In the line of the recent events in Ukraine, the rising nationalism in the EU and of course the Scottish independence. (relating somewhat to my generations experience of the Yugoslav wars). Ive read an article yesterday on the fall of the nation states (which appears contradictory to whats happening) and the rise of neo-medieval systems of governance (such as city states). What I found incredibly interesting is that until the French revolution, the idea of a Nation State did not even exist and wouldve created a completely new system of self identification. Good examples being that talking one language (such as Serbs, Croats, Montenegrins and Bosniaks speak) does not equal a national identity in all cases and sometimes a nation can historically be made up of different language groups (Switzerland), yet in the course of 200 years people have grown to think that a nation state is a natural line of events that seems to spring from the whole idea that there is a nation in the first place, a linear setup of people that are naturally bordered to other groups. A couple of more interesting facts that seem to deny this are that 19th Century East European immigrants to the US usually did not know which country they are from or which nation they belong to, they did know their close family / village / city roots and the language they spoke. Keep in mind again that German states up until mid 19th Ct numbered 16 excluding Austria and Switzerland which at least partly speak the same language. Italians in the north and in the south did not speak exactly the same, now standardised Italian and Venecians spoke, well, Venecian. After Italy was unified, the saying was Now that weve created Italy, we need to create Italians. I think the development of Nation states was a necessity in the late 19th Century and so was probably the development of national arts such as the Russias The Five composers who tried to establish and use what they considered Russian traditional music elements. Wagner happened at the same time.. The development of that system allowed unification of big language speaking groups under the pretence of personal connection to the state. This eventually lead to the break up of most European monarchies and empires and slowly created and identity that we still traditionally think as a natural state for humans. Give you an example, people generally dont hold close ties to more than 150 people during each period in their lives and this roughly equates to a tribe or a village. We could theoretically look at these people and say that they are of the same aspirations and share some identity (these would maybe historically be family ties, but can now transcend into worldwide business, interest group, art or other ties). In order for these people to join a broader trade network initially a hierarchical system developed where each person would have communicated their issues to (or would be governed by) somebody on a higher rank. This created city states, kingdoms and empires all of which do not necessarily have anything to do with language groups or the now common idea of nation (think of the Ottoman Empire, British Empire, Austrohungarian empire). With the development of nation states these relationships became progressively linear, meaning that each person could relate to other people from different villages not through merely trade and a person above the hierarchical ladder, but through their percieved national identity and common roots. Generally it is known that a language and religious affiliation dont necessarily follow ones genetic heritage as is widely seen in Britain (having Roman, Anglosaxon, Celtic, Norman and other roots), Croatia (being Catholic /although ethnic bosnians are muslim and ethnic Serbs are othodox yet they speak the same language/, having a mixed genetic heritage as well). I salute the collapse of the nation state! Now people have somewhat been moving around but this does not necessarily lead to the collapse of a nation state, as people learn to accept a new identity. My identity does not lie within a nation, it lies in the connections and aspirations that are common throughout. It exists with my friends, family and my work. I am having a very hard time understanding the plea for a nation, as people have been flimsy on that issue historically (Some Illyrians definitely became Roman, and some of those Romans became Croatian... hm). The new world will bring an end to countries and maybe a neo-medieval period develops, creating open boarders, not on a basis of functional, profit based country unions but on a simple basis of lack of governance. This could take us on a route of establishing a new system, a system that perhaps keeps an idea of global economy, but consists of smaller units, city states (such as London - which is not part of the UK in many ways, for the good and bad), with a more natural and dispersed fluidity of people, maybe even a borderless planet. It isnt hard to imagine. It happened before. To conclude, in that sense, maybe this is just a transitional period and the struggles to split into smaller and smaller nations eventually leads into a nationless world.
Posted on: Wed, 10 Sep 2014 14:27:35 +0000
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