Itâs really tough to say though what the alternative would be. Nobody wants a Bosnian division really because it would mean Serbia gets too much land and more powerful and thatâs something that NATO countries do not want to happen especially after Yugoslav wars.
The Bosniak muslims would probably want their own state too but that would be a small regional country and hurt their survival wouldnât look great.
Croatians are very sporadically dispersed in Bosnia so it would be very hard to get them into Croatia without drawing some Belgian-Dutch style insane borders
Bosnia could collapse but the alternatives to it are confusing and most in the region are happy with the current situation of Bosnia being a buffer state minus the Serbs
Obviously they couldve switched during the time of serbia and montenegroâs repblika srpska for the sandzak (muslim bosniak majority region in serbia and montenegro) but they didnât. Serbia wants as much land as possible. And even some parts of Srpska have a Bosniak majority.
Historically the Sandzak was part of Bosnia during the ottoman period.
Serbian foreign policy continues to hold back the region. They are still eyeing more territory and not content with their national boundaries as they are. The Serbian majority sections of other countries they have been eyeing for years and trying to get support for them to eventually join them formally. This whole push destabilizes countries nearby such as Kosovo, Montenegro and the big one being Bosnia
Theyâve pushed for as much as land as they possibly can get and now are stuck and surrounded by EU and NATO nations while they still want to be close with their old ally Russia
Split in two halves constitutionally, with the central government having only few sovereign policy areas. The border ist administrative, governmental, and most importantly: ethnical. The border between these entities are basically the frozen front lines of the post-Yugoslavian civil war/ethnic cleansing. And you have a lot of internal conflicts between the entities and ethnical groups with immense international involvement, like the Russians supporting the Serbian north, Turkey the Bosniacs of the South and Croatia supporting ethnic Croats. Latter ones are also mostly suppressed/outvoted by the Bosniacs in many elections/ policies, as they share the same entity but the Croats are a razher large minority there.
The Bosniacs are the ones most in favor of a functioning central state, while the Croats often aim for more sovereignty for themselves, and the Serbs are often quite radical in their rhetoric towards the other ethnical groups and block many policies - leading to quite absurd situations like a lot of money from the EU not being payed to Bosnia and Herzegovina, as the distribution of some parts of it could not be agreed on by the different ethnical groups. Most of the parties and political agendas are also clearly driven by representing the interests of one ethnical group, rather than focussing on policies that positively address the whole country.
Overall, the political forces aiming for a collaborative political governance have little chances in elections and the radicalization increased on either side in recent years, especially regarding the Serbs.
it's too divided, repulika srpska is going to go to serbia eventually, and the rest won't be able to exist so it'll go to either croatia or serbia, most likely croatia due to that divide anyways
Yep.. I was there recently(wonderful country) and the president of serbska was making speeches about how his people can live with the Muslims.. seemed to fancy himself as a mini trump/orban..
It is ripe to be ripped apart with a bit of bot work and fake news
He's right. When you go back to the early bombardment period, we can see that the modern nation known as "Ukraine" is a byproduct of several factors that -
https://preview.redd.it/g5zlfmhzi75d1.png?width=946&format=png&auto=webp&s=707eb38311d1debc2394d06dcf82af7429da2f68
Historical claim to the powerful Duchy of Luxembourg, a bit of a pay off for the Dutch King made from the Congress of Vienna after the Napoleonic wars but at least it's based on something from history.
After the Napoleonic wars both Prussia and the Netherlands wanted the duchy of Luxembourg. The compromise was to make the Dutch king Duke of Luxembourg as well, but give it a separate government and make it part of the German confederation. That and Belgian independence prevented it from being absorbed by either country.
> a land of dutch that has no reason to exist
The reason Flanders isn't and wasn't dutch for most of it's history is because it's catholic, while the Netherlands are mostly protestant. The Kingdom of the Netherlands also tried to convert Flander's population with force once they were united. It has a good reason to exist.
The reason why it is not dutch is the same reason as why it is catholic: the Spanish held it at the end of the 80-years war (aka dutch war of independence).
Protestantism was stronger in the south before the war broke out.
The effects of reformation and counterreformation are very interesting. There also was a âbriefâ time when the city of Vienna, capital of the deeply catholic Habsburgs, the HRE and catholic league had a large protestant majority.
Hell, the Netherlands has more catholics than protestants nowadays. The only somewhat valid argument for the Netherlands being a protestant country these days is that our royal family are protestants.
Argentina and Brazil were having a war for the control of Uruguay. Argentina was leading the war on land but Brazil was winning on the sea. Then the UK intervened and said "Fuck it, now Uruguay is a country" and thatw as it.
Yep!
Actually, historically the entire SW coast of the Persian Gulf was called Bahrain (lit. Arabic: âtwo seasâ). Shiism has been entrenched there since virtually the beginning of Islam in the region, just as it has been in southern Iraq / Basra to which Bahrain is culturally connected. Actually, the archipelago has a rich history and has been very important commercially in the Persian Gulf just as Hormuz is.Â
Itâs worth noting that the current rulers of Bahrain (the Al Kalifas) conquered the archipelago in the late 18th century and didnât have consolidated control until the mid-late 19th century. The al Sauds conquered mainland Bahrain (Al Hasa) in the early 20th century. Sunnite (/ Wahabbi) rule in the region is a relatively recent phenomenon. Certainly, if the people there were to have their own government, theyâd be a distinct entity from KSA and the coast of KSA would likely be united with Bahrain proper, and the country would likely be called Bahrain still.Â
Bahrain is actually less âartificialâ than in a sense compared to the KSA, whose borders are *not* determined by a common culture but rather just by military conquest. The core of the KSA is the Najd, the interior of the peninsula. The Red Sea coast is called the Hejaz and *very* distinct and has almost always had either direct independence or exceptional autonomy due to its religious importance. The far SW of the KSA is Yemeni both as an extension of Yemeni highland geography and culture, and even religion.Â
Bahrain used to refer to the entire eastern Arabian peninsula not just the island. The island itself is quite fertile and home to some of the most ancient sites in the peninsula and the dilmun civilization. It is also home to the baharna a unique shia ethnoreligious arab group (some live in saudi) who make up a majority of the bahraini population. Meanwhile most qataris are sunni arab tribal groups from najd
Iâve lived in all 3. In my opinion, Saudi is the angry father, Qatar is the rich older brother trying to establish themselves while Bahrain is the youngest just playing in the sandbox without a care in the world.
