OSTERVALE — A neighboring country has formally protested the continued practice of referring to it as “a neighboring country,” according to a 14-page diplomatic note delivered Monday at a reception on the sidelines of the Ostervale Conference on Mutual Understanding, where the coffee was served in porcelain cups and described by several delegations as “tepid but sincere.”
The note, handed to a junior envoy at 6:40 p.m. between the shrimp course and the speeches, states that the country “has had a name for more than 400 years” and “would like it used at least once.” It spells the name out three times, phonetically on the second occasion, and includes a small hand-drawn map on which the country has been outlined in a confident blue.
“We are not a direction. We are a country. We have a flag, a national anthem, and a very good cheese,” said the country’s deputy ambassador, a tall man in a gray suit who stood near the window for most of the reception, at an angle that several attendees interpreted as pointed. He then said the name of his country slowly, twice, and waited.
The protest follows what the note calls “decades of being described by where we are, instead of who we are,” including references in official communiqués to “a delegation from the north,” “a nearby partner,” and, on one occasion in 2019, “the other one.” An appendix lists 31 such references in this newspaper, each highlighted in yellow. In response to the latest instance, the country has begun moving. Satellite imagery reviewed by conference staff shows that its border has withdrawn approximately 40 miles since Thursday, carrying with it 11 towns, a mountain range, and a regional airport, with the stated aim of becoming “no longer, technically, neighboring.” Its foreign ministry said the country would continue to withdraw at about 6 miles per day until it is “far enough away to be called something specific.”
Prof. Desmond Achterberg, who holds the Prewitt Chair in Comparative Annoyance at Ellery State University, said nations have objected to positional names for centuries. “The Low Countries filed their first complaint about the word ’low’ in 1548 and have been waiting for a reply ever since,” Achterberg said. “The scholarship holds that once you are named for your location, your location becomes your personality. I have written that down in several places.”
Ron Gilchrist, senior spokesperson for the Department of Agricultural Common Sense, which sent an observer to the reception, said the department “has a deep respect for all borders, especially fence lines.” Asked whether the department would refer to the country by its name in future statements, Gilchrist said that soybean exports to the region remained “stable and, frankly, encouraging,” and declined to comment further.
The seating chart for Tuesday’s plenary session lists the country’s delegation as “Neighboring Country (Formerly),” a compromise the delegation rejected at 9:12 a.m. and accepted at 9:14 a.m., after it was moved two seats closer to the coffee.
On Tuesday afternoon, a second country, located behind the first, wrote to conference organizers to say that it was now technically the neighboring country, that it had never been called anything at all, and that it would be honored to accept the title. Its delegation arrived at 4 p.m. with name tags that read, in confident blue, “Hello, We Are Next to You.”