Search Heraldry / Jewel BoxSearch Engine Heraldry
The internet has become the unau
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Search Heraldry / Jewel BoxSearch Engine Heraldry
The internet has become the unauthorised biography of Sealand. A story of invasions, hijacks, kidnaps and forged passports. A story of misunderstandings, hearsay, and lies. Eventually, all this we might call myth – its being true or not is irrelevant to the identity it produces. Apparently, the internet brings a form of information which could be called ‘hypothetical truth’. Hypothetical truth nowadays plays an increasingly important role in government policy, as governments turn to mythmaking to justify their actions against enemies. If even respected governments turn to Google not knowing whether what comes out makes sense, it is no exaggeration to say that the search engine functions as a contemporary oracle, a gambling machine of possible realities. The observation that information, information management and data streams fulfill such an essential role in the contemporary creation of myth, brings us to the case of national identity. The heraldic elements that form national crests are, visually, also the emblems of myth. In a form of contemporary heraldry, information takes on the role of the dragon. Sealand’s visual realm can be mapped as a network ruin, in which the ambiguous nature of the Principality’s identity becomes apparent. Arnold Böcklin’s Island of the Dead, financial scandals of the new economy (Parmalat, Worldcom), container freight corporation Maersk Sealand, the British queen, data haven coins based on the typology of the compact disc, Google, the figure pi, and Versace couture appear and disappear in a tantalizing rain of notions called the Jewel Box.
‘The first hint of a Sealand clone, in Roy Bates’ recollection, came after the 1997 murder of fashion designer Gianni Versace and the suicide of his killer, Andrew Cunanan, on a Miami houseboat. Police said the German businessman who owned the boat had a Sealand passport and diplomatic license plates. Bates was puzzled, he says, because he had issued passports only to a few hundred friends and collaborators and didn’t know the German businessman.Yet thousands of black-bound Sealand passports embossed with the Bates seal – two crowned sea creatures – were turning up everywhere from Asia to Eastern Europe. About 4.000 were sold in Hong Kong as many residents scrambled to obtain foreign documents before Britain handed the colony over to China in 1997. Then, about a year ago, a friend called Bates from the United States to say he had seen Sealand’s Web site, which boasted 160.000 citizens and several foreign embassies. The prince and princess of Sealand didn’t have embassies – or a Web site. “I wrote (to the site) asking them what they thought they were doing,” Michael Bates told Spanish Television. Someone claiming close ties to Spain’s King Juan Carlos I wrote back that they were “working in the interest of my family and doing all kinds of wonderful things,” he said. The mystery began to unravel in March after the Civil Guard, Spain’s paramilitary police, arrested a flamenco nightclub owner for selling diluted gasoline at his Madrid filling station. Identifying himself as Sealand’s “consul,” he produced a diplomatic passport and tried to claim immunity from prosecution. A check with Spain’s Foreign Ministry turned up no such country, prompting investigators to treat Sealand as a criminal gang. Police raided three Sealand offices and a shop that made Sealand license plates. Sealand operatives, they reported, had sold diplomatic credentials to Moroccan hashish smugglers, negotiated with Russian arms dealers and tried to channel millions of dollars through three Spanish banks for mysterious Russian and Iraqi clients. About 80 people are accused of committing fraud, falsifying documents and usurping public functions. Police in the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Slovenia, Russia and Romania have been asked to question suspects who may have distributed Sealand documents-– including some with false identities. Roy Bates denies any links to the busted Sealand gang, and Spanish police say no one in his family is a suspect. “They’re stealing our name, and they’re stealing from other people,” Joan Bates said. “How disgusting can you get?”.
- Los Angeles Times, June 7, 2000.
The internet has become the unauthorised biography of Sealand. A story of invasions, hijacks, kidnaps and forged passports. A story of misunderstandings, hearsay, and lies. Eventually, all this we might call myth – its being true or not is irrelevant to the identity it produces. Apparently, the internet brings a form of information which could be called ‘hypothetical truth’. Hypothetical truth nowadays plays an increasingly important role in government policy, as governments turn to mythmaking to justify their actions against enemies. If even respected governments turn to Google not knowing whether what comes out makes sense, it is no exaggeration to say that the search engine functions as a contemporary oracle, a gambling machine of possible realities. The observation that information, information management and data streams fulfill such an essential role in the contemporary creation of myth, brings us to the case of national identity. The heraldic elements that form national crests are, visually, also the emblems of myth. In a form of contemporary heraldry, information takes on the role of the dragon. Sealand’s visual realm can be mapped as a network ruin, in which the ambiguous nature of the Principality’s identity becomes apparent. Arnold Böcklin’s Island of the Dead, financial scandals of the new economy (Parmalat, Worldcom), container freight corporation Maersk Sealand, the British queen, data haven coins based on the typology of the compact disc, Google, the figure pi, and Versace couture appear and disappear in a tantalizing rain of notions called the Jewel Box.
‘The first hint of a Sealand clone, in Roy Bates’ recollection, came after the 1997 murder of fashion designer Gianni Versace and the suicide of his killer, Andrew Cunanan, on a Miami houseboat. Police said the German businessman who owned the boat had a Sealand passport and diplomatic license plates. Bates was puzzled, he says, because he had issued passports only to a few hundred friends and collaborators and didn’t know the German businessman.Yet thousands of black-bound Sealand passports embossed with the Bates seal – two crowned sea creatures – were turning up everywhere from Asia to Eastern Europe. About 4.000 were sold in Hong Kong as many residents scrambled to obtain foreign documents before Britain handed the colony over to China in 1997. Then, about a year ago, a friend called Bates from the United States to say he had seen Sealand’s Web site, which boasted 160.000 citizens and several foreign embassies. The prince and princess of Sealand didn’t have embassies – or a Web site. “I wrote (to the site) asking them what they thought they were doing,” Michael Bates told Spanish Television. Someone claiming close ties to Spain’s King Juan Carlos I wrote back that they were “working in the interest of my family and doing all kinds of wonderful things,” he said. The mystery began to unravel in March after the Civil Guard, Spain’s paramilitary police, arrested a flamenco nightclub owner for selling diluted gasoline at his Madrid filling station. Identifying himself as Sealand’s “consul,” he produced a diplomatic passport and tried to claim immunity from prosecution. A check with Spain’s Foreign Ministry turned up no such country, prompting investigators to treat Sealand as a criminal gang. Police raided three Sealand offices and a shop that made Sealand license plates. Sealand operatives, they reported, had sold diplomatic credentials to Moroccan hashish smugglers, negotiated with Russian arms dealers and tried to channel millions of dollars through three Spanish banks for mysterious Russian and Iraqi clients. About 80 people are accused of committing fraud, falsifying documents and usurping public functions. Police in the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Slovenia, Russia and Romania have been asked to question suspects who may have distributed Sealand documents-– including some with false identities. Roy Bates denies any links to the busted Sealand gang, and Spanish police say no one in his family is a suspect. “They’re stealing our name, and they’re stealing from other people,” Joan Bates said. “How disgusting can you get?”.
- Los Angeles Times, June 7, 2000.
