What is a nation?

This question is very hard to answer, a word that is hard to define. The word nation is an idea in the mind of the individual. Some political scientists define a nation as a self identifying people who share common history. There are between seven and ten thousand nations in the world today.

http://www.ewis.org/nation.html   6/14/2004

The term nation, state, country, and nation-state are used to refer to political, economic, social and cultural entity in the international system. The modern nation-state refers to a single or multiple nationalities joined together in a formal political union. The nation-state determines an official language, a system of laws, manages a currency system. Examples of nation-states are Canada and the United States of America.

We must distinguish between a nation and a state; a nation refers only to a socio- cultural entity, a union of people sharing certain ideas, values, and religion. A nation can be identified culturally and linguistically. This concept does not necessarily consider formal political unions. The Arab nation is a good example of a nation with many states. They are one nation with one language, sharing the same culture, religion, and history, yet; they are many independent and separate states.

A state refers to a legal political entity that is comprised of a permanent population, a defined territory, a government and the capacity to enter into relations with other states. It has its own laws, army, borders, language, and religion or religions.

http://www.towson.edu/polsci/ppp/sp97/relism/whatisns.htm  6/14/2004

 A language by itself is not enough to form a nation. For example; the United States, England, and Australia speak the same language, yet; they are different states and different nations. The same thing with Latin America and Spain, they speak the same language, yet; they are different and numerous nations and states. Conversely, Switzerland has four languages, and it is one state and one nation. In human mind, there is something superior to language; it is the human will. The will of Switzerland to be united, despite the variety of its tongues, is much more important than the similarities often obtained by means of persecution.

According to many political scientists, there is no such a scientific definition to a nation, yet the phenomenon existed yesterday and still exists today. Some political scientists agree that a nation is a large aggregate of people so closely associated with each others by factors such as common descent, language, culture, history, and occupation of the same territory as to be identified as distinctive people.( Seton-Watson)

A nation exists when a significant number of people in a community consider

themselves to from a nation, or behave as if they formed one. It is not necessary that the whole of the population should feel so, or behave so, and it is not possible to lay down dogmatically a minimum percentage of a population, which must be so affected. When a significant group holds this belief, it possesses national consciousness. (Seton-Watson)

If we say that the factors which help to create a nation is the descent, language, culture, history, and occupation of the same territory, we find that Israel and Yugoslavia disprove that theory; Yugoslavia was created from many cultures and languages. Israel too, was created from many cultures and languages; the only thing that put the Jews together, in one state, is Judaism (their faith).

In conclusion, we can say that while a nation is an idea in the mind of the human, a state is a political reality. All definitions are incomplete and partial, and none, either in the modern or ancient history was ever able to give a complete definition of a nation.

http://www.meggs007.freeserve.co.uk/essays/whatnation.htm  6/14/2004

Sources;

www.cwis.org

www.towson.edu

www.ellopos.net

www.meggs007.freeserve.co.uk