Micronations: eccentric and unthreatening

The implications of the last two factors should be clear enough. Australia remains one of the most urbanised countries on the planet, with 89% of individuals concentrated in urban centres. And given that there are 25 million or so individuals spread across a continent spanning 7.6 million square kilometres, the room for threatening and meaningful declarations of independence seems rather small.

This is not, however, to say that overt threats to secede have not ruffled a few feathers. Western Australia's effort in the 1930s, spurred on by the Dominion League and the Great Depression, was considered serious enough to require obstruction by both the Australian Commonwealth and Britain. The 1933 state referendum result was overwhelmingly in favour of secession, emboldening a state delegation to journey to the British Parliament to make their case of becoming a self-governing Dominion within the British Empire.

Westminster's response was fairly typical: the establishment of a Joint Select Committee that concluded that the delegation's petition could not be legally entertained. The 1931 Statute of Westminster had granted Australia dominion authority, thereby making Canberra the arbiter as to whether WA could secede.

In the end, the only reason why such micronations are tolerated must lie in their unthreatening, idiosyncratic nature. Their ineffectualness is what saves them from destruction and prevents their official recognition. President Abraham Lincoln showed the Confederate States how a threatening effort backed by force of arms to separate from the United States could play out. The Civil War that followed cost 620,000 lives and entrenched the holy mystery of the compact that is the Union.

From Turkey to China, secessionist movements are targeted as genuine threats to the national unit, its advocates to be put down, incarcerated and crushed. But in the absence of guns, a coherent ideology, and the presence of maddening humour, the micronations of the world can only multiply.