No. of Recommendations: 4
I'm not sure why you are dismissing the example of Italian state formation as I think it explains the problem I'm raising with the nation state and nationalism very well. I'm not sure what relevance the process of the territorial formation of the nation state bears on my argument. Whether the nation state is formed through the process of territorial amalgamation (Italy) or fragmentation (Slovakia) the role of nationalism in that process is the same.
But if you're offering the idea that nation-states are universally based on some imaginary unreality, I'd like to see you that would apply to a state that didn't have that kind of origin story. A state like Slovakia or Armenia, which wasn't a synthesis of numerous smaller groups but was deliberately drawn to provide self-determination and independence for a single group.I reject the claim that I am saying nation-states are based on unreality. They are based on an imagined reality. The Florentine language of Dante is real, not unreal, but calling it Italian and assuming it is the language of a common people in the Italian peninsula is a feat of imagination that can only be achieved through the force of a coercive national state. Your request, however, points to the problem with the nation state that I have been articulating throughout this discussion. You are requesting me to provide an example of something that I am telling you DOES NOT EXIST. You are asking me to give you an example of the formation of a state with political authority over a territory in which all the people share a cultural, historical, and linguistic identity. Your request assumes that Slovakia and Armenia somehow formed nation states governing homogeneous populations and thus negate the claim that nation states are a fiction. I don't know the history of state formation in Slovakia or Armenia so I cannot speak to those specific processes. But even a cursory examination of Slovakian state formation shows that Slovakia emerged from the post cold war disintegration of Czechoslovakia. Based on Wikipedia I can see that 80% of the people speak Slovakian, with over 7% speaking Hungarian and ~2% speaking Roma. The State Language Act privileges the Slovakian language and represses minority languages in official communications and education (typical of all nationalist projects. See
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_law_of_Slov...). There is rampant and systematic discrimination against the Romani people, who may comprise as much as 15% of the population of the country, despite laws protecting minority language rights. The Romani are entitled, under the law, to have schools where children are taught in the Romani language, but none exist.
The point is that a national state exercising political authority over a territorial population and organized around the presumed shared national identity of that population, doesn't exist here either. The attempt to imagine an independent Slovakian nation with self determination for the Slovakian people comes at the cost of those Romani, Hungarian, and Jewish residents of Slovakia who do not share the presumed homogeneity of the nation. Are they citizens? Sure. Do they have full civil and political rights? Not exactly. How can they in a nation state that privileges the culture, language and history of one assumed homogeneous group in society that it is pledged to protect and represent?
There are other ways to do territorial political authority without basing it on the presumed national identity of the population. The US has pursued this for the past half century until the recent rise of neo-fascism (I'm looking at you, Dope). MAGA is all about returning to some imagined homogeneous past (the racism at the heart of this fever dream is obvious). Canada has provided an alternative model, especially its federalist approach to the French speaking population of Quebec. Post-Apartheid South Africa is another example of a political state attempting to create conditions for the coexistence of diverse populations. Their constitution has twelve official languages. Interestingly, under apartheid the African population developed linguistically and culturally pluralistic communities in the cities with multilingualism becoming quite common, in part because they were powerless and there were no political authorities using ethnicity to organize the population for political and economic gain. Indeed, the shared goal of black liberation united the people across ethnic, religious, and racial lines.
Equal civil and political rights should be granted to all people living in a territory claimed by a state regardless of culture, religion, language, or presumed natural rights to occupancy of the land, and all people should be given access to the means necessary to live fulfilling and meaningful lives within that territory.
