On a hike across Vojvodena in Serbia (“The Path to Peace” in the March/April 2016 issue of AFAR), I got the chance to hang out in the first (and only) embassy to Liberland, a newly created country on a supposed piece of no man’s land on the Danube between Serbia and Croatia. I didn’t get to meet the “president,” Vit Jedlička, but I did chat with Doroteja Pospihalj, the press secretary for the would-be Libertarian country. When I told her that many locals were troubled that the existence of Liberland could destabilize a region historically prone to violent clashes, she sounded naïvely optimistic: “We’re all about peace and love in Liberland. In fact, tomorrow we’re going to sail across the Danube and declare that land ours. We’re going to show up with hundreds of flowers.” Just then a Czech guy in his mid twenties, Jaromir Miskovsky, sitting at a table about 20 feet away, yelled out, “It’s called Operation Flower Storm!” I asked if they’d be naming anything after Ayn Rand in Liberland. “Probably a street,” Doroteja said. “And, of course, Slavoj Zizek, too.” She was referring to the popular Slovenian philosopher. When I noted that Zizek is a Marxist which was at odds with the libertarian philosophy behind Liberland, she shrugged and said, “I think he’d agree with what we’re doing here.”
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On a hike across Vojvodena in Serbia (“The Path to Peace” in the March/April 2016 issue of AFAR), I got the chance to hang out in the first (and only) embassy to Liberland, a newly created country on a supposed piece of no man’s land on the Danube between Serbia and Croatia. I didn’t get to meet the “president,” Vit Jedlička, but I did chat with Doroteja Pospihalj, the press secretary for the would-be Libertarian country. When I told her that many locals were troubled that the existence of Liberland could destabilize a region historically prone to violent clashes, she sounded naïvely optimistic: “We’re all about peace and love in Liberland. In fact, tomorrow we’re going to sail across the Danube and declare that land ours. We’re going to show up with hundreds of flowers.” Just then a Czech guy in his mid twenties, Jaromir Miskovsky, sitting at a table about 20 feet away, yelled out, “It’s called Operation Flower Storm!” I asked if they’d be naming anything after Ayn Rand in Liberland. “Probably a street,” Doroteja said. “And, of course, Slavoj Zizek, too.” She was referring to the popular Slovenian philosopher. When I noted that Zizek is a Marxist which was at odds with the libertarian philosophy behind Liberland, she shrugged and said, “I think he’d agree with what we’re doing here.”