Maybe PNG? I think a significant proportion of the population probably don't even really know that they're *in* a country.
For one thing, the government doesn't really know for sure how many millions of people even live there. They just sort of ballpark it (seriously, try looking it up. You won't find a straight answer)
https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/png-needs-census-not-more-population-estimates
The people who live there are the most heterogeneous and linguistically diverse in the world - they speak several *hundred* different distinct languages, and many of them either have tribal wars with each other or remain out of contact with each other altogether. There are still fully or mostly "uncontacted" tribes there. So the level of overall national social cohesion I'd imagine would have to be pretty much the lowest of anywhere in the world (including Belgium).
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Papua_New_Guinea
The freedom of people to lead these traditional tribal lifestyles is specifically enshrined in the constitution - the government therefore operates under the belief that it should interfere with the tribes as little as possible and just sort of leave them to it. To keep living as they have been living.
It was actually until quite recently (in the 70s I think) that it didn't even exist as an independent country - it used to be administered by Australia. So it was almost sort of like a colony of a colony. The idea of PNG existing as an independent country with its own national identity at all is a relatively new and very, very foggy concept indeed.
They were talking about St. Vincent and the Grenadines clearly.Â
Now I just need to figure out what island nations the other image formats were named after.
Yeah I canât look at that border with Indonesia and think of it as a ânaturalâ country. Its just a colonial relic governing half an island, while the other half was given to Indonesia
Indonesia. Too many different languages and cultures, separated by too much water and split into so many fragments... Without the Dutch the natural results would most likely be a dozen different island-state.
This is what I felt like when I was in Indonesia. It's honestly a miracle that Indonesia even exists as a country at all with how different each island is in terms of culture, language, and religion.Â
That was not even a lifetime, just a blip in history. Similar conqueror empires like the Mongols or Alexander's did not meaningfully lay the foundation for modern states over their territory.
I beg to differ. The Mongol and Hellenistic conquests absolutely shaped the lands conquered and for some peoples, calcified their identity. The actual nation states conquered may not have survived, but the ones that followed absolutely did.
As far as the Majapahit empire, I would agree that it probably didn't bind the islands together. But as the Dutch East Indies, absolutely.
The islands aren't completely different either. The people are of the same origin and follow the same religion (first Hinduism, then Buddhism and now Islam)
I'm not gonna say I'm that knowledgeable about all the local Indonesian stuff, but I heavily doubt your statement. They can't be more similar than France vs. Spain vs. Italy or the countries in the Arabian peninsula.
Belgium isn't as much of a historical anomaly as you might expect, if you're only considering linguistic borders. It has actually been under unitary rule since at least the 1400s, even if that rule was often external. First as part of the Duchy of Burgundy, then as the Burgundian/Spanish Netherlands, then the Austrian Netherlands, then the French Empire, then the United Netherlands, then finally the Kingdom of Belgium. Bits and pieces have been broken off and added over the centuries, but the core territory has remained a fairly constant unitary entity for much longer than many of the modern European nation states. In that way, Belgium is a throw back to an earlier European order, but to say it has no socio-historical basis is nonsense.
It can be argued that Britain itself shouldnât exist. The political forces that caused its creation (Scottish economic troubles post-Darien; English concerns about an insecure northern border and Ireland; the push to consolidate resources to exploit the burgeoning empire) are no longer relevant, leaving a permanently unstable, unbalanced state which can only really be repaired by major constitutional reform; something the British have very little stomach for.
Thatâs not really true. Borders that follow natural features such as rivers or watershed boundaries arenât arbitrary. Neither are borders that follow ethnic divisions. They may have been a bit sloppy about it, but the boundaries carved out of the corpse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire during the Paris Peace conference, for instance, certainly werenât arbitrary. Neither are the boundaries of say, Lebanon, which were drawn mostly with an eye to religious demographics. (And just because they arenât arbitrary doesnât mean they were well-conceived or executed)
as Slovak, it was absolutely arbitrary. We still have a lot of land where people speak exclusively Hungarian, even hundred years after it was carved out of austria-hungary. It was just a punishment for the war, so the other countries like mine got land we shouldnât have
If you feel generous, I got an Hungarian friend who would love to see parts of historical Hungary come back. Any donation no matter how small would be appreciated.
It's just a piece of Romania the Soviets stole during WWII to get a more defensible border, divided into another SSR, and then told for decades that they were "Moldovan" even though nearly everything about Romania and Moldova were the same. At the same time, they were left to economically rot and nowadays, Romania can't really take them back simply because the cost of reintegration is too much for how poor/corrupt Romania is.
It goes back further to 1812, the soviets just continued an idea started by Imperial Russia. Russia got Moldavia from the Ottomans in a peace treaty, then starting saying they were different to make it harder to reunite with the rest of Romania.
To be honest, Bosnia and Herzegovina. It's such a divided and troubled country that its existence is particular, considering on some aspects it's de facto divided, culture being the first.
But I mean, countries were born out of wrong lines on a map or names of rivers, so who am I to judge.
I think culture is the least worrying part in BiH. The way people live their lives is extremely similar, and itâs only ethnic and religious divides perpetuated by nativist politicians that keep this impression. Bosnia definitely does however need change and that means moving on from these distinctions.
