The World’s Forgotten States
Being unrecognised does not just strip a population of sovereignty and legitimacy. It strips them of protection, visibility, and memory. Forgotten states leave behind not only contested borders but generations of civilians forced to endure the everlasting consequences of erasure.
I first came across the state of Biafra when I read Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimananda Ngozi Adichie. I had never heard of Biafra before. It was a foreign concept, a foreign place. A country that I didn’t even know existed had a history so complex and intricate that it displaced millions and left scars that echo today in modern Nigeria. And yet, Biafra has been forgotten. It has been lost to the history books of African post-colonialism. This has me wondering: how many forgotten states are there? And how does a state even become forgotten?
A forgotten state is not just a country that failed or collapsed. It is not a place like the Soviet Union, which is still highly relevant and spoken of in today’s modern discourse. Instead, a forgotten state is an unrecognised, erased, or deliberately sidelined country that has been lost to distant echoes and silenced memories.
The first example I thought of was Biafra (1967–1970), but there are other countries too. Katanga (1960–1963) seceded from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, before being reincorporated; East Turkestan Republic declared sovereignty twice in the 1930s and 1940s, and was then erased by the Republic of China, and later the People’s Republic of China; Chechnya, in the 1990s, declared independence from Russia, and after war, was reintegrated. Alongside these historical examples, there are many contemporary states that are also unrecognised or only partially recognised. There are the obvious examples such as Palestine and Taiwan, but I would not see these states as ‘forgotten’, since they are highly prevalent in today’s modern news. Rather, the forgotten states of modernity include places like Somaliland, which is stable yet ignored; Western Sahara, a UN non-self-governing territory, occupied by Morocco; and Tibet, a government-in-exile, erased from official world maps.
These forgotten states fall into the black holes of history; their legacies do not last through the social discourse due to the lack of recognition from the global north. The Montevideo Convention of 1933 sets out four criteria for statehood: a permanent population, a defined territory, an effective government, and the capacity to enter into relations with other states. Without all four of these factors, states have a difficult time showing legitimacy. However, even if they were to have all four of these factors, it ultimately comes down to powerful hegemonies, such as the United States and China, to determine whether or not they would like to recognise said state.
An example of this is the contrast between why Kosovo gets recognition in the UN but a country like Somaliland does not. Kosovo, a small country in Eastern Europe, once a part of Yugoslavia, seceded from Serbia in 2008. Kosovo, a state backed by the United States and recognised by the EU, is considered to be a state under international law. Whereas, Somaliland, also a state which declared independence, is not recognised by the international community. Despite having their own functioning government, a national flag, its own currency, a police force and even a military, it is not recognised. The UN and African Union warn that recognising Somaliland could trigger a domino effect of other separatist movements across Africa. Not only is this extremely neo-colonialist, it exposes the hypocrisy at the heart of international law: recognition is less about meeting the Montevideo criteria and more about whether a state’s existence is convenient to global powers. Somaliland has done everything a state is supposed to do — build institutions, govern its people, and maintain stability — yet it is punished because its recognition might unsettle borders drawn by colonial rulers centuries before.
Declaring legitimacy is not neutral, it is deeply intertwined with the global hierarchies of power. Recognition is seen as a geopolitical bargaining chip. Great powers use recognition strategically. China, for example, aggressively blocks recognition of Tibet. They insist that in acknowledging an independent Tibet, it would undermine their own sovereignty and affect their regional dominance. China wants to keep asserting their power within East Asia, and by recognising a region such as Tibet, it would affect their power, despite the region being lowly populated. Russia, on the other hand, selectively recognises small breakaway nations such as Abkhazia, South Ossetia, and more recently places like Donetsk and Luhansk, as tools to weaken neighbouring states. For example, Abkhazia is a breakaway state from Georgia and, following the 2008 Russian invasion of Georgia, Russia recognised the independence of Abkhazia. By declaring its legitimacy, and asserting that it is its own sovereign nation, Russia aims to weaken Georgia,a former Soviet Union state. In each case, sovereignty is not an impartial standard but a weapon of geopolitics. It is granted or withheld depending on the interests of the hegemonic power whose control is at stake.
The consequences of nation erasure are felt mostly by the citizens. Being citizens of an unrecognised and forgotten country creates problems that are inescapable. For example, Western Sahara remains unrecognised. As a result, Sahrawis have spent decades in refugee camps in Algeria, where education, work, and mobility are minimal. Those in Moroccan-controlled areas often face discrimination and oppression, with little recourse to international protections. Their ‘unrecognised’ status allows mistreatment to persist. History records also show the same situation happening in Biafra. The lack of recognition of Biafra from the international community led to a heightened brutal civil war, famine, and the death of millions. While this happened, the world simply turned away, unwilling to legitimise the seceded state. Once defeated, Biafra’s existence was erased from mainstream history, and remembered only through personal testimony and novel literature. Being unrecognised does not simply strip a population of sovereignty — it strips them of protection, visibility, and memory. Forgotten states leave behind not only contested borders but generations of civilians forced to endure the lasting consequences of being forgotten.
The question must be asked of whether the 20th-century model of the nation-state is still fit for purpose or whether it was ever truly universal. The Montevideo Convention, drafted over 90 years ago in the Americas and modelled on European traditions of statehood, continues to be held up as the standard. But this framework is deeply Eurocentric. It reflects an undeniable Western vision of sovereignty, rooted in fixed borders and centralised authority, a model exported during colonialism and imposed on diverse societies that often organised themselves through fluid boundaries and kinship networks. There is an undeniable tension here: between people’s right to self-determination and an international system whose primary obsession is preserving the ‘stability’ of borders drawn by European states. As such, recognition is less about whether a nation can govern itself and more about whether it conforms to an inherited European style. If recognition is ultimately political, filtered through these Eurocentric norms and enforced by global powers, can freedom ever truly rest in the hands of the civilians?
So, when I look at a forgotten state, such as Biafra, I can’t help but question how something as historically intricate as a nation can be reduced to only a footnote in the encyclopaedias. How a group of people can fight for survival, raise a flag, and yet still be erased because they were not recognised. This reveals the overarching, uncomfortable truth: the world map is not a neutral record of geographical reality, but a political document. Borders shift, and nations appear and disappear, memories fade, and not because people cease to exist, but because recognition is withheld. Forgotten states expose the fragility of sovereignty itself, highlighting how legitimacy is less about self-determination and more about power. If recognition is what makes a country real, then perhaps the world map is less a reflection of reality than a ledger of power. Entire nations can disappear at the stroke of a hegemony’s pen.
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