative economic impact of these conversions, it was said that you could take any amount of any currency in the pre-euro EU, convert that amount into each other currency until you were back at the original one, and be left with half the original amount of money – without having traded a single thing.

The downside of currency unification is the de-diversification of European money, which used to have very distinct national flavours (metaphorically speaking, of course). Nowadays, bank notes in euro look the same everywhere, as do the euro coins, with the difference that the latter are stamped on one side with a national design by the country they’re minted for.

You are hereby cordially invited to identify the national heroes and motifs represented on the notes on this map (and other now obsolete ones you might have fond memories of).

This map, sent in by The Fashioniste, is one of a series made with bank notes by artist Justine Smith (another one, inevitably, is Euro Europe, made up of euro notes).

322 – The ‘claves of Liechtenstein

  

 

The tiny, obscure alpine principality of Liechtenstein seems to exist as mainly a repository of arcane distinctions:

• At 160.4 sq. km (62 sq. mi), Liechtenstein is one of the smallest independent countries in the world (#189 out of 194 according to Nationmaster).
• In Europe, however, it is one of the bigger mini-states; San Marino, Monaco and Vatican City are smaller.
• But Liechtenstein is the smallest German-speaking country in the world, in population as well as size (there are only about 35,000 Liechtensteiners). It is also the only German-speaking country not to recognise officially any other language next to German (1).
• It is also the smallest country bordering more than one other country; Liechtenstein is hemmed in by Switzerland to the west, and Austria to the east.
• The country took its name from the dynasty that ruled it (usually it’s the other way round). The dynasty got its name from somewhere, of course, i.c. faraway Castle Liechtenstein (”bright stone”) at the edge of the Wienerwald, south of Vienna.
• By disbanding its 80-man strong army in 1868, Liechtenstein may have been the first country in the (modern) world without an organised military force.
• Prince Franz I (born 1853, ruled 1929-1938) was married to a Viennese noblewoman of Jewish descent – probably the only Jewish crowned head in Europe, an especially poignant position in those especially anti-semitic times. Franz I abdicated in 1938 because he couldn’t bear the thought of the Nazis invading while he was on the throne. As it happened, they respected the principality’s neutrality (although the local Nazi sympathisers agitated against Franz I’s wife).
• After World War II, Liechtenstein offered asylum to 500 Russian soldiers who fought on the German side – a staggeringly high number, considering the small population had difficulties feeding itself. Argentina eventually agreed to take them in.
• During the Cold War, all Liechtensteiners were forbidden entry into Czechoslovakia, which had nationalised huge tracts of land formerly held by the Liechtenstein dynasty.
• Although landlocked, Liechtenstein’s lenient banking regulations have made it such a fiscal paradise that it is often included in the top lists of ‘offshore’ tax havens.
• In 2003, the ruling prince Hans-Adam threatened to leave the country if he lost a referendum on expanding his powers. He won, making Liechtenstein the only European country in modern history where the monarchy’s power increased. The prince can now veto laws and dismiss governments – making the principality the closest thing present-day Europe has to an absolutist monarchy.

Another distinction is visible only when seeing a map of the borders of Liechtenstein’s Gemeinden (communes) such as this one. Liechtenstein as a whole has an unremarkable teardrop shape, but the subnational entities are fragmented to such an extent that, internally, Liechtenstein looks like a crazy patchwork quilt. It must be the most exclave-rich country in the world, at least relative to the rather small number of subnational entities.

I use the word ‘exclave’ instead of the more currently used term ‘enclave’. The meanings of these terms overlap, but only partially (2). And the distinction is particularly clear in these cases.

While many of these Liechtensteinian fragments might be considered exclaves, most also border more than one other territory, and consequently only three can be considered enclaves (which are totally surrounded by only one other territory): the communes of Schaan and Planken each contain an enclave of each other within their main territory (each enclave in this case naturally also being an exclave), Schaan also containing an enclave of Vaduz (which, from the point of view of Vaduz, is an exclave, of course).

• Vaduz, the capital of the country, is the most fragmented of Liechtenstein’s 11 communes. It consists of 6 distinct territorial units, one of which is a true enclave within the commune of Schaan. The name Vaduz might derive from aquaeductus (’aqueduct’) or from vallis thiudisk (’valley of the [German] people’), its either/or origin reflecting that, linguistically, Liechtenstein was in a contact zone between romance and germanic cultures.
• the commune of Balzers consists of three incontiguous areas.
• Triesenberg, consisting of two separate parts, is the largest commune of the principality.
• Schaan, the most populous commune, is all over the place, with three large chunks of territory in the north, centre and south of the principality – plus two exclaves in Planken.
• Planken, which counts less than 400 inhabitants, is the least populous of Liechtenstein’s communes. It consists of two larger bits of territory, and two smaller exclaves, one of which is also an enclave in Schaan.
• Eschen, in the north, is made up of a large, medium and small portion. Its neighbour Gamprin is made up of two parts.
• The communes of Ruggell, Schellenberg, Mauren and Triesen consist of (only) one part each.

