Northland

Living without domination

Millisphere (noun): a discrete region inhabited by approximately 1000th of the total world population. Around seven million people but anywhere between 3.5 and 14 million people. A lens through which to examine human geography.

When I originally built The Millisphere, pictured, as part of a paper on the philosophy of science, it forced me to look at where people live and in the process I unearthed stories to draw on for millisphere columns.

Iceland (population 350,000) is too small to qualify as a millisphere; its nearest neighbour Greenland (56,000) has even less. It is self evident that hot/sunny countries (with lots of rainfall) can support large populations so it is not surprising that it requires all of the land and islands within the Arctic Circle, and beyond, to scrape together 3.5 million to form the millisphere I call Northland – shown here in white.

Greenland at 70 percent leads the world in the use of renewable energy (mostly hydroelectric) and 88 percent of its population are Inuits whose “nation” extends around the north of Canada, the state of Alaska and crosses the Bering Strait into the Russian Federation. There are 150,000 Inuits in total who, in 1982, for the first time, gathered at the “Inuit Circumpolar Conference.” Other hunter/gatherers such as the Nenets in Russia and the Saami in Norway and Finland complete the circle.

There is logic in considering a unique millisphere that has two months when the mid-summer sun never/hardly sets and whose inhabitants are collectively facing the impact of global warming; caused, to greater or lesser extent, by the other 999 millispheres.

The reality though is that the Arctic is divided by boundary lines radiating from the North Pole. Boundaries imposed by “Great Powers” not by the Northland migratory hunters and gatherers who live “everywhere and nowhere.”

The effects of 19th century colonialism and 20th century militarism were profound and universal for the inhabitants of Northland many of whom transitioned from hunters to wage earners. Their forests were destroyed, rivers polluted, pasturelands flooded and herds dispersed. Their health records are now poor and unemployment is high. Domestic crime, drunkenness and suicide are three or four times the national average of their respective countries.

In 1925 Canada was the first to extend its borders northward, followed quickly by the USSR, Norway, USA, Sweden, Finland, Denmark (through Greenland) and finally Iceland. The Cold War ramped up the military impact on Northland.

In 1942 the US established an air force base at Goose Bay in northern Canada as a stop off point on the flight to Europe and then converted a vast area of “empty” land into a “Tactical Fighter Weapons Training Centre” (bombing range). Paranoid that the USSR would send nuclear missiles over the pole the US deployed radar stations and invited its NATO allies to practice low-level flying over Innu land at Goose Bay. By 1990 there were around 40,000 annual “practice flights” and the Innu caribou herd had halved since the invasion began.

Not be outdone the Soviets established the Rogachevo air base on the far north island of Nova Zembla, shifted off all the native Nenets in 1957 and used the island to test nuclear weapons. In 1961 they dropped the “Tsar Bomba,” the largest and most powerful nuclear bomb ever detonated. When testing concluded it transpired that not all the Nenet nomads had been evacuated.

Under the Northland ice and sea are reputed reserves of oil and natural gas. The eight contested slices of the pie radiating from the North Pole divide these fields of fossil fuels which when extracted would further impact on the millisphere of Northland.

In retrospect the question has to be asked: was it all worth it? To consume vast amounts of non-renewable resources to wreak havoc on natural environments; and inhabitants living in some sort of harmony with those environments.

There must be a better way. Northland represents a millisphere dominated by nation states – which are themselves composed of millispheres. No millisphere, or group of millispheres, should dominate any other millisphere would be a good place start.

Sahara

Sahara

Millisphere (noun): a discrete region inhabited by approximately 1000th of the total world population.

“We live in a globalised world, it can’t be just goods, it’s also human beings,” said one African migrant in Libya heading for Europe. March/April/May/June is the peak time for crossing the Mediterranean and it is estimated that this year 200,000 Africans will cross the Sahara and 150,000 will cross the Mediterranean.

Boundaries imposed by 19th century colonial powers divide the millisphere of the Sahara between, Algeria,Tunisia, Libya, Mali, Niger and Chad. If there is one group that can call the Sahara their home it is the Tuareg (population two million) who traditionally carried high value goods (salt, gold, ivory and slaves) from one oasis to another. The Sahara crossing by camel took about 40 days and today it still takes several days – 25 passengers to a Toyota pickup.

It is thought more migrants travelling to Europe die crossing the Sahara than crossing the Mediterranean but back in 1982 when Bruce and Mary hitch-hiked across the Sahara it was still safe for tourists. “We didn’t know where we going really,” said Bruce, who now lives in Aramoho.

They arrived in Tunis by ferry from Sicily. An Algerian took them to the first oasis and on a truck carrying vegetables they took two days to get to Tamanrasset, in the middle of the Sahara, “where vegetables in the market were really expensive”. The road to Agadez in Niger was littered with wrecked vehicles Bruce remembered.

Agadez is where African travellers from all over the Economic Community of West African States come to buy a ride to Tripoli in Libya. The migrants are not dirt poor farmers – you have to have money to travel. Typically a family will scape together a large sum to send a family member to Europe to send back remittances – as poor countries develop their emigration rates rise.

The Tuaregs have historically shared the Sahara with other travellers including Muslim traders, adventurers and black slaves. The millisphere of Sahara can be visualised as a road network – sometimes extending into surrounding millispheres. Tuareg businessman, Mohamed Ali, owns Rimbo a Nigerian bus company specialising in moving migrants to Agadez. A burned out 727 from Venezuela was recently discovered on a desert landing strip in Mali – 25% of all Europe’s cocaine crosses the Sahara.

