I'd like to share a result of a research I conducted on these three key notions that are so essential in international relation and the evolution of nation states. Dear readers, pay particular attention to the vocabulary.
These are some of the building blocks that political leaders need to look at as they build stable communities. Tunisia - Egypt - Côte d'Ivoire - Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Yemen, Haïti, Zimbabwe, Afghanistan etc...
The notion of nation is bound to the existence of a territory to which is connected a group of people via “an emotional attachment” said T.K. Ommen. He calls this territory the “home land.” The home land does not necessarily need to be ancestral; it can simply be adopted. This is why in America, diversity is welcome and constitutes the bedrock of democracy as long as there is this sense of attachment to the American territory.
The second important factor defining the nation is the language. For people to bond and form a cohesive group they must be able to communicate with one another. This is verifiable through the use of the same language which can be foreign tongue [such as French and English]. For instance, African states who adopted French or English as national language can’t be considered French or British because of their colonial past. Among the languages I speak there are French and English and very often when and acquaintance realize I speak French, the first thing he/she asked is “are you French?” I am quick to say no!
When someone leaves the homeland he becomes denationalized. The person is called in the new receiving nation “foreign national.” In the case of a large group of people, the group becomes an ethnie.
Culture is the common element for an ethnie and a nation. Territory and language are essential to creating a nation. Those who communicate in the same language do not make a nation. For example there are many French speaking people in the world but they form separate nations. “A nation is a community in communication in its homeland” (Oommen 1997). It is quite puzzling that some Ivorian politicians have managed to exclude about 1/3 of their population based on the pretext that almost a century ago their ancestor migrated to the territory now called Côte-d’Ivoire.
In a nation “culture and territory are in union; while in the ethnie, the two are dissociated. An ethnie becomes the product of dissociation between territory and culture, a process which takes a variety of forms and should be designated as “ethnification.” The ethnie can lose or retain its “original” culture. When an ethnie identifies itself with a new territory it becomes a nation. When pilgrims left Europe a couple of century ago they were and ethnie. Once they settles in America and identify themselves with the new territory they became American. The long fight that follow with UK was just another proof that their adopted another territory as their new nation. It didn’t matter if they continued to speak English. So the group may or may not continue with its old language or culture.
The state is a legal organization which provides safety to its citizens. Therefore being a citizen means the provision of a number of services by the state not just the right to participate in elections or move within the boundaries of the national territories as it has become the rule in most Sub-Sahara Africa countries. Rights related to political participation can be extended to residents of each state in particular to the people falling in the group of non-citizens. On the opposite side, citizens are entitled to welfare and participation on the basis of their status.
The Spaniards, the Portuguese and the English retained their language and most of their institutions in the new world. The German and Swiss did not do so in America since this is not a condition to become a nation. Thus, an ethnie can discard its old language and acquire a new one. However, attachment to the homeland is necessary to become a nation.
Another example is from the Scottish history. They left their original language and start writing Standard English but remained in their homeland. “A common homeland and a common language (ancestral or adopted) are the critical minimum markers of a nation and national identity.” Citizenship is essentially inclusionary and equality oriented, however its institutionalization will not destroy identities which exist in the exclusionary notion of nationhood and ethnicity.
African states, as they existed since the independence were created on an arbitrary basis that suited the colonial master. Boundaries have not been changed and leaders who tended to bring such ideas where simply overthrown. Further, to consolidate their power, political power in Africa was simply confiscated by one or a few ethnic groups disenfranchising the rest of the population whose right as citizens were written in the constitution. In the meantime, there was vast propaganda about the unity within individual African nations which existed only in the text, without any correlation to the actual behavior of the leadership.
He who wants to become a citizen in any African state must have the same values, believe in some supposedly common values of the nation. It is certain that the historical expansion of the notion of citizenship has been based on the process of homogenization of minorities whether in the West or in Africa. However, population mobility and cultural interchange in Africa and elsewhere will make the link between nationality and citizenship anachronistic, “the challenge today is to integrate the global, regional and local dimension of belonging into a new political model” (Castles and Davidson 2000).
Oommen argues for the delinking of national identity from its anchorage in the nation-state and speaks against fusing ethnicity, nationality, and citizenship. Citizenship is an individual identity but very often group identity (race, caste, religion, language, region) are used to gain citizenship identity (Oommen 1997). Reconciling these two aspects will always be a challenge. This perspective constitutes an innovative path in understanding the formation and evolvement of citizenship in many African Countries.
Marginalization and Citizenship
Francis Deng (Southern Sudanese national) provides shed some light on the impact of marginalization on nation building. Unequal distribution of national resources is a source of tension and marginalization. In Sudan for instance, after more than two decades of war, and mistreatment, the people of Southern Sudan have vote in mass for the creation of a separate State. Despite the awareness of severe poverty in the south, Southern Sudanese are voting with their feet, walking tens of miles to join their new homeland. In a truly democratic context, citizenship places everyone on the same level.
In a way it is fair to argue that ethnic tensions and armed conflict in Sub-Sahara Africa are not the root cause of forced displacement but rather but rather the consequence of mal-functioning state where the ground rules of a modern democratic state where completely obliterated. Being a citizen of a country should not depend on who gets to write the rules. The Quality of citizen should be based on the criteria of home land, culture, physical presence, birth and the sense of belonging. The economical context shouldn’t matter.
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