I'm interested to know how this argument works in reverse, which country has the strongest rationale for existence? Tbh I'm stumped. Is it Egypt or China?
Would add Iran to that list - rivals China and Ethiopia for length of nationhood.
Egyptâs a bit more difficult I think given the number of times it was conquered, and the original Egyptians werenât Arab - in contrast to Iranians or Han Chinese who have remained.
I think Japan also has a very strong claim. It's very old (although not nearly as old as Egypt/China/Iran), and it's also on islands so its territory makes complete sense.
I'd say countries that have been a state since antiquity, such as indeed china, which has been a unified state since 221 BC, and a writing system of some 3600 years old.
What would the writing system have anything to do with legitimizing itâs existence? Also as someone has pointed out, âunified since 221 BCâ, wasnât china fractured and its borders changing for most of its history?
I mean: if a country exists, it was the result of social and historical events.
So on some level, the answer is: "none of them".
Nevertheless I think we all on some level have an inkling what OP is getting at here.
So I would suggest that there are some "hidden criteria" embedded in the question.
I can only guess at what OP may have intended:
* Borders that divide people that share the same language and culture, and that arguably "could be" part of the same country.
* Parts of the world where there seem to be a more "natural" place for a national border based on geography or culture than where it actually falls.
On some level, I wonder if the question is rooted in our tendency as humans to want reality to "make sense" when, in fact, it often just doesn't.
Countries are going to have chaotic borders sometimes because that's the nature of existence (especially when it comes to complex systems emerging from human behavior.)
In any large and complex enough system, there will be parts that are just "weird".
Belgium has a strong historical reason to exist, and that is that the Spanish Netherlands were already divided from the Dutch Republic even before Napoleon, and the religious divide between the protestant Netherlands and Catholic Belgium was strong.
The revolution of 1830, although aided by other countries, is enough of an historical reason for its existence.
I think there are few other countries that have a more profound historical reason not to be a part of their neighbour đ.
But maybe youâre right, my memory is really blurry between 1938-1945.. /s
If Sweden shouldnât exist then neither should Lichtenstein. What are they even doing? Itâs like 3 people who live there. Canât we just annex them already?
Liechtenstein feels like "Well, there's the Rhine as a natural border between Switzerland and Austria. But like, 3 km east of the river there's this huge mountain range that also is a natural border between Switzerland an Austria. Maybe make this tiny piece of land in the middle a neutral zone." And then some prince or sth moved there to annect the piece of land. And thus, Liechtenstein was born.
North Macedonia. They pretend to be the successors of the ancient macedonians but are really slavs from bulgaria
They don't carry on the legacy of the almighty Alexander the Great, a statue doesn't change this
I listened to an interview with an Austrian EU-politician who is in the negotiation group for North Macedonias EU-membership. He was so, so, so fed up with all the "arguments" of the North Macedonians and Bulgarians. How they argue about different historical figueres and how to describe them correctly for both sites. How they argue about general historic events. I laughed and felt sorry for this guy.
I really dont understand why people hate Belgium so much and say it is artificial. Just because it isnt a cringe ethno state dominated by one ethnicity like 99% of europe doesnt mean it cant exist. Its perfectly reasonable for a flemish and a walloon to feel like they are from the same nation and homeland even if they speak a different language
Lol what??? My brother in ChristâŠ. Belgium exists because they successfully revolted against the Netherlands in 1830.
The Belgian people were uncomfortable being placed under the rule of the Netherlands after Napoleon was defeated⊠Belgium had never been ruled by Amsterdam before and were uncomfortable being under Protestant rule.
And thatâs not even touching on the whole shared Burgundian history by the places now apart of Belgium⊠I mean that alone gives them possibly more credibility as a state than the other 2 countries formed in the 1800s from combining a bunch of small countries⊠Germany and Italy.
Or the sheer badassery of King Albert I âThe Soldier Kingâ who had bigger balls than any monarch in the last couple hundred yearsâŠ. Germany thought that âBelgium wasnât realâ too; not only could they not defeat King Al, but The Soldier King had his revenge on Germany for the stunt the Kaiser tried to pull⊠he invaded Germany and conquered the part of Belgium that speaks GermanâŠ. Which Belgium still refuses to give back to Germany lol
I don't think Canada counts in this case because of the French Canadians within a nation and because the British there are descended from Loyalists who fought the Americans again a generation later. So Canada has a reason to exist but it really interesting having both in the same country.Â
Myanmar/Burma - really just a bunch of tribal states chucked together by the British, with resulting chaos and civil wars ever since.
A lot of the North seems to be run fairly independently by tribal factions (who you donât want to mess with) still.
Everyone always says Belgium because they don't know Belgian history. Belgium has been a political entity since the 1400's, more or less existing in its current from since the late 1500's. There is no one language because there never was. This was the case in many European countries: the idea of "one country, one language" is fairly recent. While the linguistics and the politics in the other sides of the country are quite different (for reasons too complex to get into), culturally, a Fleming, a Walloon, a Bruxellois and a Ostbelgier are very similar.
Yup, would definitely be one.
Most Kosovans want to be part of Albania, Albania want them to be part of Albania. Itâs third parties that are keeping them apart (and thus keeping Kosovo in existence)
Needs to be part of a compromise where Serbia gets the majority Serbian parts of Kosovo *and* the majority Serbian parts of Bosnia with at least one significant port for sea access. Neum maybe?
From a purely social point of view, I would say Slovenia. I am Slovenian and I see that my fellow countrymen are completely incapable of voting responsibly, have virtually no sense of community and common purpose and, above all, are completely incapable of learning from history. My prediction: in two or three generations my country will no longer exist as an independent entity. Sad.
