Nowhereisland is about
living kindly, governing gently, and not taking oneself too seriously.
The Olympic Games can draw unexpected
visitors. Remember the Jamaican bobsled team? This year, it's the delegation
from nowhere.
Beginning in the games' opening week,
residents along the rocky coast of southwest England will meet Nowhereisland.
No — what? Its handlers call this hunk of
grit a "displaced nation journeying south in search of its people."
The brainchild of British artist Alex Hartley, this "nation" is small
enough to be hauled by a tugboat.
Back in 2004, Hartley journeyed to the
Arctic, where he discovered an uncharted chunk of floating rock and moraine in
the wake of a receding glacier. Hartley, the first person ever to set foot on
the island, initially tried to claim it for
himself — with a note left in an empty can of beans — to draw attention to the
perils of climate change.
Then Hartley thought bigger. The artist
returned to the Arctic in 2011. He and his crew dug up some 6 tons of material
from the island, dragged it into international waters, and christened it the
newly independent nation of Nowhereisland. The island's Olympic sojourn to the
port towns of southwest England marks its contribution to the U.K.'s Cultural Olympiad,
a national celebration of the arts accompanying the summer games.
This isn't just a lark. "Nowhereisland
seeks to redefine what a nation can be," explains the project's founding document. "Nowhereisland
embodies the potential of a new borderless nation," one "in which all
are welcome and in which all have the right to be heard."
I'm from Dayton, Ohio, and live in
Washington, D.C. But I'm also one of the 13,000 people from around the world who
have become citizens of Nowhereisland by applying through its website. The most important perk of citizenship, which
takes just seconds to obtain, is the right to help craft the nation's
constitution. All of us Nowhere men and women can submit propositions for the
country's governing document and vote up or down on the inklings of our fellow
citizens.
It's an experiment in "open-source
citizenship," a new model of governance that several real governments are beginning
to dabble in as well. Many U.S. regulatory agencies, for example, invite
nonbinding public feedback on proposed new rules, and the British government
recently brought on Wikipedia
founder Jimmy Wales to help the U.K. civil service better engage the British
public. Last year, Iceland even crowd-sourced its own constitution in the wake of the country's catastrophic
financial collapse.
Compared to such "real-world"
examples, Nowhereisland might seem silly or impractical. Sure, propositions for
its evolving constitution include a resolution encouraging Nowhereians to
"rediscover the great value of slowness." But other provisions are
concrete and inspirational, such as a ban on corporate personhood. Another
proposal imploring adults to read to children nightly is both heartening and constructive.
The resulting mishmash is a charming treatise on living kindly and governing
gently, while not taking oneself too seriously.
Nowhereisland proves that it doesn't take
fancy technology or big-name consultants to figure out what most people want.
Most of us want a clean environment, an economy that works for everyone, and a
say in our political process. Of course, this has never been much of a mystery
outside of Washington and other world capitals.
If Nowhereisland provides a space in which to
imagine a new world, the next step is to build it. Already, Occupiers in the
United States, anti-austerity indignados in Europe, and
protesters in the Arab world have shown what can be accomplished once ordinary
people decide to stop demanding power and start exercising it.
These revolutions are far from complete. But
the Olympic delegation from nowhere is a playful reminder that we can
crowd-source a better world if we dare.
Peter Certo is an editorial
assistant at the Institute for Policy Studies and a Nowhereian citizen. Distributed
via OtherWords (OtherWords.org)
