Stephen McGinty: The real Nowhere men

Published on 08/09/2012 00:47

Seasteading is set to become the movement of the 21st century as people begin to colonise the world’s oceans to start their own nations based on their own idealogies, writes Stephen McGinty

THE parking is free on Nowhereisland, as is the ice-cream served up each Friday. There is no war, no discrimination and no call centres. One day each week all forms of shopping are prohibited and the national currency is not pounds or pence but stories with change, perhaps given in sonnets. After a hard day’s work, each citizen, of which there are 20,800 and counting, is entitled to a free drink. Citizenship requires no test or oath of allegiance, but a swift signature and the striking of the welcome bell and the national embassy is a travelling horse box which contains, among other items, a muddy Wellington boot, a canister of melted glacier water, a tin of Fox’s glacier mints and a DVD of Ice Station Zebra.

Stored in the embassy’s filing cabinets are the ponderings of the new nation’s 52 resident thinkers, who include Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, Yoko Ono and the late Vidal Sassoon, thus ensuring that country suppers, esoteric art work and stylish haircuts are well and truly catered for. Then there is 
Sir John Tusa, the former managing director of the BBC World Service, whose suggestion was that: “Every child will have time in its curriculum to do nothing and learn to be bored.”

One would imagine that the exact location of this utopian society would be hard to pin down but, in fact, “Nowhereisland” is exceedingly easy to find as this morning it is currently anchored in Bristol harbour. The 144ft-long chunk of Arctic rock, resting on the back of a floating platform, was liberated from Nyskjaeret, a small island that appeared off the coast of Svalbard, in the Norwegian arctic in the 1990s as a result of melting glaciers.

Alex Hartley, a British artist asked the Norwegian government if he could have a piece and it said “yes”. “The aim is to encourage people to think about what it would be like to start up a completely new nation: to get them to make proposals for what life should be like on Nowhereisland, what the constitution should consist of, and so on.”

While the idea of having to think up a short story with a surprise twist every time you wanted to buy a pint of milk and a morning paper is enough to have anyone reaching for the false comfort of their credit card or that worn and crumpled £5 note, the idea behind “Nowhereisland”, the creation of an aquatic utopia, could yet become one of major developments of the 21st century. We may once have dreamed of living on a distant moon base, but while there is little prospect of us colonising other planets, there are definite plans to colonise the high seas. In the past year, the Financial Times, the Economist and the New York Times have all examined the growing interest in “Seasteading”, the concept of mixing the sea and “homesteading” and building self-contained, artificial “nations” in the open ocean.

Supporters predict that within 50 to 100 years an array of artificial island communities will spring up in the Atlantic, the Pacific and the Indian Ocean. Free from the rule of law of any current country, each will be able to experiment with a new system of living, and a society could be built not on the way life has always been, but on how its new citizens would wish it to be.

The technology is already in place. Computer-controlled thrusters will keep an oil platform from moving even a millimetre in even the worst storms, and cruise ships are now so large and luxurious as to resemble a floating city, with one called “The World” populated by permanent residents content to spend the rest of their lives endlessly circling the seven seas, with brief stops at the planet’s most happening festivals and events. Helicopters are now more nimble and can travel greater distances without refuelling so as to provide supplies.

Currently, each ship is subject to the law under the flag it flies. But what if a community sets itself up in international waters and chooses to fly no flag but its own? Wrestling with such legal, philosophical and social questions, not to mention those of the architectural design of the first generation of “seasteads” is the Seasteading Institute, an American think-tank based in San Francisco, which enjoys the financial support of one of the founders of PayPal, Peter Thiel.

Next year the world’s first “seastead” is expected to be open for business four miles off the coast of San Francisco, going by the name of “Blueseed”. The primary target for the large floating community will be those computer entrepreneurs who cannot secure a US working visa but who wish to make frequent visits back and forth to Silicon Valley using the more easily obtained tourist or business visas. So, is there a precedent on which to build the idea of “sea-steading”? Yes, but, it would appear to be far from plain sailing.

Just seven miles off the coast of Suffolk, there exists the Principality of Sealand, which consists of an old Maunsell Sea Fort, which was built in 1943 as a defence against German invasion and populated by Royal Marines. In 1967, Paddy Roy Bates, a former army major, launched his own invasion of the abandoned HM Fort Roughs, as it was officially known, and evicted the pirate radio enthusiasts who had taken up residence. As it lay four miles beyond the then three-mile territorial waters of the United Kingdom, Bates decided to set up his own nation, the Principality of Sealand.

Evidence that British law did not apply to his new domain came later that year when his son fired warning shots at British workmen, who had arrived to service a navigational buoy. When Michael Bates was charged with firearms offences, the judge tossed out the case as it was outside British jurisdiction.

In 1975, Bates wrote a constitution, adopted a flag, began to issue passports and took the title Prince, bestowing Princess to his wife and Prince Regent to his son. Yet even within a community of less than 30, all was not well. Three years later, a German resident, Alexander Achenbach, who had taken the title prime minister of Sealand, decided to stage a coup and stormed “Sealand”, assisted by mercenaries in speedboats and helicopters. The dissidents took the young Prince Regent hostage, but underestimated the cunning of the old major, who launched a counter-attack and captured Achenbach, who Bates then held hostage, demanding £23,000 before he would agree to his release. When the German government complained to the British government, it cited the 1967 court decision and said it was nothing to do with the UK and so it was left to a diplomat from the German embassy to visit the iron tower and negotiate his release. Today, Achenbach runs a “government in exile” from Germany.

Yet the fact that a British court accepted that Sealand lay outside its authority and that a German diplomat negotiated with the distant realm is, according to the Bates family, proof of its recognition as an independent nation. However, it still lacks official recognition, though its national anthem was included by the Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra’s National Anthems of the World (Volume 7: Qatar-Syria) and it has taken to entering sporting events, most recently in May, fielding a national football team that was beaten 3-1 by the Chagos Islands.

Proof that no man is an island, and that even man-made islands and their inhabitants need good neighbours, came in 2006 when the fortress caught fire and a resident had to be rescued by the RAF, with the blaze eventually put out by a British Coastguard fire-vessel.

In 2007, the Principality of Sealand was put up for sale, with an asking price of £600 million and despite various interested parties such as Pirates Bay, the Swedish download website, and WikiLeaks seeking to base itself on board, no sale has yet gone ahead.

While there is part of me that loves the idea of a new nautical nation, a 21st century cross between Marine Boy and Space 1999, I can’t quite see how a group of people forced together on a small steel island in the middle of the ocean is going to stumble on wisdom and insight that is absent while on dry land. Power, rivalry and ambition have steady sea legs and are unlikely to be cast overboard.

Still, I’d like to be proved wrong. One thing is for certain, the future does not lie in the direction of “Nowhereisland”. Tomorrow the island will “close” and then will be physically broken up and distributed in chunks to each and every citizen, should they so wish a piece. Sadly, “Nowhereisland” will be no more.