#nation state

[fanboy-feminist]

There is something really, uh, telling, about how Jimmy Carter’s presidency was widely considered to be a “failure,” and he also is INARGUABLY the U.S. president who has done the most to promote human rights around the world.

It’s extremely telling, about the U.S. nation-state as a political project and institution, about the federal government as a structure, about the nature of imperialism.

To reference a friend of mine, he was the only U.S. President alive in our lifetime who could avoid the International Criminal Court.

[rigormortisvape500]

i invented a new country by collaging google maps screenshots together i call it gumbletopia

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

"The distinction between carceral state and nation state may be itself overly semantic. As Micol Seigel argues, for example, "Police and state are differentiated by degree: police are the human-scale expression of the state." 'Criminal justice," Lawrence Friedman adds, "is, literally, state power." Anthropologist James Ferguson points to the ways that the state is more a "way of tying together, multiplying, and coordinating power relations, a kind of knotting or congealing of power." Similarly, Stuart Hall and others, building upon Italian Marxist philosopher Antonio Gramsci, describe the state "not so much an entity, or even a particular complex of institutions, so much as it is a particular site or level of the social formation." As critical geographer Brett Story summarizes, the carceral state can be "conceived less as a thing and more as an organizer." See Micol Seigel, Violence Work, 9; Lawrence Friedman, Crime and Punishment in American History, quoted in Ruth Wilson Gilmore, Golden Gulag, 174; James Ferguson, The Anti-Politics Machine, quoted in Seigel, Violence Work, 18; Stuart Hall, Policing the Crisis, quoted in Brett Story, Prison Land, 16."

- Garrett Felber, Those Who Know Don't Say: The Nation of Islam, the Black Freedom Movement, and the Carceral State. Chapel Hill, North Carolina: The University of North Carolina Press, 2020) footnote 11, p. 195.

[thoughtportal]

[alpaca-clouds]

Solarpunk vs Nation States

I was told I should post a bit about Solarpunk again, so let me talk about another thing that I think a Solarpunk future cannot and should not have: Nation states.

These days we consider them a very normal part of life, but let me remind you that for most of history they did not exist. Even in the middle ages nothing like states would exist - not in the way we see them today. Sure, there were kingdoms and duchies, but for most people it did not really matter in what kingdom they lived in, as it was not part of their identity.

The nation states we have today, meanwhile, were created by colonialism and are a product of colonialism more than anything else. And this is why they have to go.

Because here is the thing: Even if we tried to decolonize, pay reparations and what have you... As long as the nation states still exist, some of the effects of colonialism will never cease to exist. Effects like the uneven distribution of riches and things like that. Effects, too, like the political instability of the global south at large.

See, in the global south some of the nation borders have been drawn intentionally to destabilize regions. By putting tribes or religious groups into one nation that the colonizers knew would not get along. And at times splitting tribes apart, who belonged together as well. Splitting cultures apart.

Meanwhile in the "west" the nations are used to keep riches within certain groups. Over here in Europe it is super noticable. I live in Germany, a rich nation, but right next door we have Poland, a considerably poorer nation. And whenever people from Poland or other eastern Europe come to Germany to work, people will fearmonger about the people "fleeing into our good economy".

So, yeah. Nation states are used to destabilize, exploit and keep people apart. If we really want to have a Solarpunk future, we have to get rid of them. They never were a good idea to begin with.

[probablyasocialecologist]

Why should a French or a German citizen be born with access to world-class services and well-protected rights (actual implementation on the basis of minority status may differ), while a Somalian citizen is not only denied those things, but also faces huge obstacles in becoming a citizen (or even a resident) of anywhere else? If you are born a citizen of Japan, there are 190 countries you can travel to freely without a visa; if you are a citizen of Afghanistan, there are only 25. If you are born a U.K. citizen, and feel like a change of scene, you can pay $7 for permission to go to Canada, hop on a flight, and stay for up to six months without anyone bothering you. If you are born in a refugee camp, it can take years before you even get a chance to live in a place like Canada. So how can we possibly consider ourselves to be people who care about freedom and autonomy, when thanks to borders our destinies are practically assigned to us at birth? Is it absurd to form your own state? Or is it more absurd to have states in the first place?

Aisling McCrea, No Man Is An Island?

[thegreatsurvey]

Gates of the Nation States.

1. The White Gate at the Western Seaboard 

2. The Living Gate of the Deorsum Valley

3. The Iron Gate of The Rubrum Mountains

For a long period of time Gates were the big thing amongst the nation states. The more impressive, the more successful the nation, was the usual message, and of course they did play a role in keeping the unwanted out (or the nation in depending on the state), but the oldest were constructed by private firms in far-flung locations in order to secure land, usually in search for resources to exploit, such as metals, minerals and oil. The Iron Gate, for instance, one of the oldest still standing and effective, was built by the Meyson Corporation to protect mining interests. The company grew and the mine expanded to become a city unto itself with workers rarely leaving its borders and families eventually relocating within the mines perimeter, for convenience, employment and protection from the ever-growing conglomerate. The White Gate on the other hand, one of the most recent additions, was purely built to restrict access to the sea from the east and increase the influence of the wealthy Seafarer’s State. It’s one of the largest in existence and spans the 74 miles between the two tallest peaks of the Salsura Mountains, effectively cutting off the three largest ports and easiest route to the Western Ocean. The Living Gate is unique unto itself. Originally built to protect a drilling colony in the rugged Deorsum Valley that quickly failed, it hasn’t opened in centuries and over that time an actual town has grown on the gate itself, sprouting from lookout rooms, vast halls, and endless corridors. Not very much is known of what remains beyond the gate in terms of the original settlement, but it’s thought that the drilling company opened a deep well, filling some portion of the canyon with fresh water, sustaining the gate-city that has since prospered, to some extent.

Pen and ink on paper.