I never understood the difference between the terms country, nation and state. Recently I learned:
· A country is an area defined by borders that show on a map
· A state is a legal entity with a government and laws
· A nation is a group of people with a common language and heritage
In daily usage we do not adhere to these distinctions. When Virginia Woolf says “As a woman I have no country” she merges the terms country, nation and state. She is saying “Although I live in this country, no state defends my equal rights and I do not feel the kinship of a nation”.
Entities to which the terms country, nation and state refer, keep appearing and disappearing. As nations emerged from city-states, kingdoms and empires, they made up national histories as needed. Germany and Italy did not exist before 1800. The Soviet Union and Yugoslavia do not exist anymore. East and West Germany are no longer separate states. Bosnia. Ukraine, Slovakia were nations before becoming states. Some regions (nations?) want more separation (Catalonia); some regions want more integration (Puerto Rico, Ulster).
The three concepts overlap, but rarely neatly. Belgium was formed in 1813 as a state with two nations, Flanders and Wallonia plus Brussels fitting neither. The Netherlands was a combination of seven provinces in the empire of Philips 2, the King of Spain. The seven became a state in 1648 when the provinces achieved independence as the “Verenigde Provincien”. The plural "Koninkrijk der Nederlanden" remains to this day. According to the definition, Friesland is a nation, Holland another.
Holons (entities that form part of bigger entities) separate and bind us. Individuals and the world population are the stable extremes on a range of holons that keep changing. Foreign policy is the craft of structuring and managing these holons.
The USA started as federation of states with fluid geographical borders; not yet a country, nor a state or a nation. Sharing a common constitution made the federation of colonies into a state, but the constituent parts are still called states. The USA is a state of states. Diversity in heritage did not prevent the federation of states to become a nation. On the contrary, diverse heritage became a defining feature of this new nation. I experience that on the ski lift. On hearing my different accent, my incidental ski chair companion will ask, “Where are you from?”. Often, their response to my answer is, “My ancestors are from … “. Differences in heritage are our connection. The USA is a nation of nations. Yet, at my naturalization ceremony I had to swear non-allegiance to a foreign country (Confusing terminology; it should be nation ). My American passport is based on a lie, but I seem to be the only one who finds that a problem.
States are necessary because they maintain laws. A shared narrative and patriotism provide emotional cohesion to the legal agreements. “Nation” is a dangerous concept. Patriotism easily becomes nationalism asserting supremacy over other nations. “America First” is not much different from “America ueber alles”. In the eighties, some people thought that nations were on their way out; countries would become just provinces in a connected world. The opposite happened; nationalism is on the rise everywhere. Right when climate change requires global initiatives, nationalism stands in the way.
Equal rights, the central value of liberalism, was always an elusive concept. Initially, “All men are born equal … “ meant that no white male landowner had by birth power over other white male landowners. We have come a long way; citizens of both genders and all races and religions have equal rights. But non-citizens (aliens) are still excluded. A non-citizen gets locked up for the simple fact of being in this country without permission. “Nation” is a divisive concept.
Amity and enmity are the driving forces of evolution and determine the interaction between individuals, families, tribes and nations. Like all animals, we strive to prevail as individual and as tribe. Gradually we developed rules for handling the tension between amity for our kin and enmity toward non-kin: we learned to grant others the same rights as we demand for ourselves. That is the essence of civilization. Still, we defend our family and our tribe first.
Regional conflicts ( Scotland versus Britain, Catalonia versus Spain, Flanders versus Belgium) lose their relevance when we realize that the world is in danger. First of all we are world citizens.