The Rise of Wikipedian Statecraft, Part 3

The cardinal tenet of serious Wikipedian citizenship is a one-way relationship with facts — to report them (as researched by qualified others), not make them. Wikipedia cannot declare a territory sovereign; it cannot “recognize” a declaration of sovereignty, in the way of endorsing its legitimacy; it can only report that, according to trustworthy sources, a region has been declared independent, and the group doing the declaring is able to back it up with force on the ground.

In addition to the 190 or so states in the U.N. General Assembly, Wikipedia uncontroversially reports a plethora of others — from Taiwan to Transnistria — as “de facto” independent. Whether the Taipei regime deserves to exist is a POV matter; the fact is it’s a different government than Beijing.

Yet the “Azawad” episode illustrates how Wikipedia veterans — quite possibly led, or forced, by Wikipedia newcomers — are beginning to realize their primary constitutive role in forming the facts they’ve devoted themselves to dispassionately gathering. Wikipedia can’t exchange ambassadors to recognize a breakaway nation, it can’t send arms or take a vote and declare the rebels welcomed into the community of nations. But, with very few historical exceptions, de facto precedes de jure.

If Wikipedia cannot send an embassy, it can bestow an infobox. The contents of a geopolitical infobox can be even more deadly dull than the passages on Pleistocene geology and predominant shrubbery in the main text: Alongside the basics (capital, head of state, languages), it offers a state flag and motto (if either exist), a color-keyed map, time zone, international calling code, and whether the place drives on the right or left. But with the rise and rise of Wikipedia, its infobox may have also become a novel rung of public diplomacy: international recognition, not of the legitimacy, but the facticity of a de facto situation. Or put another way, the article for Piedmont, Italy has an infobox. “Piedmont (United States)” does not.

User:67.249.16.169 first added an infobox to “Azawad” 04:14, 2 April 2012. What transpired on “Talk:Azawad” was a remarkable exchange in which leaders like Khazar2 and Kudzu1 seemed to both implicitly acknowledge Wikipedia’s role in determining “de facto” and immediately disclaim it:

I won’t revert again, but I’m a bit skeptical of the infobox that the MNLA has already declared its independence as of January. This 1 is the source for that claim. And generally, I’d like to wait until I see the independence claim in some world media before we make it on their behalf here. I’m uncomfortable calling this even a declared nation until we have solid and explicit confirmation from reliable sources. Other people’s thoughts? Khazar2 (talk) 04:54, 2 April 2012 (UTC) >I may only have used Google Translate for reading this, since I don’t speak French, but it sure does seem to me as if it can be considered declared. 217.210.7.205 (talk) 05:20, 2 April 2012 (UTC) >>Good point. I’m skeptical of the January claim, and perhaps it’s made me too finicky. But why hasn’t this claim shown up in world media yet? Is there a reason to be skeptical of this website that we’re not seeing? Again, for a claim this big, I feel like we ought to wait for a reliable source, rather than a primary source. Khazar2 (talk) 05:23, 2 April 2012 (UTC) >>>Now that the rebels are in full control of northern Mali, I suppose it will come quick, as media turn their attention from the fighting itself. 217.210.7.205 (talk) 05:27, 2 April 2012 (UTC) >>>Definitely worth keeping an eye on over the next 48 hours or so. I believe negotiations with Mali are ongoing as well, and it would seem to me the junta is really out of options for dealing with the north. Kudzu1 (talk) 06:22, 2 April 2012 (UTC) … I’ve only done one revert myself. Given that others obviously share my concerns, I’ve pulled it again for now. I’d be interested to hear from editors who support this infobox, however, as to what sources support its insertion; my mind’s by no means made up. Khazar2 (talk) 16:24, 2 April 2012 (UTC) >I think we should take a wait-and-see approach. Personally, I expect a declaration of independence imminently, but there’s no need to jump the gun on it. Kudzu1 (talk) 17:46, 2 April 2012 (UTC) >>I thinj consensus is qauite CLEARLY against the infobox (and with reasosn too)…removign it should not be warring as it would be vandalism to insert it without consensus 9AND as per the other article, a consensus discussion is NOT appropriae inside a month) Lihaas (talk) 18:41, 2 April 2012 (UTC) >>>I agree with your conclusion, but not with your argumentation. You should know that the term “vandalism” has a very narrow definition on Wikipedia (WP:VAND & WP:NOTVAND). Having the infobox or not is a content dispute and not a question of vandalism. Repeatedly introducing it without consensus and without discussing is a very uncivil act, though. RJFF (talk) 19:46, 2 April 2012 (UTC) >>>>When a rebel army takes essentially full control of a region and declares it a separate entity from the country claiming it, why should it be treated any differently from other unrecognised countries like Somaliland. Just because Azawad has not yet organised a government does not make its independence invalid. I can understand why 17 January could be considered dubious as an independence date, though it was the start of the insurrection whose goal was the creation of an independent Azawad. Still, it is effectively independent as of yesterday, given that the Malian army has withdrawn. I first put up the country infobox given that independence was a fait accompli. It was taken down because of a lack of sources, so I put it back up and asked for opinions. I don’t see anything wrong with that - it’s a legitimate topic for discussion. 67.249.16.169 (talk) 22:07, 2 April 2012 (UTC) >>>>>FWIW, I agree with you that independence appears to be a fait accompli here, and I wholly agree that your edits were legitimate and not vandalism (even if I disagreed with them). Nor will your work go to waste - it’s just a question of waiting to see how reliable sources for international news describe the status of Azawad, and then some form of your infobox is very likely to be introduced. So I apologize if it seems like we’ve been too hard on you! Khazar2 (talk) 01:21, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

As it happened, when the MNLA “officially” declared independence on its website four days later, it was previously skeptical Kudzu1 who re-instituted the infobox, exactly two hours after the initial announcement. Khazar2 immediately endorsed the move, and the infobox has remained since. Meanwhile, as of 04:44, 17 April 2012 the hemispheric map used in Mali’s own infobox had the Azawad portion shifted to a different shade of green.