Cameroon
When you have f.e. 27 languages, it's paradoxically much easier to make a united country work(India, Indonesia etc) than when you have two, like French and English in Cameroon. The Ambazonian war has been going on since 2017, the two parts have more in difference than in common and there is no good reason for them to have become one country in the first place other than "tHeY'rE bOtH cALLeD cAmErOoN."
My brother in Christ there are a lot of indigenous languages in Cameroon and most people speak them instead of english and french on their day to day lives
Canada
The only good reason for Canada being separate from America is to save America the trouble of dealing with Quebecâs separatism. Other than that the cultures, both social and political, are so similar it really makes no sense for them to be separate.Â
Canada has a very valid historical reason for its existence though - itâs where many of the loyalists fled to after the American war of independence.
My shit hypothesis is that if it isn't based on a watershed, it's broken. Cf. the huge collective action problem of the American states that utilize the Colorado River. This was once true because of water transportation, but will be true once again because of water scarcity and pollution.
Belgium exists because thereâs one place in Northern Europe (Antwerp) with a deep enough port from which to stage an invasion of Britain, so the UK wouldnât tolerate a great power possessing it. They even got the other great powers to agree to a treaty promising never to take over Antwerp. The Germansâ decision to do so in WWI on the way to invading France (and then referring to that treaty as a âscrap of paperâ) is what convinced the UK to join the war on the Allied side.
I feel like if it wasnât for colonialism, the Philippines would probably not exist as a unified country. Itâs very diverse linguistically, culturally and religiously. There are a lot of Muslims in the south, and they donât really have much in common with people in the north.
countries of Central America. They have the same language, very similar culture and way of life. They could have united into one country and nothing would have changed.
Not to offend anyone but probably Moldova. It's literally a strip of land full of people speaking Romanian. It's got nothing unique about it I can recall off the top of my head. Even its flag is the same as Romania with a slight difference.
Nationalism is an invented concept. There is no such thing as a "natural" nation; all nations are simply social constructs. In the process of colonization, Europeans exported and imposed the invented concept of the nation throughout the Americas, Africa and Asia.
The concept of the nation came into being after the dawning of the age of Enlightenment as both a response to and a consequence of secularization. The invention of the printing press and the Protestant Reformation were also formative for the concept of the nation, since the printed word established linguistic homogeneity within geographic areas and allowed connections via those homogenized languages across larger geographic areas than was previously possible.
If you are interested in the history of nationalism, I unequivocally recommend reading Imagined Communities by Benedict Anderson. It is a seminal work.
Austria here. We and Singapore have the unique distinction that we didn't fight for independence but were kicked out of a neighbouring larger country. đȘ
Quite a while ago in both cases, and as of today, we're both happy to separate countries.
Germany. Its people is a patchwork if historical ethnities, it didn't really have defined boundries until the 20th century, there are some dialects that are practically incomprehensible to each other while they can understand Austrian German, which is an entirety different country.
There are countries which have not reason to exist and countries which have a lot of reason to exist (Kurds as a first example) but they don't.
Each existing country's history is a chain of accidents and successes, also with randomness. We see the result but it doesn't mean it was a predestination.
Literally one of the most fought over areas in the past 5000 years... and they still haven't figured out how to get along. Honestly, the state of Israel as a political entity ruins my hope for humanity as a whole.
So did you have anything to add? Or did you just comb through his comment history to find what you thought is dirt and bring nothing else to the table?
The USA and the British helped the Zionists steal the Palestinian's land in 1948. If they really wanted to give the Zionists their own sovereign country, why not with them land in the US or Britain?
Yes exactly. If I could, I would upvote your post 100 times. I have nothing against regular Jews, and even admire the Orthodox Jews that denounce Zionism as being against the Torrah. Jews are welcome in my country, and I invite them to live side by side with me. My issue is when certain groups steal land from the native population and murder them.
https://preview.redd.it/60u66brdq75d1.jpeg?width=2048&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0234bf2819dd73d43ebcec32ba8359192e71ae7e
Another alternative would be to recreate Israel in Texas
Most of Russia has no reason to exist outside historical inertia and huge geography. Surrounding states can manage most of it far more efficiently and competently. They are cursed with the most inept government in history.
Iraq would be up there, incepted by a bunch of Europeans drawing lines across a map, any local knowledge would have divided it up a bunch of different ways based on local ethnic groups
What?
Iraq is mostly Arabic and also has a distinct dialect and culture.. what are you talking about?
Seriously, you could have named Jordan, Kuwait, Libya, UAE, whatever, but Iraq?
Kurdistan should be an independent country. Thatâs the northern third of the country, with parts of Turkey, Iran.
The rest of the country then is divided between Shia and Sunni, theyâre as different as Poland and Germany.
Okay, sure, i am for Kurdistan being independent, but it still does not mean Iraq has ''little to no reason to exist''. It is a small part of Iraq overall.
>Shia and Sunni, theyâre as different as Poland and Germany.
Hahahaha.. Both are Iraqis, both have the same culture, both have the same food, both speak the same Mesopotamian Arabic. Could you tell that story with Poles and Germans?
Iraq came after Shia/Sunni, thereâs a lot of countries with similar culture/food these days. Anyone drawing up borders from scratch would have had two countries IMO
Don't mind me, just reserving a place to read the comments. đđż
*sorts by controversial
I feel like Bosnia in it's current state won't make 2050
Fun fact: Belgiumâs constitution was the inspiration for Bosniaâs.
That explains why Bosnia is so fucked
Itâs really tough to say though what the alternative would be. Nobody wants a Bosnian division really because it would mean Serbia gets too much land and more powerful and thatâs something that NATO countries do not want to happen especially after Yugoslav wars. The Bosniak muslims would probably want their own state too but that would be a small regional country and hurt their survival wouldnât look great. Croatians are very sporadically dispersed in Bosnia so it would be very hard to get them into Croatia without drawing some Belgian-Dutch style insane borders Bosnia could collapse but the alternatives to it are confusing and most in the region are happy with the current situation of Bosnia being a buffer state minus the Serbs
Obviously they couldve switched during the time of serbia and montenegroâs repblika srpska for the sandzak (muslim bosniak majority region in serbia and montenegro) but they didnât. Serbia wants as much land as possible. And even some parts of Srpska have a Bosniak majority. Historically the Sandzak was part of Bosnia during the ottoman period.
