Warning: Nation Dissolves in Water

How do you dissolve a country?  I don't mean destroy, we have time honoured ways of doing that although the destroyed nations have this inconvenient habit of popping up a couple of centuries later to add more fuel to a dangerous ethnic fire and put mapmakers into early retirement.  No, I mean, how do you dissolve a country?  I suppose it helps if it wasn't an entirely real country in the first place.  The Netherlands Antilles dissolved itself a year ago today and nobody seems to have really noticed.

At this point those of you who aren't directly involved in money laundering or tax evasion are probably wondering "What the hell are the Netherlands Antilles?"  The Netherlands Antilles is (or, more accurately, was) a collection of islands in the Caribbean which were once part of Holland's far flung colonial empire (in the interests of strict accuracy I should point out the islands are still there its just the Netherlands Antilles which isn't).  In the 1950s the Dutch (who were probably embarrassed by how politically incorrect their forebears were) decided to grant this gathering of hazards to navigation independence.  Only not really; by all accounts the locals weren't exactly desperate to remove the iron fist of colonial oppression and the Dutch had to negotiate a generous subsidy package before they would have a bar of it.  There was some agitation but rather than seeking to step out into the world alone all the Antilleans seemed to want was more of a say in local affairs and thus the Netherlands Antilles was born.  Officially it was an independent, self governing nation within the framework of the Kingdom of Holland.  If that sounds like a ridiculous way to gain independence from the mother country I can only point out that Australia went pretty much the same route except the Netherlands Antilles did it deliberately while we just sort of drifted into it while we were busy doing something else.

Obviously, however, things weren't exactly perfect in paradise because little more than fifty five years after the birth of the new nation its owners decided to euthanise it.  What prompted this sudden dissolution?  Its difficult to put a finger on it really, possibly the islands just drifted apart.  This can happen in the best of relationships.  Anyway, in the first years of the twenty first century each island (there are five) held a referendum with four options on the table;

1) Status Quo
2) Separate country status under the Netherlands Crown
3) Closer relationship with Holland
4) Complete independence

The islands all charged cheerfully in different directions and the Netherlands Antilles was no more.  Interestingly the one option nobody chose was complete independence.  Its good to have a wealthy European country with a lingering sense of guilt and deep pockets just a phone call away.

So there we are, the Netherlands Antilles are gone.  One wonders if they issued a public statement, something low key and dignified along the lines of, "The Netherlands Antilles, on mature reflection, has decided to spend less time with itself.  It requests that you respect its privacy in these difficult times."  Not a bad way for a country to enter the dustbin of history really.  It certainly beats the divorce from hell that was Yugoslavia.