Nation-states are important, even necessary fictions. But they are fictions. (For example, the U.S.A. is nearly a century older than Italy.)
David Rothkopf asks should the nation state of Haiti exist?
But what if the concept of Haiti is the problem? Haitians speak French and Creole as a vestige of a colonial era that began its decline over two centuries ago. That the island is divided between French and Spanish speaking halves is yet another consequence of European historical caprice. The country’s people are descendants of slaves who were torn from Africa and subjected to inhumane treatment as a consequence of a despicable and fundamentally immoral economic model that was recognized as intolerable and unsustainable also decades before the country’s founding.
In other words, the country has been shaped in many important ways by conditions that are virtually irrelevant to the modern world. Which raises the question: When does the statute of limitations run out on the idea behind a country’s existence?