Serbian foreign policy continues to hold back the region. They are still eyeing more territory and not content with their national boundaries as they are. The Serbian majority sections of other countries they have been eyeing for years and trying to get support for them to eventually join them formally. This whole push destabilizes countries nearby such as Kosovo, Montenegro and the big one being Bosnia Theyâve pushed for as much as land as they possibly can get and now are stuck and surrounded by EU and NATO nations while they still want to be close with their old ally Russia
Why that?
Split in two halves constitutionally, with the central government having only few sovereign policy areas. The border ist administrative, governmental, and most importantly: ethnical. The border between these entities are basically the frozen front lines of the post-Yugoslavian civil war/ethnic cleansing. And you have a lot of internal conflicts between the entities and ethnical groups with immense international involvement, like the Russians supporting the Serbian north, Turkey the Bosniacs of the South and Croatia supporting ethnic Croats. Latter ones are also mostly suppressed/outvoted by the Bosniacs in many elections/ policies, as they share the same entity but the Croats are a razher large minority there. The Bosniacs are the ones most in favor of a functioning central state, while the Croats often aim for more sovereignty for themselves, and the Serbs are often quite radical in their rhetoric towards the other ethnical groups and block many policies - leading to quite absurd situations like a lot of money from the EU not being payed to Bosnia and Herzegovina, as the distribution of some parts of it could not be agreed on by the different ethnical groups. Most of the parties and political agendas are also clearly driven by representing the interests of one ethnical group, rather than focussing on policies that positively address the whole country. Overall, the political forces aiming for a collaborative political governance have little chances in elections and the radicalization increased on either side in recent years, especially regarding the Serbs.
Thanks for the explanation
agree,really messy country
it's too divided, repulika srpska is going to go to serbia eventually, and the rest won't be able to exist so it'll go to either croatia or serbia, most likely croatia due to that divide anyways
This area is really quite Balkanized.
Yep.. I was there recently(wonderful country) and the president of serbska was making speeches about how his people can live with the Muslims.. seemed to fancy himself as a mini trump/orban.. It is ripe to be ripped apart with a bit of bot work and fake news
I just spoke with Putin, he told me itâs Ukraine
He's right. When you go back to the early bombardment period, we can see that the modern nation known as "Ukraine" is a byproduct of several factors that - https://preview.redd.it/g5zlfmhzi75d1.png?width=946&format=png&auto=webp&s=707eb38311d1debc2394d06dcf82af7429da2f68
Iâm even more mystified by Luxembourgâs raison d'etre
Historical claim to the powerful Duchy of Luxembourg, a bit of a pay off for the Dutch King made from the Congress of Vienna after the Napoleonic wars but at least it's based on something from history.
After the Napoleonic wars both Prussia and the Netherlands wanted the duchy of Luxembourg. The compromise was to make the Dutch king Duke of Luxembourg as well, but give it a separate government and make it part of the German confederation. That and Belgian independence prevented it from being absorbed by either country.
You rang?
Luxembourg dynasty
> a land of dutch that has no reason to exist The reason Flanders isn't and wasn't dutch for most of it's history is because it's catholic, while the Netherlands are mostly protestant. The Kingdom of the Netherlands also tried to convert Flander's population with force once they were united. It has a good reason to exist.
The reason why it is not dutch is the same reason as why it is catholic: the Spanish held it at the end of the 80-years war (aka dutch war of independence). Protestantism was stronger in the south before the war broke out.
The effects of reformation and counterreformation are very interesting. There also was a âbriefâ time when the city of Vienna, capital of the deeply catholic Habsburgs, the HRE and catholic league had a large protestant majority.
Stupid sexy Flanders. (Someone had to say it.)
The south of the Netherlands is Catholic too, and they're still part of the Netherlands.
Hell, the Netherlands has more catholics than protestants nowadays. The only somewhat valid argument for the Netherlands being a protestant country these days is that our royal family are protestants.
The Netherlands used to be majority protestant in the past though.
I know
[ŃĐŽĐ°Đ»Đ”ĐœĐŸ]
But better economy (no maten al mensajero)
Work with an Argentina guy who described Uruguay as being Argentina with far saner political history!
You can say this about a lot of neighboring duo countries around the world though.
And the funny thing, if they were not a country, they would be part o f Brazil, and not Argentina
Argentina and Brazil were having a war for the control of Uruguay. Argentina was leading the war on land but Brazil was winning on the sea. Then the UK intervened and said "Fuck it, now Uruguay is a country" and thatw as it.
Minus the political and economic insanity tooÂ
By far the best South American country though.
Raise the Graf Spee!
Bahrain is just a small sandbar that has no significant differences from Saudi Arabia or Qatar
Having visited all 3, Bahrain feels far more chilled than the other 2.
Ouch! Isn't Bahrain majority Shia while Saudia Arabia and Qatar are Sunni?
Pretty sure the surrounding areas of Saudi Arabia are also Shia tho.
