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Unmasked - 'Location Unknown'
July 31, 2020
Continuing Unmasked - a creative writing series exploring different aspects of identity.
Ever since living in the Palestinian West Bank I have been interested in unrecognised and disputed territories. I remember the strange feeling as my GPS gave up and simply told me my location was 'unknown'. I felt disconcerted, but also experienced a certain thrill like I'd somehow stepped through the wardrobe into Narnia.
According to Max Galka's comprehensive interactive map, there are 105 disputed territories in the world. Although many of these regions, such as Kosovo, conjure up images of violent conflict, many other unrecognised areas exist peacefully.
I am interested in the effect that living outside a recognised political state has on inhabitants' identity. Nationality often plays a huge part in developing our sense of self - what happens when this key pillar of identity is weakened or fragmented? A second interesting aspect is the mismatch between cartographers' and political leaders' attempts to divide the world into neatly defined political states, and the messy complexity of reality. As with other elements of identity, where you come from is not always neatly explained.
In the piece of writing below I have tried to capture the feeling of being in an unrecognised territory, based on research, imagination and my own experience.
I could pick out at least 3 different languages amongst the strange patchwork of conversation. Sometimes they switched even within the same sentence. Shop signs followed suit with a variety of scripts and within they accepted several different currencies in exchange for the minimal goods on display. Even the names of the towns varied depending who you were speaking to - old names, new names, unofficial names, hybrid names, revealing layer upon layer of history and change like peeling wallpaper. But this history was largely absent from the pages of history books, and the colourful place names were absent from maps. All that appeared was a small grey shaded area marked 'disputed territory', crisscrossed with dotted lines as if the perforations could be torn along and detached at any moment. There was no flag, no passport, no parliament, and my GPS simply said 'location unknown'. On paper, and in the eyes of the world, it was a place that did not exist.
How strange then, to be standing here, breathing in the scents and sounds in the gentle breeze. To be in a place beyond the reach of measurement and categorisation, that existed almost outside of time. With an uncertain future, and the scars of the past too raw to remember, the place hovered in a suspended present. It felt dream-like, as if I had discovered a secret door to a parallel universe. The reactions of the locals to their situation were as diverse as the language - some desperately sought the security of a state and immersed themselves in grand, passionate campaigns for political sovereignty and international recognition. Others seemed content to ground themselves in mundane day-to-day reality, simply living and savouring the small beauties of being, with little concern for abstract arguments of grids and systems and borders.
But still these issues hung over their daily lives in an invisible haze. Straightforward questions no longer had straightforward answers - 'what is your nationality?' 'where do you come from?' 'where do you live?' Within most people's lifetime the official answers to these questions had changed several times like shifting sands beneath their feet. But in a world where so many people bind their identity to a flag, a passport, and the firmly drawn borders of a political state, here there was something that almost felt like freedom. In a strange paradox, as definitions became increasingly laden with asterisks and complexity, they simultaneously released their rigid grip on people. Here, they had long ago given up attempting to pin precise labels on anyone or anything.
As I listened to the diverse medley of languages and laughter it seemed that each jumbled sentence was declaring 'life is complex. Who ever said that it wasn't?' Despite being surrounded by, at the very least, a triple language barrier, I was surprised to realise that in this place - unnamed, unmarked, and undefined - I felt strangely at home.
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