This map found in the Atlas of Liechtenstein at Wikimedia Commons.

PS – the map looks a bit iffy just above where the name PLANKEN is printed. I assumed the corridor linking what looks like a second exclave of Schaan to that commune’s main territory is part of Schaan itself, making that exclave contiguous (and therefore not an exclave). This was consistent with the information I have on the number and location of communal enclaves. Two comments convinced me that the Schaan corridor is in fact a Vaduz exclave. Any more info, please send. 

(1) See comments for more on official languages in Germany other than German.

(2) Map nerd alert: When the distinction between enclave and exclave is less important or not relevant, imprecision can be avoided by syncopating either term to ‘clave.

321 – The Forgotten Kingdom of Araucania-Patagonia

 

Almost a century and a half after Orélie-Antoine de Tounens assumed the title of King of Araucania-Patagonia, his descendants still lay claim to the throne of that putative monarchy at the southern tip of South America.

The website that maintains a flicker of hope for Araucania-Patagonian* independence states that De Tounens, a French lawyer, was crowned King by the native Mapuche (or Araucana) Indians. This sounds a bit on the self-serving side of far-fetched, considering the Mapuche’s long history of violent and successful resistance to foreign domination of any kind, be it Inca, Spanish or Chilean.

Especially since King Orélie-Antoine I, when exiled to Paris by the Chilean government, made no bones of referring to his distant and rather inhospitable realm as la Nouvelle France, to drum up support for his cause and convince enough of his countrymen to become colonists in the new state.

Surely, the Mapuche would have minded French dominion about as much as they objected to Chilean supremacy. Only at the time, the former seemed less likely than the latter, which is what the Mapuche must have thought, if the crowning of the Frenchman was entirely their idea.

The Kingdom of Araucania-Patagonia was proclaimed on 17 November 1860 to comprise the Mapuche tribal areas south of the Rio Biobio in Chile. Four days later, the new King extended his claim to include all lands south of the Rio Negro in Argentina, all the way down to the Straits of Magellan.

The Kingdom’s first and only resident monarch established his capital at the town of Perquenco, whence he was chased by a Chilean military expedition that eventually led to the pacification, occupation and annexation of Araucania.

After his expulsion in 1862, the King mounted three unsuccessful expeditions to reclaim his throne, and died in France in 1878. The kingdom has been a geopolitical chimera ever since. For a very brief moment in 1984 (and again in 1998), the Kingdom regained actual physical form when a man named Jean Raspail** floated the Royal Araucania-Patagonian flag over Les Minquiers, a small archipelago in the English Channel. Formally part of the British-ruled Channel Islands, he proclaimed them to be la Patagonie septentrionale (‘Northern Patagonia’).

Although Araucania-Patagonia was never recognised by any other nation, the royal family has never relinquished its claim to the throne. To this day, there is a pretender – Prince Philippe of Araucania. Chances of his ever wielding the sceptre over an antipodean version of Quebec are very small indeed. His Royal Highness does seem to be involved in fighting for the cultural rights of the Mapuche Indians, who currently number about 1 million in Argentina and Chile together.

Many thanks to Diego Carando for pointing out the website www.araucania.org, which contains this map of the Kingdom here. 

* Or should that be Araucanian-Patagonian?

** In 1981, Raspail won the Prix roman de l’Academie francaise for his novel Moi, Antoine de Tounens, roi de Patagonie. He was also consul-general for Arauncania-Patagonia.

320 – Put That In Your Pipe And Smoke It: Italo Disco

 

PERTINI DANCE (by S.C.O.R.T.A., 1984)

“What a superstar to be, is the best you can see.

Yes this is a brave man, oh. The first Italian man,

To the people in square, ‘Who is he, a king?’ – ‘Oh no’.

Well I see you just now, you’re a genius, wow.”

CHORUS:

“Let’s go. Right. Go go.

Let’s dance. Pertini super disco dance.

Let’s dance. Pertini super disco dance.

Just the music, just the music, just the music.”