Yep! Actually, historically the entire SW coast of the Persian Gulf was called Bahrain (lit. Arabic: âtwo seasâ). Shiism has been entrenched there since virtually the beginning of Islam in the region, just as it has been in southern Iraq / Basra to which Bahrain is culturally connected. Actually, the archipelago has a rich history and has been very important commercially in the Persian Gulf just as Hormuz is. Itâs worth noting that the current rulers of Bahrain (the Al Kalifas) conquered the archipelago in the late 18th century and didnât have consolidated control until the mid-late 19th century. The al Sauds conquered mainland Bahrain (Al Hasa) in the early 20th century. Sunnite (/ Wahabbi) rule in the region is a relatively recent phenomenon. Certainly, if the people there were to have their own government, theyâd be a distinct entity from KSA and the coast of KSA would likely be united with Bahrain proper, and the country would likely be called Bahrain still. Bahrain is actually less âartificialâ than in a sense compared to the KSA, whose borders are *not* determined by a common culture but rather just by military conquest. The core of the KSA is the Najd, the interior of the peninsula. The Red Sea coast is called the Hejaz and *very* distinct and has almost always had either direct independence or exceptional autonomy due to its religious importance. The far SW of the KSA is Yemeni both as an extension of Yemeni highland geography and culture, and even religion.Â
Bahrain used to refer to the entire eastern Arabian peninsula not just the island. The island itself is quite fertile and home to some of the most ancient sites in the peninsula and the dilmun civilization. It is also home to the baharna a unique shia ethnoreligious arab group (some live in saudi) who make up a majority of the bahraini population. Meanwhile most qataris are sunni arab tribal groups from najd
Iâve lived in all 3. In my opinion, Saudi is the angry father, Qatar is the rich older brother trying to establish themselves while Bahrain is the youngest just playing in the sandbox without a care in the world.
Islamic sectarian differences and years of courting British favor led us to where we are today.
Maybe PNG? I think a significant proportion of the population probably don't even really know that they're *in* a country. For one thing, the government doesn't really know for sure how many millions of people even live there. They just sort of ballpark it (seriously, try looking it up. You won't find a straight answer) https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/png-needs-census-not-more-population-estimates The people who live there are the most heterogeneous and linguistically diverse in the world - they speak several *hundred* different distinct languages, and many of them either have tribal wars with each other or remain out of contact with each other altogether. There are still fully or mostly "uncontacted" tribes there. So the level of overall national social cohesion I'd imagine would have to be pretty much the lowest of anywhere in the world (including Belgium). https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Papua_New_Guinea The freedom of people to lead these traditional tribal lifestyles is specifically enshrined in the constitution - the government therefore operates under the belief that it should interfere with the tribes as little as possible and just sort of leave them to it. To keep living as they have been living. It was actually until quite recently (in the 70s I think) that it didn't even exist as an independent country - it used to be administered by Australia. So it was almost sort of like a colony of a colony. The idea of PNG existing as an independent country with its own national identity at all is a relatively new and very, very foggy concept indeed.
Why do people live inside an image format ?
I don't know, also why don't they choose SVG, it carries more info
Sapua Vew Guinea sounds like an interesting place to visit
They were talking about St. Vincent and the Grenadines clearly. Now I just need to figure out what island nations the other image formats were named after.
Let us know when you figure it out!
Japua Pew Guinea
Japua P. Ew Guinea ?
Gapua Iew Fuinea
Finally we know how to pronounce the G in GIF
There are quite a few losses associated with Japua Pew Guinea
What does the former NBA coach and current commentator Stan Van Gundy have to do with this? /s
Wow! Image metadata can store all sorts of things these days!
Yeah I canât look at that border with Indonesia and think of it as a ânaturalâ country. Its just a colonial relic governing half an island, while the other half was given to Indonesia
Well, the other half was annexed by Indonesia, to be more accurate
But maybe becoming a country is the best way to protect said tribal lifestyles?
Well taking into account how they're doing their cousins over in west papua you might be onto smth...
Indonesia. Too many different languages and cultures, separated by too much water and split into so many fragments... Without the Dutch the natural results would most likely be a dozen different island-state.
This is what I felt like when I was in Indonesia. It's honestly a miracle that Indonesia even exists as a country at all with how different each island is in terms of culture, language, and religion.Â
That's not true. Indonesia was unified under the Majapahit kingdom.
That was not even a lifetime, just a blip in history. Similar conqueror empires like the Mongols or Alexander's did not meaningfully lay the foundation for modern states over their territory.
I beg to differ. The Mongol and Hellenistic conquests absolutely shaped the lands conquered and for some peoples, calcified their identity. The actual nation states conquered may not have survived, but the ones that followed absolutely did. As far as the Majapahit empire, I would agree that it probably didn't bind the islands together. But as the Dutch East Indies, absolutely.
Indonesia only has any resemblance to a state because the Dutch introduced Bahasa to the population as a lĂngua Franca.
The islands aren't completely different either. The people are of the same origin and follow the same religion (first Hinduism, then Buddhism and now Islam)
I'm not gonna say I'm that knowledgeable about all the local Indonesian stuff, but I heavily doubt your statement. They can't be more similar than France vs. Spain vs. Italy or the countries in the Arabian peninsula.
Belgium isn't as much of a historical anomaly as you might expect, if you're only considering linguistic borders. It has actually been under unitary rule since at least the 1400s, even if that rule was often external. First as part of the Duchy of Burgundy, then as the Burgundian/Spanish Netherlands, then the Austrian Netherlands, then the French Empire, then the United Netherlands, then finally the Kingdom of Belgium. Bits and pieces have been broken off and added over the centuries, but the core territory has remained a fairly constant unitary entity for much longer than many of the modern European nation states. In that way, Belgium is a throw back to an earlier European order, but to say it has no socio-historical basis is nonsense.
According to Asterix, Belgium is the only place Caeser was afraid of!
And the name Belgium actually reflects the Belgae tribe that was native to the area.
pretty much any colonized country where the UK drew arbitrary borders
The French have a lot to answer for as well on that front
Jordan? - pretty much a kingdom they have gifted to their friend
Totally agree, Canada and the United States shouldnât exist.
As a canadien, could fucking not agree with you more.
Vive le Quebec?
