An interesting aspect of this game is that the 195 countries are 193 UN members, plus two other "widely recognised" nations. If you're anything like me, you suck at knowing the difference between Caribbean islands that are independent nations, and those that are owned by other countries (here's a hint: Bermuda? Not a country. St. Lucia? Country. Who knew?). And just as perplexing is the Pacific Ocean islands (where I live, in New Zealand, we generally refer to them as Polynesia, and I think a lot of the people I know would struggle to name the independent islands from the ones governed by other countries) - how Micronesia is any more of a country than Tokelau is honestly beyond me.
Anyway, last night I did some research. Turns out the two countries that aren't UN members are Kosovo and Taiwan. Taiwan, Chinese Taipei and Hong Kong have long baffled me, but not to the extent that Kosovo does. My knowledge of Kosovo as an independent nation is limited to Milorad Cavic's controversial t-shirt at the European Swimming Championships a few years ago - "Kosovo is Serbia". This, from a man who comes from a region where it's been necessary for him to represent three different countries in his three Olympic Games outings (you've heard me crap on about Cavic before, and this is because he's the man that could have stopped Phelps in his now legendary quest for eight golds at the Beijing Games) - in 2000 he raced for Yugoslavia, in 2004: Serbia and Montenegro, and in 2008: Serbia. According to Wikipedia, just 36% of UN countries "recognise" Kosovo as an independent nation.
It makes me wonder how these countries come to such decisions. While giants Russia and China say no to Kosovo, a few African countries like Lesotho, Burkina Faso, and Liberia recognise it. I mean, really. We've all seen what the UN assemblies look like - everyone sitting there behind a little placard with their country's name emblazoned on it. Does the Secretary-General say something like, "all in favour of making Kosovo an independent sovereignty?" and even though the Ethiopian representative quite likes Kosovo, he can't help but notice the death stare he's getting from his Eritrean neighbour? But Somalia doesn't have a ball of this. Somalia supports Kosovo in all its independent glory, and because of countries like Somalia, Kosovo gets included on the aforementioned game as one of two lucky countries to not be UN members but still widely recognised.
How then, does a place such as South Ossetia just miss out completely? Perhaps the Kosovo debate caused such a fracas that no-one dare say anything about it.
It amazes me in a similar way to the way some countries deny the Armenian Genocide (yes, here we go again). Did you know that modern Turkey and Azerbaijan claim there was no such thing? There's even a website I absolutely do not recommend, as such refuse to link to, called Tall Armenian Tale, denying the events ever took place. It's like that ridiculous lecturer I had in first year that tried to convince me that the grand total of casualties following the Chernobyl reactor disaster was seven.
Now, I don't know about you, but I personally know three girls who have congenital deformities which have been clinically confirmed as a direct result of their birth mothers being pregnant within the "danger zone" of Chernobyl. Apparently their deformities at birth distressed said birth mothers so that they were left in Russian orphanages and later adopted by well-meaning Americans (that was not in any way meant to sound judgmental, it's just what happened). When I broached this subject with the lecturer - who was, unsurprisingly, delivering a pro-nuclear power speech - his response was the equivalent of the Tall Armenian Tale website.
Splendid.
Anyway, I'm not sure how I ended up ranting about Chernobyl when originally I intended to discuss the international recognition of Kosovo.
*Yawn*
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