AFTER years of war that have seen
Yugoslavia ripped apart creating ever smaller Balkan states, you
might think that the last thing anybody needs is another Slav
country. But next week a new one will be created, one without
physical boundaries, the first online nation.
Cyber Yugoslavia is based on a democratic, egalitarian system and
intends, ultimately, to gain official recognition from the United
Nations.
The idea was dreamt up by a Yugoslav who has himself been driven
from the land of his birth as it degenerated into internecine
strife. Particularly from his perspective, it is easy to see the
appeal of a homeland on the world wide web, far removed from the
physical causes and effects of war. And hisnew country has none of
the conventional restrictions on nationality.
"We are looking for active, committed citizens," says
the site’s creator Zoran Bacic. "People capable of founding
a new kind of country, a new kind of nationality that has stripped
bare the trappings of state and placed its future in the hands of
humanity."
With the cyber-country set to come into being on 9 September,
individuals visiting the site to apply for membership will be
asked to play the role of an active citizen: serving on
committees, voting on every issue, lending their efforts to
expanding the virtual set-up and playing, if they wish, for
political power. Already, more than 3,000 have applied for their
digital passports.
"The response has been huge, completely unbelievable,"
says Bacic, an artist who fled the Balkan wars to Amsterdam.
"I’ve been completely shocked by the effect that it has
had. People usually sympathise with the abstract, but this is
something different. They are taking it on with an open heart and
giving Cyber Yugoslavia a life of its own."
The duties of cyber-citizenship are more onerous than those in
most real nations. Every citizen has to choose and operate their
own state department, from Secretary of War to, of course,
Minister of Silly Walks, when applying for their passport. Each
has equal voting rights, but must visit the website at least 50
times a year, cast their ballot regularly and read the
constitution once a month.
Failure to do so will result in the removal of a participant’s
passport and exile, with appeal to a full public vote the only way
to gain re-entry. Each new member is given a new Slavic surname
when they sign-up, to preserve anonymity
Citizenship is free and open to people of any nationality,
passports being automatically granted to new applicants.
Interestingly, however, the vast majority of the virtual
nation’s current population are native Yugoslavs, a fact that
Bacic believes is due to a genuine need by ordinary people to have
at least a symbolic homeland that is free from the levels of
violence and corruption witnessed in the Balkans during recent
times.
"Nationality is a sensitive question in the Balkans now, but
most Yugoslavs remember a time when it was handled differently,
when these things were more free and so for many this is a
sentimental journey, a nostalgic look back to a time when you
could declare your nationality without fear."
Cyber Yugoslavia has attempted to redress the ills of the real
world by removing its purported evils. Hence there will be no
financial activity, property or ownership in the fledgling state.
This is one website where electronic commerce will not raise its
ugly head, says Bacic, because it is one based entirely on
personal input.
"The whole point is to is to make it completely artificial,
with nothing concrete to lose or gain," he says.
"Material things provide a context for people to compete, a
context in which we have seen the Balkans go to war. There is no
property here, so people are as equal or as powerful as they wish
to be and how they contribute will be the measure of them."
While Bacic has written Cyber Yugoslavia’s initial constitution
in his role as Citizen Secretary Webmaster, the idea is that
anyone could and should change it. Alterations must be accepted or
rejected by a majority vote in which at least two-thirds of the
total population has participated. Vote counting, distributing
ballots and ensuring that citizens are fulfilling their
obligations are all handled by what Bacic has dubbed the Algorithm
of Social System, open-source robotic software that is, he hopes,
more reliable than your average civil service.
The Algorithm will similarly be responsible for selecting the flag
and national anthem from a pool of alternatives suggested by
citizens, while any disputes will fall within the jurisdiction of
a constitutional court consisting of nine members – Secretary
Judges – elected to their august position by the process of a
public vote.
With the virtual nation’s infrastructure in place, what becomes
of it now is entirely up to the internet users who chose to take
up citizenship. Some, like the Serbian political exile living in
Slovenia who says "I think the campaign will show how many
people in the world are sick of the state as an institution,"
are treating this as a serious political experiment, while others,
like the self-styled Minister of Silly Walks, have chosen to enjoy
it as a joke.
Bacic says: "Some citizens are treating it as something
political, but that is not necessarily how it is meant to be. My
idea when I set this up was to be completely apolitical, but I
cannot make that happen – the population will decide and make it
what they will."
One concrete part of Cyber Yugoslavia’s uncertain future,
however, is Bacic’s determination to have his experiment in
virtual living accepted as a valid popular declaration of the
desire to the readdress old conceptions of nationality in a
rapidly changing world. When and if the population reaches five
million, he intends to petition the United Nations for recognition
and 20 square metres of land on which to place the community’s
home server.
This would be a symbolic gesture only but he is confident that
such an outcome is realistic, believing that so large an online
power block would have as much international weight as most small
countries.
"There’s no planned duration for this, no beginning or
end," he says. "It will be as long or as short as it is
worth. The difference between fiction and reality is only a
question of time and if Cyber Yugoslavia should last ten years and
attract that many people, then it would be as real as any other
nation and equally unavoidable."
What becomes of the nation depends entirely on its participants.
For some it will be a delightful blend of technology and art,
while the committed will pursue political ends and the flippant a
bit of a laugh. Others will regard this as just another daft idea
taking the online cultural revolution too far, but whatever
happens, it will be the sole result of human interaction. There
are no power structures, inequalities or corporate interests to
accuse of skewing its direction, says Bacic, it is only human
beings on whom that responsibility can fall.
"There’s a computer game I used to play called
SimWorld," he says. "You were God and putting in the
mountains, the rivers and the seas was easy – it was when you
started putting people in that things got difficult. It will be
the same here. Whatever happens we will have no-one but ourselves
to blame, we will get what we deserve."
For more information, visit www.juga.com |
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