citation?
There has been many examples where throwing unrelated groups into the same country can causes serious strife. Why would it be different on a global scale? You still have to allocate resources, provide security, make laws etc...
The author makes this very point further down:
>A more stable and peaceful arrangement for Sudan would be to focus on independence for Darfur and South Sudan sooner rather than later, allowing them to rebuild themselves as smaller states at peace with their neighbors instead of facing Khartoum's persistent and nefarious undermining from within.
So it's not the borders that are an obstacle to 'human progress', it's the arbitrary way in which they were drawn by colonial powers.
Yugoslavia was a previous experiment to have no borders between 6/7 small countries in Europe. The Soviet Union was another, also Czechoslovakia.
The USA fought a very nasty civil war despite being a country with very little historical baggage by European standards.
I'm far from certain that a US of Europe is the way forward for the EU
I found I could not suspend disbelief enough to follow along with this writer. While he means well, using examples like the Sudan or the Kurds is cherry-picking at the extreme. After all, his thesis is "maps without borders" It's one thing to look at a government that's been around for 20 years (or, in the Kurd example, not really existing yet) and make some generalization. It's another thing entirely to apply such generalizations to the rest of the world. He failed with this.
He also meandered quite a bit around resources: pipelines, roads, and such. I'm sure there was a point there, but heck if I could grasp it.
This is just not such a good article. I'd like to see these ideas explored in a more cogent fashion though. I think there's an interesting concept in there.
Sudan is too large, and should be split up. But also: "Africa can become economically viable only if its plethora of puny economies merge from more than 50 into just a few."
So what needs to happen? Merging Africa into a few gigantic balkanized states with no shared interests (like Sudan), or splitting it up into many small city states, a few of which will be well run?
A few of which will serve as an example for the rest.
But this: "Merging Africa into a few gigantic balkanized states [...] or splitting it up" is part of the reason they're doing badly. Being a battleground for foreign intervention has not allowed much in the way of economic development.
Europe succeeded in the relaxation of its borders because this was preceded by cultural/ideological homogenisation that took a very long time. This can not be imposed by policy.
I guess the author realises this to an extent and by the end of the article much more modest goals are being set. Still it all sounds very vague like it's kind of meant to somehow take care of itself.
If you're going to divide political borders into "real" ones maybe you should start with those within the united states instead of mucking around in Africa. There is always Cascadia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cascadia_(independence_movement...
and then you could consider making a state out of New York City since the culture, religion and ethinic mix is radically different than upstate New York (That is the kind of criteria the author cites).
and realistically, you could look at most of the big states in the US and split them up if we're going to start remaking political borders just because they're old or ineffective. I nominate South Jersey as "Snookiandia". Wow this could be fun!
(Not removed - that's just the mind-numbing pitch that he steps back to just redrawing borders.)
Meh. I wish I could still flag articles, as this is one of those I-feel-stupider-for-having-read-it essays.
Africa has always had a few well run countries. Why will their example help more in the future than it has in the past?