The music is bad, the English is awful*, and yet the song was a hit. Apparently. In Italy, in 1984. Time and date might help explain why, because the Pertini Dance is an example of so-called Italo Disco, a primitive form of electronic music that was popular in continental Europe in the late 1970s and early 1980s**. The musical outfit S.C.O.R.T.A. (’scorta’ is Italian for ‘escort’) was responsible for the hit, and was never heard of before or after it.

The Pertini Dance was a hommage (if one can call it that) to Alessandro (’Sandro’) Pertini (1896-1990), at that time the President of Italy (1978-1985). The eternal pipe-smoker was probably the most popular president Italy has had so far. Pertini, a socialist, was born in Liguria, elected to the first post-war Italian parliament and designated to preside of the Chamber of Deputies before becoming President of the Republic.

The record sleeve shows the whole of Italy wafting forth from Pertini’s pipe, even with separate tufts of smoke for Sicily and Sardinia. The image is of course somewhat reminiscent of Rene Magritte’s surrealist painting of a pipe, entitled La trahison des images (’The Treachery of Images’) and adorned with the phrase Ceci n’est pas une pipe (’This Is Not A Pipe’). Which is of course correct, as the title describes not a pipe, but a painting of one.

Many thanks to The Fashioniste for sending in this map.

* You have been warned. Here is a clip of the song on You Tube (audio only, though).

** Italo Disco describes a phenomenon in Italy in particular but all over continental Europe in general; I am not sure how much it overlaps with the term ‘Euro Disco’.

319 – “Ours Is A Special World”

 

“I was contemplating the logo and slogan of `The Hospitality Industry`, the vaguely named corporation that apparently makes foil/paper wrappers for hamburgers, wondering just what `Special World` they were talking about,” writes `Abner Cadaver, hamburger eater`. ”Then I realized the world depicted had only vague similarities to our own – the Hospitality Industry inhabits a `special world` of tectonics gone horribly, horribly awry.”

Indeed.

Florida and Cuba have merged to form one giant peninsula of the North American continent, jutting deep into an islandless Caribbean. Canada`s Far North only boasts one island – or none, if that is Greenland, split in two. The British Isles are presented as a single blob, while smaller dots in the North Atlantic mark out probably Iceland, and possibly Spitsbergen. Denmark and Italy have melted away from the European continent, and the Mediterranean is broadly connected to the Atlantic and Indian Oceans by Africa`s drifting south. Madagascar is counter-drifting north, towards India. Most of Asia is hidden from sight, the visible part of the mainland dominated by two huge lakes, the Black/Caspian Sea and a super-version of Lake Baikal.

Thanks to Abner Cadaver for sending in this map on a wrapper. Let`s hope this map was more off than his burger.

318 – The Semicolonial State of San Serriffe

Nobody had ever heard of San Serriffe before April 1, 1977, when the Guardian newspaper (UK) published a special 7-page supplement on the 10th anniversary of that nation’s independence from Britain.

The archipelago was discovered by the English in 1421, colonised by the Spanish and Portuguese and later annexed by the British, ceded to the Portuguese and later for some time a condominium between the latter two nations. San Serriffe gained its independence in 1967. It took the independent nation 20 years of military rule (mainly by a general Pica) before it managed to elect its first civilian president, A. Bourgeois, in 1997.

San Serriffe’s exact location is a matter of dispute. It has been situated in the neighbourhood of the Seychelles, but it appears the island nation drifts as much as 1.4 km per year. Even this astonishing speed does not account for sightings of the archipelago in places as far-flung as the Bering Sea and  just off New Zealand’s South Island.

At the last available census (1973), the island counted just under 1.8 million inhabitants, of which approximately 574,000 Flong (the native ethnic group), 640,000 colons and semi-colons (European settlers and people of mixed race), 270,000 Creoles, 117,000 Malaysians, 92,000 Arabs and 88,000 others.

The country consists of two main islands, Caissa Superiore (Upper Caisse) and Caissa Inferiore (Lower Caisse), the latter of which has a prominent promontory, ending at Thirty Point. The islands are separated by the Shoals of Adze. The capital city, located on Upper Caisse, is the city of Bodoni. Other cities are Port Clarendon, Garamondo and Cap Em. The nearby island of Ova Mata is a Spanish possession. 

San Serriffe is, of course, not real. The country was one of the Guardian’s most elaborate, and most successful April Fool’s pranks, and was ‘revisited’ by the newspaper in 1978, 1980 and 1999. One clue to its non-existence are the many references to typography, in its name (’sans serif’ is a typeface), its shape (a semicolon) and its cities (Bodoni is a the name of a series of typefaces of the ’serif’ type). An even more obvious clue was that an alternate name for the main island was Hoaxe. 

