The Peoples’ Independent Republic of — The Upper Delaware?

Must be tough being a cartographer these days. New countries springing up, borders shifting left and right, increasing instability among nations—things must get pretty confusing. Even where borders have been settled for a while, nothing can be taken for granted. Take Georgia, for example: according to a recent National Public Radio story, it now wants to move its northern border about a mile further north to gain access to the waters of the Tennessee River. But then again, maybe it’s good for the map business when all the maps become obsolete, as they did once again recently when the Serbian province of Kosovo declared its independence.

But the cartographers’ delight at the possibility of new sales was not universally shared. Besides the aggrieved Serbians, the governments of Spain and Greece, among others, worried about their own internal secessionist movements, raised strenuous objections to the swift recognition that the new country received. Russia and China also voiced similar concerns—after all, as one blogger put it, “Today Kosovo – tomorrow Tibet.”

The United States was among the countries that recognized Kosovo immediately, which must have puzzled the Kurds no end. After all, they’ve longed for autonomy for generations as well, and have also received at least as much ill treatment as the Kosovars—theirs at the hands of the Turks, among others. Palestinians, Kashmiris and dozens of other national or quasi-national groups around the world also hanker for their identities to be acknowledged with a seat in the UN and their own Olympic teams.

This drive for decentralization, autonomy and/or independence isn’t new, of course. Sometimes persecution is the reason for this desire; sometimes it’s the desire that brings down the persecution. (See East Timor, for example.) Sometimes a push for independence simply comes from a wish to be more in control of one’s own destiny, as in the devolution of power in the United Kingdom to relatively independent parliaments in Wales and Scotland. There are even independence movements within the United States, from Hawaii ( hawaii-nation.org ) to Vermont ( vermontrepublic.org ). Check out secession.net for more secessionist discussion,

So here we are, in the Upper Delaware, with an increasing sense of outside forces trying to have their way with us. Between gas drilling, oil pipelines and power lines, folks may be getting the feeling that it’s time to assert ourselves a bit more. So imagine, if you will, the “People’s Independent Republic of the Upper Delaware”—wedged in between the Confederation of the Catskills, the Poconian Principate, and Mid-Hudsonia—stretching from Milford to Deposit and Waymart to Wurtsboro. (I’d say just “People’s Republic of Upper Delaware,” but then the inhabitants would be called the Prudish, and that simply wouldn’t do.)

Silly idea? Maybe. Perhaps we depend too much on not only our neighboring regions, but on other farther flung areas, for true “independence” to have any meaning. And other regions depend on us as well. But nonetheless, we must claim our right to have more of a voice in the decisions that affect us. So maybe a better term would be “Autonomous Interdependent Republic”—which would be to say, we acknowledge our connections with our neighbors, but we make our own decisions. Like good neighbors in any community, would-be nations must balance their individual freedoms and their mutual responsibilities.

- Skip Mendler