Fascinating piece, encompassing history, philosophy and politics, about what it takes to make a nation. Thanks to Andy for digging this up (some time ago).
The Nation-State and Democracy
By Roger Scruton
The American Spectator
14/2/07
A country like Iraq is not, never has been, and never will be a nation-state. This is not merely because it contains communities that identify themselves in terms of their religious and ethnic allegiance; it is also because for these communities their place of settlement has never been a *country*, a place defined as *ours*, where *our* way of doing things prevails, and which must be defended at all costs if *our* way of life and web of affections is to survive. Country has always taken second place to religion, family, or tribe.
Iraq was carved out of the Ottoman Empire by Western diplomats who imagined, like Woodrow Wilson, that nation-states lie concealed beneath every empire, that national boundaries are already inscribed in the affections of the people, held in place by lines of force that have the same historical fixity as those which created the nation-states of Europe. This piece of wishful thinking is very far from the truth. Even if Iraq were to divide today into three regions, Sunni Arab, Shiite, and Kurd, these would not succeed in becoming nation-states. Authority would still be attributed to family, tribe, and creed above that of country, and in emergencies the people of the resulting territories would still unite behind those old ideas of identity, and not behind the "law of the land."
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