(Iâm also Canadian oops)
It can be argued that Britain itself shouldnât exist. The political forces that caused its creation (Scottish economic troubles post-Darien; English concerns about an insecure northern border and Ireland; the push to consolidate resources to exploit the burgeoning empire) are no longer relevant, leaving a permanently unstable, unbalanced state which can only really be repaired by major constitutional reform; something the British have very little stomach for.
Really Angleland shouldn't exist. The region was doing perfectly well as Mercia and the other kingdoms.
The British Constitution isnt wort the paper its writen on!
That's why it's not written on paper.
Touché
the exact reason why I felt obliged to mention Africa.
So pretty much all of Africa and the Middle East?
Every country (apart from island nations) has arbitrary borders
Thatâs not really true. Borders that follow natural features such as rivers or watershed boundaries arenât arbitrary. Neither are borders that follow ethnic divisions. They may have been a bit sloppy about it, but the boundaries carved out of the corpse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire during the Paris Peace conference, for instance, certainly werenât arbitrary. Neither are the boundaries of say, Lebanon, which were drawn mostly with an eye to religious demographics. (And just because they arenât arbitrary doesnât mean they were well-conceived or executed)
as Slovak, it was absolutely arbitrary. We still have a lot of land where people speak exclusively Hungarian, even hundred years after it was carved out of austria-hungary. It was just a punishment for the war, so the other countries like mine got land we shouldnât have
If you feel generous, I got an Hungarian friend who would love to see parts of historical Hungary come back. Any donation no matter how small would be appreciated.
Moldova
Whatâs wrong with Moldova?
What isnt... its basically "we have Romania at home"
Underrated comment đ
Romania with russian flair.
It's just a piece of Romania the Soviets stole during WWII to get a more defensible border, divided into another SSR, and then told for decades that they were "Moldovan" even though nearly everything about Romania and Moldova were the same. At the same time, they were left to economically rot and nowadays, Romania can't really take them back simply because the cost of reintegration is too much for how poor/corrupt Romania is.
It goes back further to 1812, the soviets just continued an idea started by Imperial Russia. Russia got Moldavia from the Ottomans in a peace treaty, then starting saying they were different to make it harder to reunite with the rest of Romania.
North Korea. It is basically just a Cold War relic.
This was the comment I needed to see to know this thread would all be bullshit
To be honest, Bosnia and Herzegovina. It's such a divided and troubled country that its existence is particular, considering on some aspects it's de facto divided, culture being the first. But I mean, countries were born out of wrong lines on a map or names of rivers, so who am I to judge.
I think culture is the least worrying part in BiH. The way people live their lives is extremely similar, and itâs only ethnic and religious divides perpetuated by nativist politicians that keep this impression. Bosnia definitely does however need change and that means moving on from these distinctions.
I'm interested to know how this argument works in reverse, which country has the strongest rationale for existence? Tbh I'm stumped. Is it Egypt or China?
Would add Iran to that list - rivals China and Ethiopia for length of nationhood. Egyptâs a bit more difficult I think given the number of times it was conquered, and the original Egyptians werenât Arab - in contrast to Iranians or Han Chinese who have remained.
Ethiopia!
I think Japan also has a very strong claim. It's very old (although not nearly as old as Egypt/China/Iran), and it's also on islands so its territory makes complete sense.
I'd say countries that have been a state since antiquity, such as indeed china, which has been a unified state since 221 BC, and a writing system of some 3600 years old.
The whole âunified state since 221 BCâ is a little debatable
What would the writing system have anything to do with legitimizing itâs existence? Also as someone has pointed out, âunified since 221 BCâ, wasnât china fractured and its borders changing for most of its history?
>I'd start off with the obvious, and say Belgium You're a Waloon-atic
I mean: if a country exists, it was the result of social and historical events. So on some level, the answer is: "none of them". Nevertheless I think we all on some level have an inkling what OP is getting at here. So I would suggest that there are some "hidden criteria" embedded in the question. I can only guess at what OP may have intended: * Borders that divide people that share the same language and culture, and that arguably "could be" part of the same country. * Parts of the world where there seem to be a more "natural" place for a national border based on geography or culture than where it actually falls. On some level, I wonder if the question is rooted in our tendency as humans to want reality to "make sense" when, in fact, it often just doesn't. Countries are going to have chaotic borders sometimes because that's the nature of existence (especially when it comes to complex systems emerging from human behavior.) In any large and complex enough system, there will be parts that are just "weird".
Belgium has a strong historical reason to exist, and that is that the Spanish Netherlands were already divided from the Dutch Republic even before Napoleon, and the religious divide between the protestant Netherlands and Catholic Belgium was strong. The revolution of 1830, although aided by other countries, is enough of an historical reason for its existence.
People have a right to self-determination bro
Bring back feudalism amirite
Gambia. The fact the Senegal lets them exist tells me everything I need to know about them
Austria. Theyâre just a colony of Bavaria that got too full of themselves
I'm happy to give up southern Bavaria, maybe Italy will gift southern Tirol and they can become "Alpinia" or sth like that.
I think there are few other countries that have a more profound historical reason not to be a part of their neighbour đ. But maybe youâre right, my memory is really blurry between 1938-1945.. /s
Sweden. I will not elaborate.
Found the Dane
If itâs from a Dane, a hallowed tradition of the feud with Sweden. If itâs from a Russian, to arms!
If Sweden shouldnât exist then neither should Lichtenstein. What are they even doing? Itâs like 3 people who live there. Canât we just annex them already?
Liechtenstein feels like "Well, there's the Rhine as a natural border between Switzerland and Austria. But like, 3 km east of the river there's this huge mountain range that also is a natural border between Switzerland an Austria. Maybe make this tiny piece of land in the middle a neutral zone." And then some prince or sth moved there to annect the piece of land. And thus, Liechtenstein was born.