The “Azawad” talk page exploded in anger, with enough force that it was covered in the New York Times. “Wikipedia cannot create countries — stop playing games”, yelled the new petitioners. “This page should be removed, it is a slap in the face of the Malian nation,” offered one anonymous visitor. “This article is ridiculous and brings wikipedia into disrepute.”

The regulars, as they always seem to in such matters, wore the protesters down or, rather, rode them out. Any number of self-declared, unrecognized separatist nations (Somaliland, South Ossetia, et al.) have comparable articles with country-style infoboxes, they said, and so, for that matter, do Star Wars planets. Riposted User:Evzob: “Wikipedia does not exist for the dignity of the Malian nation. The region in question is part of Mali in the sense that other states recognize it as so, and in the sense that the government in Bamako claims it – but not really in any other sense. I think this article properly reflects that.”

The long-term guardians of Wikipedia were right, of course; whatever Azawad was on April 6, it was not a place where the Malian junta/government in Bamako
had any sort of monopoly on the legitimate use of force. Yet the onrush of angry “Malian nationalists” (if that’s who they were) introduced some tantalizing geopolitical — one’s tempted to say, ontological — perplexities. What exactly does sovereignty over vast tracts of empty desert, or over Central Park, really entail?

What happens if I step on that patch of grass being reseeded, or fail to pick up after my dog, and nothing happens? Is sovereign control something only demonstrated negatively, enforced in the breach? And, if so can any encyclopedia — that great positivist project — really get a handle on it?

More concretely, the folks furious that “Azawad” now has an infobox and all the accouterments of self-declared statehood seem to have, in the end, a much better understanding of the power of today’s Wikipedia — it’s capacity for shaping the mentalities that, two minutes or two decades later, will create on-the-ground reality — than the grizzled editors and administrators themselves. What it says matters, even to the billions who have never browsed a talk page or absorbed the internal guidelines on what counts as notable, verifiable, and NPOV.

In the age of Wikipedia, verifiability itself — for centuries predicated on documentation, whether from 1870’s leading Oxford Africanist or the latest AP story — suggests immediate political considerations. We know that the MNLA’s former allies, Ansar Dine — who want to implement Sharia law over the whole of Mali — immediately rejected its April 6 separatist claim and now hold sway over much of “Azawadi” territory. Is the fact that no talk page is considering an unrecognized Ansar Dine state with de facto control over parts of north Mali and claimed sovereignty of the whole country just a deficiency of P.R. — a matter of those hardcore Salafis neglecting to challenge MNLA’s flash-enabled website and easily-referenced French and English communiques?

Indeed, is it that much of a stretch to imagine the MNLA releasing its definitive April 6 declaration at least partially in response to the ambiguity that was gripping the “Azawad” talk page starting April 2? Wikipedia, with its 1 billion monthly visitors, would be willing to go with our declaration of sovereignty at this instant if only they could “see the independence claim in some world media before we make it on their behalf here.” Let’s get a press release on the web NOW.

Wikipedia is not the world. A ECOWAS invasion, or a revived Malian army with U.S. weapons, or a true Islamist revolution, or all three could crush the MNLA tomorrow. If that happens, “Azawad” probably won’t disappear or redirect to “Azawagh.” ‎It could quite likely lose its infobox.

But, win or lose this time, if Azawadi somehow becomes the defining petty nationalism of the twenty-first century, it’s worth considering the career of the twentieth’s. Serbia, reliable sources tell us, was a moderately powerful kingdom for about a hundred years in the middle ages. Then it lost a battle — on a date traditionally given as June 28, 1389 — and disappeared forever. The seed of modern Serbia emerged in 1804, and it took at least a hundred years of stirring speeches, triumphant skirmishes, state symbolism, and national history curricula to convince these Serbians, new to politics (not to mention literacy), that their nation was founded in defeat in that field of blackbirds, 1389.

When the heir to the throne had the temerity (or ignorance) to visit a semi-Serb part of Austria-Hungary on June 28, 1914, he was shot. As communism lost its spell, and it was beginning to look like the semi-Serb parts of Yugoslavia would need something else to hold them together, Slobodan Milošević delivered a brilliant, infamous speech on that sacred field, June 28, 1989.

The point is, no Serb was born with a mystic memory of the 28th of June, A.D. 1389; barely attested to in the records, the Battle of Kosovo had to be instilled, drilled, conjured by all the power and terror of the modern state, church, family. If, five years from now, a Tuareg child in Gao living under the Malian jackboot wonders, unbelieving, about that glorious moment in the ancient past when her people became free, I won’t have to mythologize. I can show her: 23:43, 6 April 2012.

Surely, this must mean something.