On the Importance of Countries
Imagine a tourist, someone whose hobbies include ‘traveling.’ She says: “I want to visit 50 countries.” “How many countries have you visited?” This talk implies visiting El Salvador or Andorra la Vella is the same as visiting Japan or Russia. To this kind of tourist, “country” denotes something sacred as well as political. One may be tempted to ask: “what if that country you visited ceases to be? Will you have to scramble to visit another country to make up for the lost time?” Or “what if that destination you visited which was initially just part of the same country you already visited became part of a new country, will you consider this a windfall and yourself a more accomplished traveler without needing to go on a trip?”
“Country” is important to some people. How important is it? We should start with an understanding of what a country is. Oxford dictionary defines “country” as “a nation with its own government, occupying a particular territory.” This is not very helpful as now we have to delve into the question of “nation.”
Allow yours truly to give this a shot: A country is an independent political entity with a defined land area and a population. What do I mean by “defined?” That is a compromise between the country itself and those outside of the country whose opinions matter. A country has neighbors who have to acknowledge the rights of the country to exclude others in order for the country to exist. But the question of country formation is a topic for another time. Our excited traveler who wants to check 50 “countries” off her travel log may not care so much about these definitions.
Countries serve an important purpose. The ones who form and maintain a country (let’s call them “countrymen” from now on) have interests they need to secure from those inside and outside of the country. These interests of the countryman include the desire to protect his person, property, and family from outsiders and insiders. The countrymen give the country and its institutions a sort of monopoly on violence and a duty to adjudicate disputes in protecting the countryman’s interests.
But how important is it for the countryman to be in one particular country or another? It is of some importance. The countryman desires a country that properly secures the countryman’s interests. The countryman prefers a functional country to a dysfunctional country. The countryman prefers a country that actually serves his interests and doesn’t favor the interests of some other class to his detriment. One country may better promote the countryman’s culture, and the countryman is more comfortable practicing his own culture. But what if a countryman can choose the administration of more than one different countries that would essentially function the same way and equally promote the countryman’s interests?
There are other reasons a countryman prefers the rule of one country over another. Some of these reasons could be sentimental. The countryman’s ancestors founded the country’s institutions. Those ancestors bled to place the borders of the country where they are, they at times bled for the country’s very existence. The countryman may be honor-bound to ensure that this country does not falter while he is at the helm. The shame of being alive and capable while his great country disintegrated would be too great to bear.
When is a country worth dying for? A countryman may face ruin if his country is destroyed by some threatening force. His person, property, and family may be at stake. But in this case, the goal of preserving those interests is accomplished by risking his life for his country. What if those interests can be separated from the existence of his country?
There are other concerns besides “country” and the countryman’s immediate interests (person, property, family). Countries belong to larger cultural or civilizational groups. When the Garibaldians launched their expedition to unite Italy in 1860, they were met with the Neapolitan forces that pitched battle, suffered some thousands of deaths, before the country disintegrated and merged with the new Italian Kingdom. The Two Sicilies surely had more men and women who could have given their lives to defend their country, what happened? This writer will hazard a guess: the countrymen assessed that the Two Sicilies were not worth dying for. The Kingdom of Italy could secure their interests as well or better than the Two Sicilies, and the promoted cultures of the new Italian Kingdom were close enough to their way of life. And as it turned out, there was no significant attempt to restore an independent Naples or Sicily since the Garibaldians extinguished the entity.
The reader may protest that this is a poor example. The Two Sicilies were merely the latest attempt in a long series of attempts by foreign powers: most notably the Eastern Roman Empire, the Normans, and the Spanish, to subjugate Southern Italy. It was an inorganic entity with no staying power on its own. Then consider the long-lived “Saxony” that existed in eastern present-day Germany. This entity, first an electorate and then a kingdom, existed from 1356 to 1871 as an independent nation, until it first joined the North German Confederation as an autonomous entity and then was abolished in 1918. There was no heroic last stand of the Saxon in the 19th or 20th century to save his nation.
Consider that your country’s existence is at risk. You have the opportunity to die in order to decrease the existential threat to your country. Do you need further inquiry? Are you a coward for even asking for more context and wanting to weigh alternatives?
What is the level of the tragedy where one country, perhaps thought up in the 19th century, disappears. Perhaps this country was annexed by a larger neighbor. Perhaps its people simply vanished through emigration and low birth rates.
And what is the level of the tragedy where an entire people vanishes. Their language, and all reasonably close languages, vanish. Perhaps the people vanished through demographic phenomena or the people became unrecognizable after being absorbed into a new cultural sphere.
It seems questionable to resign the fate of your people to a particular political entity. You might be selfless, but does your country’s struggle end with your death? How many more would have to die to secure the continued existence of your country? To sacrifice the essence of your people, their demographic health, for the sake of a political entity seems monstrous. It’s not unreasonable to ask whether the sacrifice of the Paraguayans was ultimately worth achieving their result. Between 60 and 70% of Paraguay’s population perished in the 1860s war of the triple alliance, leaving a woman to man ratio of 1 to 4. Those dead Paraguayans could have increased manyfold in the 19th and 20th centuries, they could have created art, innovation, lived happy lives, etc. Entire families going back generations were wiped out. They died so that Paraguay might exist, despite the mistakes of its leadership.
How significant is the continued existence of Paraguay? What is the loss to the Paraguayans and to others if Paraguay remained partitioned between Brazil, Uruguay, and Argentina? Those living in Uruguay and Argentina would belong to a country that speaks their own language - Spanish. Those living in Brazil would live in a country that administrates in a language with a high degree of mutual intelligibility with Spanish - Portuguese. Today Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay are each far wealthier than Paraguay.
What else besides country could matter? Countries forms spheres of influence, cultural spheres, civilizations, etc. A countryman might derive meaning from his religion, his clan, his ethnicity, some pan-identity, etc. Perhaps he follows an ideology that assigns little meaning to countries.
President JFK famously “ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country.” As noble as this sounds, a countryman would be hard pressed, given his considerations, to accept this as an absolute. A time may come when his country has outlived its usefulness to the countryman. Like his ancestors had done on occasion, he may be better served forming a new entity, greater or smaller than his current country.
A countryman may have to swallow his pride and join a larger country where the predominant culture is somewhat different from his own. He could cope by understanding that cultures change with time regardless, that his own people may have a turn in administering the new country in time if they play along. Instead of risking the annihilation of so many of his kin he may use their strength to negotiate a more favorable position in the greater country. Perhaps this merger is necessary in order to protect the countryman’s pan-identity from a larger threat.
Conversely, a countryman may have to let go of a larger country with a glorious history in order to salvage what he can and form a smaller country. Perhaps this larger country once served his interests but has now become hostile to those interests. The countryman could cope by understanding that countries come and go, his people may rise to significance in time once again.
How important is a country? It is clearly important, but it is not an end in and of itself. It is a vessel for pursuing other ends.
