Borders Explained— What it Really Means to be a Country in the 21st Century
According to the United Nations, there are currently 193 countries on Planet Earth*. But what does it truly mean to be a country? Some say it has to do with the government. Others say it has to do with the geographical locations of people with different opinions and ideologies. However, countries are not the only way to draw border lines, as many countries have their own states and provinces, and within those we have cities, which also have their own borders. So, what are the different kinds of borders, and what is the true meaning of “a different country”?
I made two trips within the past 2 months: Connecticut & Canada.
From my home state of Massachusetts, both places involve crossing a border. However, one is an interstate border and the other international. But both are the same concept. Two different sections of land controlled by different governments. Yet we Massachusetts habitants consider Connecticut residents our people, but not Canadians. From childhood, I found the answer to this fairly simple — there are many towns, each of which have their own borders, but they collectively form a state (or province or constituent country, depending on location). Many states form a country. Many countries form a continent. Many continents form the world. It is simply a matter of zooming out. Zoom out far enough, and we get Earth. Zoom in to North America, and we get Mexico, USA, and Canada. Zoom into USA, and we get the 50 states, zoom into Canada and we get the 10 provinces. So the simple answer is that the differences between borders is merely the difference of scale at which one looks at the world.
Unfortunately, I came to know that this is not how we most commonly view the world. I came to know as I got older that the real perception looks more like this:
A large line, separating two lands, of which each believes it is superior to the other and separates themselves from the land on the other side. So while towns and states clearly operate as different sections of land under different governments, countries do not. They are just a little less than man made territorial disputes separating people with different ideologies, to a large portion of the public, who have not left their home country. I have been travelling since I was 2 years old, and therefore, I never had that problem. I simply saw countries as different sections of land under the control of different governments. Yet right now, we live in a world where all sanity exists within our borders, and the only things that exist outside of them are villains and a system inferior to our own. This common perception of nations — to my understanding — is extremely primitive. A lot of political tensions will be resolved if politicians made an effort to learn about the situations of places outside of their borders and accepted that we as humans are working towards a collective goal — not a race for who is the best and who is the worst.
We need to learn how to accept differences and unite despite them.
Let’s take a look at a country border I visited recently — Niagara Falls.
This is the Canadian side of the falls, and notice how it looks a bit different from what we see here in America:
Both are different — which is due to differences in the people and governments that constructed them. But the people are all fundamentally the same. Both are at the falls for the same thing — to enjoy the view. While I do understand that Canada and USA are two countries that are extremely alike and the same analogy is difficult to apply to other countries and their borders, the fundamentals are the same. When I visited my cousin in Canada, it was hard to believe I was not in the USA, as the only things I saw while there was me and my family and my cousin’s family, and if this were in the USA, it wouldn’t have been that much different.
Back to the main question: What does it mean to be a country in the 21st century?
The opinions on this are varied, but based on my experience, being a country in the modern age is not about lines segregating people with different morals and beliefs — it is merely a mark that two different lands are controlled by two different governments, just like two different towns have their own governments. The only difference is that two countries are not bound by the same rule like two towns are and have different federal governments, necessitating the need for border security to prevent criminals from one government migrating into another government to commit inter-governmental (or more commonly, international) crimes, but it should not be used for blocking legal immigrants — all countries should see immigrants as people, and as long as they do not have criminal intent, should have a relatively easy process of entering said country, since the borders are not physical lines and do not define different kinds of people.
Unfortunately, humans are a bit possessive by nature.
This means that it will take a long time for us as a species to accept that we are all the same despite our differences, and a more globalized world — to the extent I suggested above cannot happen overnight. The best thing to do in the time in between is to accept that there can be both good and bad at the same time — there can be a country that did one bad thing, but that does not make them bad in their entirety. Furthermore, it is unwise to blame the people of a certain nationality for problems with the country, which once again is simply defined by the government. In short, blame the government, not the people.
*There are also 2 observer states, but these don’t count as countries, according to the United Nations.
Thank you for reading this entry.
-Vishal Janamanchi