Conflicts arise at the desert margins, where nomadic pastoralists meet sedentary agriculturalists. The desert is advancing south into the Sahel at about one kilometer every two years. Planting a “green wall” of trees to halt the desert has been an expensive failure although in Burkina Faso simple “water farming” techniques (trenches following the contours) and protecting trees that grew naturally has managed to re-establish some firewood areas. The common myrtle Myrtus communis is distributed around the Mediterranean but the Saharan myrtle Myrtus nivelli is distributed around the the Sahara desert.

Bruce and Mary crossed from Niger into Burkina Faso and then to the Atlantic coast of Cote d’Ivoire at Abidjan. In Mali they got within one ride of Timbuktu, but that meant waiting for days for enough passengers to fill up the bus. Back in Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso) they pulled the pin and flew to Lyon in France.

In the early 19th century the French Geographic Society posted a reward of 10,000 francs for the first person to travel to Timbuktu – and back. In 1825 British soldier, Alexander Laing got there but was murdered two days later. In 1827 French butcher Rene Caillie got there and back and claimed the prize. The British thought Caillie was a “bad sport” for dressing in Arab robes and not full dress military uniform as Laing had.

In Timbuktu (Mali) there has been a collapse of foreign tourism due to armed Islamists, who also targeted Tinariwen for playing “Satan’s music.” Tinariwen, a band of Tuaregs from Mali played WOMAD in New Plymouth this year.

Jihadists attacks in Mali have sent refugees spilling into Burkina Faso where job seekers are now looking at the EU and tomato picking in Italy, where there are seasonal labour shortages, and Tinariwen are now living in the American south-west – in the Mojave desert.

CAR (Heart of Darkness)

Heart of darkness

Millisphere (noun): a discrete region inhabited by roughly 1000th of the total world population.

If I were to travel to the Central African Republic (CAR) I’d be tempted to take the Congo-Ocean Railway from the Atlantic coast to Brazzaville in the Democratic Republic of Congo. This is not without its risks; in 2010 four carriages derailed into a ravine and 60 passengers died.

Above the Stanley Falls one can ride on a barge up the Congo and into the setting of Joseph Conrad’s novel Heart of Darkness. By taking another boat up the Oubangui it is possible to reach Bangui, the capital of the CAR (population 4.7 million).

Wikitravel at present advises: WARNING, the CAR is in the midst of a violent poverty-fueled state of civil war and most governments advise against travel to the region. Travelers should leave immediately if they can find a safe exit route. The CAR is possibly the most dangerous country for locals and tourists alike!

Due to the kidnapping of government officials, humanitarian and United Nations workers the British Foreign Office ranks the CAR at 4th of the 17 most dangerous countries in the world. Add extra-judicial killing, torture, beatings, rape, mob-violence, human trafficking, forced labour, inter-tribal genocide and child labour and you wonder why anyone would want to go there.

Anyway, should my travel companion and I get to Bangui we’d check out the historic Notre-Dame of Bangui cathedral. According to Tripadvisor it is one of the best examples of French colonial architecture, in its original state, in Africa.

700,000 “Central Africans” live in Bangui. CAR has 80 different ethnic groups and is 50 percent Christian, 35 percent indigenous believers and 15 percent Muslim (mostly in the north). Half the population is illiterate and 11 percent is HIV positive. On the UN HDI (human development index) CAR ranks 188 out of 188. And the World Bank ranks it at 183 out 183 for the ease of doing business.

Despite being rich in diamonds, gold, oil, uranium, cobalt, lumber, hydroelectric potential and arable soil growing cotton, coffee and tobacco, it is one of the world’s poorest countries. Two-thirds of CAR is in the Oubangui river basin, where most of the people live. The CAR is mostly savannah grassland with equatorial jungle in the south and deserts in the north.

Between independence in 1960 and 2016 the population quadrupled to its present 4.7 million – doubling every 28 years – but life expectancy is only around 50. Seventy percent of CAR girls are married before they turn eighteen and women live in fear of been accused of being a witch or sorceress and causing death or misfortune.

Back in the 16th and 17th centuries black slaves were sold by other ethnic groups down the Congo to end up in the Americas. In the 19th century Muslim traders arrived from the north and by 1850 slave traders were coming with armed soldiers to take slaves to the Mediterranean. In “the scramble for Africa,” in the late 19th century, Belgian, German and French colonists came and set up plantations using forced labour.

In 2012 the Muslim Seleka Group overran the north and centre of the CAR and in 2013 the Muslim rebels seized power in this Christian majority country. In 2014 3000 United Nations, 6000 African Union and 2000 French forces helped the Christian Anti-Balaka retake Bangui.

From Bangui roads head north to Cameroon, Chad and Sudan. The Christians have forced the Muslims out of the capital and hold the Oubangui basin and the south-west of the country. The Muslims hold the north-east and the watersheds to Lake Chad and the Nile. In between is an ongoing “bush war”.

The November 2008 edition of the National Geographic reported that the CAR was the country that was the least affected by light pollution – I suspect it still is. National Geographic said that in northern CAR “the clear desert night skies are spectacular.” It would be something to see.

Generally my travel companion is up for going out where the buses don’t run but we’re attempting to have a house built at the moment – and that could take quite some time.