Millisphere: a discrete region inhabited by roughly one thousandth of the world population. The millisphere engages in the simple task of adding up populations until reaching an ideal median of around eight million. In the process the millisphere glimpses human geography and imagines an ideal future.
Stretching from Borneo in the west to Mindanao in the east, the millisphere of Sulu contains the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region (BAR) (population 4.2 million) and the Malaysian province of Sabah (3.5 million) - and is home to the Moro (a Spanish word).
For centuries the Islamic people of Sulu have been fighting for their independence. After years of conflict in Mindanao the Duterte government in 2019 granted regional autonomy to Bangsamoro - to be run by an elected parliament by 2022. Philippines president Rodrigo Dueterte's wife is part Moro and Dueterte was mayor of Davao, the largest city in Mindanao.
In 2013 "the Royal Sulu Sultanate Army" briefly invaded Sabah in Malaysia, claiming it back again, they said. Back when Islam was first drifting east from Johore with Moslem traders in the 15th century Sulu and Sabah were under the Sultan of Brunei.
Oil rich Brunei (0.5 million) today is tiny, too small to be a millisphere. Sabah (3.5 million) barely qualifies so I combine them both with the BAR to form the millisphere of Sulu with a population of around eight million.
In August 2020 an Islamic suicide bomber on a motorbike blew herself up outside the Jolo Catholic cathedral in the Sulu archipelago, killing 14 and wounding 75. Some Islamists still want an independent caliphate and Wahhabi mosques, financed with Saudi Arabian money, are being built across the archipelago.
Sulu is home to Abu Sayyaf, a Wahhabi Sunni militia, which claimed responsibility for the 2004 Superferry 14 bombing in Manila, killing 116. Abu Sayyaf has links to Jemaah Islamiyah in Indonesia (Bali bombing) and ISIS in the Middle East.
Part fundamentalist warriors, part methamphetamine fuelled Moro pirates, Abu Sayyaf are responsible for frequent kidnappings at sea and holding hostages for ransom.
Fifty years of conflict in Mindanao has seen entire towns demolished there and hundreds of thousands of Moro displaced. The closest thing Sabah has to slums are the camps constructed by Moro refugees fleeing the troubles in Mindanao. There always has been a cross-border barter trade between Sabah and the Sulu archipelago.
The millisphere of Sulu is surrounded by millispheres in the Philippines (Catholic and hostile), Indonesia and Malaysia (Moslem) and it is one of the 30 odd millispheres surrounding the South China Sea.
The millisphere of Sulu.
Sulu is the closest millisphere to the Spratly Islands, claimed by China, and the "nine-dash-line" drawn by China to substantiate that claim. The eastern end of Sulu is within fishing distance but Sulu fishermen are not allowed inside the nine-dash-line, which also pushes hard up against Sulu marine oil reserves.
In the past the Sultan of Sulu paid tribute to both the Ming and the Qing empires in China. In 2020 the Xi empire under President Xi Jinping claims all the fish in the South China Sea are Chinese.
The Moro pirates of the Sulu Sea still exist today. In the past Moro raided the Philippines for slaves and it wasn't until 1865 that the Spanish conquered the Sulu archipelago. In 2016 there were 16 cases of boarding hijacking and kidnapping in the Sulu-Celebes Sea region - mostly of Indonesian fishermen.
In 2020 the Jakarta Post continues to report ransomed fishermen being reunited with their families. Moro pirates sometimes kidnap Western tourists from Sabah and local seaweed gatherers are regularly kidnapped.
Sabah exports crude oil and palm oil but also has a well managed eco-tourism industry. Although heavily logged, half of Sabah is a bio-reserve. Sabah's tropical forests and coral reefs offer nature tourists a world class sustainable tourism experience.
For all of Sulu to cash in on ecotourism the Moro pirates would have to stop shaking down fishermen and tourists and start ferrying backpackers from island to island. The practice of fishing with dynamite would need to stop and the world heritage coral reefs could recover.
With an airport at each end and a tropical paradise in the middle I'd be tempted to make the trip myself.
