Without countries, the whole question of nationality dissolves. Nearly all countries have been invented in the last few hundred years. Germany and Italy only became nation states in 1871. The Act of Union creating the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was passed by Parliament in 1800. The United States of America was named in 1776, but only became the country we know today in the mid 19th century. If you look at France it is even stranger. From a series of completely separate fiefdoms with different languages, after the revolution of 1789 they gradually became a unified country, with one language mandated by 1880. This unification and language normalisation all took a long time. In the 1940s, more than one million people in France still spoke Breton as their first language. Until you all speak the same language, you really shouldn’t really be called a country. So France was hardly what we would now call a country until maybe the 1950s. The same goes for many other countries, excluding Belgium of course, which has three official languages in various dialects. Canada also has two official languages, French and English, yet it has managed to remain a unified country. This is a complicated subject.
Does a language define a country? Well maybe it should, for how else can you do it? Obviously where someone is born no longer defines nationality. It is a matter of chance, we could be born anywhere, and often are. Place of birth does have a bearing on our cultural beliefs and behaviour, but not in a readily definable way – it all depends on our personal history. The fact is that language is a primary factor, since the structure of language already contains a hidden and unconscious stack of social rules and behaviours. You only have to look at the structure of a particular language to see it echoed in actual social behaviour – 84% of Dutch people do not believe you are Dutch unless you speak Dutch. Language has become the defining cultural factor of what we call nationality.
Following this reasoning, in a world where English is now the first or second language for most people, the so called English aka American language is about to take over. Soon we will all be “English”. Mandarin Chinese may be spoken by more people, but it is not a numbers game, it is an influence game. Many African countries are now adopting English as their first language, for economic reasons. In the light of this information the United Kingdom’s departure from any influence over the European Community seems like a betrayal of historic partnerships. We have already won the battle of language, now we retreat? However, slowly, with many bumps in the road, we are all coming together, becoming one, like it or not. News, sport, music and cinema are already global concerns.
The evident craziness of the country concept becomes obvious at the level of sport. Now the passport of the sportsman is up for grabs, following rules which can change, and are different for each sport. Many English sport-stars were born in another country, became naturalised here, and became English. I’m referring to Johanna Konta from Australia, Mo Farah from Somalia, Linford Christie from Jamaica, for example. My mother was born in Indonesia and my uncle in Peking; they both represented Scotland at university level athletics. But of course now they could represent China, Scotland, Indonesia, United Kingdom, Borneo, England or nearly any other country in the world, depending on their residency history. Neither ancestors nor place of birth define your sporting nationality, there are choices to be made. So in the recent European Championships, Israel is represented by Lonah Chemtai Salpeter, a Kenyan runner who has lived in Israel for eight years, Turkey is represented by Jak Ali Harvey from Jamaica, who previously had run for Jamaica at high school level. Of course in football, with so much money running around, the rules are even more byzantine. That is presuming a footballer worth £10 million can get a visa.
Of course if you are rich enough, the world is your oyster. Indeed for the super rich there are still no countries, nationality is just another commodity. Citizenship can be bought in over 20 countries round the world. Even in the USA, so mindful of immigration, residence is awarded to foreign nationals who invest $1m in the economy and create 10 full-time jobs for US citizens within two years of arrival. If you want to live in Europe you can buy an EU passport in Malta for only 650,000 euros. In the UK may I suggest joining the Tier 1 Investor Programme with £2,000,000 in your pocket. Come on down, join our country!
The entire concept of nationality is built on a colonialist concept of the world. Borders were invented by Victorians drawing lines on a map, now we have to live with these arbitrary lines as if they were god-given. Of course they slice through many tribes and communities, which the Victorian map-makers often had no notion of. Only 70 years ago a line was drawn partitioning India into two countries, along religious lines, and over 14 million people were displaced. The most nefarious effects have been in Africa, leading to ongoing conflicts, most recently in Sudan, but their blight can also be vividly seen in the Middle East.
We have to get over the idea of nationalism, it is meaningless. The recent DNA investigations of our genetic origins make a joke out of our petty racist behaviour. Apparently most English people came from first Northern Portugal, then Middle Europe, Germany and Denmark. We have only been here for 6000 years and the Welsh have more right to be called English, if you follow the law of the soil argument, than most people in Kent, who arrived from Europe more recently. Genetically speaking, Israelis and Palestinians cannot be separated, so why build a wall? We should look at nationality like supporting a football team, a completely arbitrary decision based on random cultural associations and proximity to the ground where the football is played.
It might seem as if I’m saying where you come from does not matter. It absolutely does, it defines our cultural and social identity – you might rise above it, so to speak, but you will never escape it. We are who we are, our identity cannot be subsumed. In our new modern world, our global village, the possibilities seem endless, but they are a chimera. We can’t all just go and live where we want, in our rapid transit world that is a recipe for chaos. Realistically, residency has to be a managed process, however hard that might be. We have yet to come to terms with this new reality, now that you can cross continents in a few hours. The situation where the best educated Asians and Africans came to live in the UK, to work in our National Health Service for example, should be coming to an end. They are needed in their own countries, where they can accomplish so much more. We should no longer be encouraging them to emigrate, but training them so they can return home and improve their own societies. We should all be encouraged to visit, just don’t miss the last bus home.
World government already exists, it’s called the UN, for better or worse. Since 1948 it subscribes to The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which is a cool document in over five hundred languages and it should be taught in all of our schools. The United Nations might still be structured in terms of countries, but the decisions they make are world decisions. That is the only way forward.
Originally stardust
Then bilateral
Now I am Human
I live on Earth, I am an Earthling
I came from Africa
I am a member of the United Nations
I am a European
I am at present a member of the European Union
I am a member of the currently privileged Western Elite
I am a Scotsman
I am a UK citizen
I have the right of abode in the United Kingdom
I was born in Romford, Essex
I may be Scenglish
I do not identify as English, except when England play football
My father was born in Dunfermline, Fife
My mother was born in Sumatra, Indonesia
My brother is a Kiwi
My sons are Jewish UK citizens, soon to become Germans
I am roughly 4% Neanderthal
Some Asians are a bit Denisovan
We are the sole survivors of the genus Homo
We are all Homo Sapiens
Forget Countries
We are the World
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