The idea for San Serriffe came from Philip Davies, then in charge of the Guardian’s Special Reports department. “The Financial Times was always doing special reports on little countries I’d never heard of. I was thinking about April Fool’s Day 1977 and I thought: Why don’t we just make a country up?”

Many thanks to D. Zasoba for providing this link to a map of San Serriffe. More on its ‘history’ on this page of the Museum of Hoaxes.

317 – Tea As A North/South Litmus Test

The following was taken from the website eightoverfive, and is “a nonscientific investigation into the relationship of sweet tea availability and  the separation of northern and southern cultures in the United States.”

 

“An interesting phenomenon exists in the Commonwealth of Virginia.  The northern and urban areas of the state do not generally offer sweet tea in restaurants, whereas it is a staple beverage in the southern part of the state. Many clear present-day distinctions exist between the cultures of the north and south, but could the availability of Sweet Tea be a quantitative example?” 

This map shows the results of a survey of over 300 McDonald’s restaurants in Virginia as to the availability of sweet tea in their premises. The result is a dividing line between northern and southern culture quite distinct from other, more commonly used dividing lines, such as the Mason-Dixon Line and the border between the Union and Confederate states during the Civil War.

That line was established by calculating a median line between the southern range of non-sweet tea and the northern range of sweet tea (both of which become much clearer by ticking the relevant boxes on the website).

Sweet tea is not available in the northernmost parts of Virginia, while non-sweet tea is available quite far south in the state. The resulting line of best fit dissects Virginia in roughly equal northern and southern halves, implying that ‘northern’ (i.e. non-sweet tea drinking) culture penetrates far more south than previous demarcations suggest.

Thanks to Sean Holihan for pointing out this cool experiment. Go visit the relevant page here.

316 – Les extrèmes se touchent: Palinworld

In its most recent issue, The New Yorker magazine revisits one of its most famous covers ever. Saul Steinberg’s cartoon on the front page of the 29 March 1976 issue showed the world as seen from New York’s 9th Avenue. Mr Steinberg’s ironic, iconic cartoon, mentioned earlier on this blog (#72), has been recycled, imitated and parodied many times – and now by the New Yorker itself, as a  comment on vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin’s world view.

The world outside Alaska knew little of Sarah Palin before Republican presidential candidate John McCain announced, on August 29, that she would be his running mate. It seems that before that date, Sarah Palin also knew little of the outside world. She has been outside of the US only once, on a visit to Alaska National Guard troops in Germany and Kuwait. 

One of Palin’s more unfortunate statements, much derided afterwards, is her claim that the governorship of Alaska was a good preparation for the job of vice-president, since, as she explained to ABC interviewer Charlie Gibson, Alaska is so close to Russia. Which is a foreign country: ”They’re our next-door neighbours, and you can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska, from an island in Alaska.”

Well, at least that is true. Big Diomede and Little Diomede, are where les extrèmes se touchent, as the French say. These two islands in the middle of the Bering Strait, which separates Russia’s Far East from America’s Frozen North, are Russian and American respectively. As they are only 2.5 miles from each other, they are well within visibility range on a clear day. In winter, when the sea freezes over, you can even walk from the US to Russia, and vice versa – but check with customs first. 

But to claim that  geographical fact alone as a justification for foreign policy experience is just too absurd for words (*). And if something is too absurd for words, why not draw a cartoon? Which is exactly what Barry Blitt did, for the Oct. 6 issue of the New Yorker. Over vast expanses of empty Alaska, just a tiny bit of Russia is visible on the horizon. Et voilà: Palinworld.

That’s an oversimplification of the pot-kettle-black kind. Since her elevation to vice-presidential candidate, Palin has speed-dated half a dozen foreign heads of state at the UN. She exchanged views with Henry Kissinger (although that probably left him with most of the work). The Republican team had her ‘quarantined’ to stop the death by a thousand gaffes and to allow her to cram for the vice-presidential debate on October 2 with her Democratic opponent Joe Biden. After that debate, she was generally judged to have passed that test (if only because she enjoyed the benefit of low expectations).

At least she managed to do what many other more experienced politicians don’t manage: to pronounce the name of Iran’s president with surprising accuracy. Ahmadinejad. Now there’s a populist with a down-home folksy manner, an extremely religious world view and an electoral success that has confounded and frustrated the better-educated classes at home and abroad. Les extrèmes se touchent?

Many thanks to Tony Pappas for providing an image of the New Yorker cover.

 

(*) Strange Maps tries to be nonpartisan and apolitical, but insists on being anti-nonsense.