Top 10 Aspiring Nations

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Here's a sampling of ... places vying for independence — some with more legitimate claims for freedom than others.

Scotland

... despite centuries of being under London's yoke, Scotland still considers itself a separate country and periodically pushes for independence.

The Basque Country

In 1959, Franco's government banned the official use of the Basque language in a bid to further assimilate the people often referred to as Europe's first indigenous race. (The Basque language has no direct links to others spoken in Western Europe.) Franco also outlawed the Basques' semiautonomous councils and their tax-collecting authority. As a result, an already vibrant independence movement started to gain steam.

Tibet

In 1950, Chinese troops invaded the rugged plateau region, overrunning the outmatched Tibetan army and compelling the then Tibetan government to sign the 17-Point Agreement, which affirmed China's sovereignty over Tibet ... Some members of the Tibetan Cabinet, however, claimed not to have accepted the agreement. A violent crackdown in 1959 on Tibetan dissidents saw the 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet flee to India and repudiate the document as having been forced on his people.

South Ossetia

South Ossetia ...is the product of more recent times — fissured away from its North by Moscow's gerrymandering of borders and subsumed after the fall of the Soviet Union into the new independent state of Georgia. That didn't go down well with the South Ossetians and fighting broke out toward the end of 1990, leading to some 1,000 deaths.

Kurdistan

... the Kurds got a raw deal. Their homeland was carved up by the borders of Iran, Syria, Iraq and Turkey. To this day, the majority of the world's Kurdish population (some 30 million) live in this contiguous territory as ethnic minorities in other nations.

In a bid to subdue Kurdish identity, Turkey's founders deemed Kurds "mountain Turks" and forbade the use of the Kurdish language until 1991 ... Kurds have fared somewhat better in neighboring Iraq. Following the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, Iraqi Kurdistan in the north — which already had de facto autonomy from Baghdad ever since the end of the 1991 Gulf War — has seen relative stability and an economic boom.

Quebec

Quebec fell under British rule in the 18th century, but nostalgia for its French past remains ... Quebec is overwhelmingly French-speaking ... Quebecers came close to attaining statehood in October 1995 when a deficit of 53,000 votes (out of a constituency of 7.5 million) prevented secessionists from winning a mandate for independence.

Today, the movement has lost much of the momentum it had at its peak in the '90s.

Western Sahara

The former Spanish colony is a sparsely populated territory (fewer than 500,000 people live here) wedged between Mauritania and Morocco. By 1979, Morocco had annexed the entirety of Western Sahara, despite the protestations of a long-standing independence movement, headed by a group known as the Polisario Front. In the decades since, a significant Moroccan military presence has kept Polisario's columns of guerrillas at bay; the secessionists control only a sliver of largely uninhabited land in Western Sahara's east.

The Republic of Cascadia

The Republic of Cascadia would bring together Washington State, Oregon and British Columbia. Proponents of the new country say the approximately 14 million residents of "Cascadia" should demand their freedom from the oppressive governments of Canada and the U.S.

Padania

Italy's unification only came about in the second half of the 19th century ... Arguing that the poorer south is a drag on the wealthier, industrialized north, Lega Nord ... champions what it calls Padania, referring to the areas around the Po River Valley. In 1996, Bossi went so far as to declare Padania an independent republic.

Second Vermont RepublicT

... the Second Vermont Republic bills itself as a "nonviolent citizens network" focused on independence for the state of Vermont and the dissolution of the Union. Why? Because of "the tyranny of corporate America and the U.S. government" and so that Vermonters would not be, as Naylor told TIME in 2010, "forced to participate in killing women and children in the Middle East."

http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/completelist/0,29569,2041365,00.html

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

What about California? There has been a separatist fervor here every time a Republican becomes President. Matter of fact, there are sub sects in California that want to separate from other parts of California.

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What about California?

Go ask TIME magazine.

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

Go ask TIME magazine.

No answer, huh?

(Warning! NSFW Content)

Edited January 18, 2011 by Some Old Guy

[mawilson 2,133]

Is basic knowledge of CSS a prerequisite for citizenship in the Republic of Cascadia?