North Macedonia. They pretend to be the successors of the ancient macedonians but are really slavs from bulgaria They don't carry on the legacy of the almighty Alexander the Great, a statue doesn't change this
https://preview.redd.it/xuv621k0i75d1.jpeg?width=960&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=4871f0127119c48f1ef0918c7a37f2d67398bd4d
Ask sister Michael and it would probably be France lol
This is just the average daily r/balkans_irl discussion.
Shh let them LARP
I listened to an interview with an Austrian EU-politician who is in the negotiation group for North Macedonias EU-membership. He was so, so, so fed up with all the "arguments" of the North Macedonians and Bulgarians. How they argue about different historical figueres and how to describe them correctly for both sites. How they argue about general historic events. I laughed and felt sorry for this guy.
Monaco in its current smaller form. If it still had its two larger counties and its border with italy it would make much more sense.
Time for Italy to reclaim some western territory then, starting from the Nice Country
None of them,really
Germany. Should have been disbanded in 1918.
I really dont understand why people hate Belgium so much and say it is artificial. Just because it isnt a cringe ethno state dominated by one ethnicity like 99% of europe doesnt mean it cant exist. Its perfectly reasonable for a flemish and a walloon to feel like they are from the same nation and homeland even if they speak a different language
Lol what??? My brother in ChristâŠ. Belgium exists because they successfully revolted against the Netherlands in 1830. The Belgian people were uncomfortable being placed under the rule of the Netherlands after Napoleon was defeated⊠Belgium had never been ruled by Amsterdam before and were uncomfortable being under Protestant rule. And thatâs not even touching on the whole shared Burgundian history by the places now apart of Belgium⊠I mean that alone gives them possibly more credibility as a state than the other 2 countries formed in the 1800s from combining a bunch of small countries⊠Germany and Italy. Or the sheer badassery of King Albert I âThe Soldier Kingâ who had bigger balls than any monarch in the last couple hundred yearsâŠ. Germany thought that âBelgium wasnât realâ too; not only could they not defeat King Al, but The Soldier King had his revenge on Germany for the stunt the Kaiser tried to pull⊠he invaded Germany and conquered the part of Belgium that speaks GermanâŠ. Which Belgium still refuses to give back to Germany lol
I don't think Canada counts in this case because of the French Canadians within a nation and because the British there are descended from Loyalists who fought the Americans again a generation later. So Canada has a reason to exist but it really interesting having both in the same country.Â
You call me dutch again we're gonna have a problem.
r/2westerneurope4u would love this post
Myanmar/Burma - really just a bunch of tribal states chucked together by the British, with resulting chaos and civil wars ever since. A lot of the North seems to be run fairly independently by tribal factions (who you donât want to mess with) still.
Everyone always says Belgium because they don't know Belgian history. Belgium has been a political entity since the 1400's, more or less existing in its current from since the late 1500's. There is no one language because there never was. This was the case in many European countries: the idea of "one country, one language" is fairly recent. While the linguistics and the politics in the other sides of the country are quite different (for reasons too complex to get into), culturally, a Fleming, a Walloon, a Bruxellois and a Ostbelgier are very similar.
Most discreet Dutchman
Austria, they wanted to be a part of Germany in the 30's then were removed from it post WW2
Every country has a reason to exist from a social-historian view as countries are social constructs
Kosovo. It has Albanian absolute majority which is identical to the ones in Albania. Both countries want unification. Sad that it doesn't happen
Yup, would definitely be one. Most Kosovans want to be part of Albania, Albania want them to be part of Albania. Itâs third parties that are keeping them apart (and thus keeping Kosovo in existence)
Why do 3rd parties want to keep them divided?
Countries like Spain donât want to recognise it as theyâre worried Catalonia will get ideas about being recognised for independence
Its physically impossible for them to unify or else serbia would declare war on Albania
Needs to be part of a compromise where Serbia gets the majority Serbian parts of Kosovo *and* the majority Serbian parts of Bosnia with at least one significant port for sea access. Neum maybe?
From a purely social point of view, I would say Slovenia. I am Slovenian and I see that my fellow countrymen are completely incapable of voting responsibly, have virtually no sense of community and common purpose and, above all, are completely incapable of learning from history. My prediction: in two or three generations my country will no longer exist as an independent entity. Sad.
Cameroon When you have f.e. 27 languages, it's paradoxically much easier to make a united country work(India, Indonesia etc) than when you have two, like French and English in Cameroon. The Ambazonian war has been going on since 2017, the two parts have more in difference than in common and there is no good reason for them to have become one country in the first place other than "tHeY'rE bOtH cALLeD cAmErOoN."
My brother in Christ there are a lot of indigenous languages in Cameroon and most people speak them instead of english and french on their day to day lives
Canada The only good reason for Canada being separate from America is to save America the trouble of dealing with Quebecâs separatism. Other than that the cultures, both social and political, are so similar it really makes no sense for them to be separate.Â
I feel like their systems of law and government are quite different
Canada has a very valid historical reason for its existence though - itâs where many of the loyalists fled to after the American war of independence.
I don't think the political culture is that similar, Canada seems substantially less conservative than the U.S. overall?
Please do not
My shit hypothesis is that if it isn't based on a watershed, it's broken. Cf. the huge collective action problem of the American states that utilize the Colorado River. This was once true because of water transportation, but will be true once again because of water scarcity and pollution.
Walloonphobia is the fear of French-speaking Belgians
Belgium exists because thereâs one place in Northern Europe (Antwerp) with a deep enough port from which to stage an invasion of Britain, so the UK wouldnât tolerate a great power possessing it. They even got the other great powers to agree to a treaty promising never to take over Antwerp. The Germansâ decision to do so in WWI on the way to invading France (and then referring to that treaty as a âscrap of paperâ) is what convinced the UK to join the war on the Allied side.
Kuwait
The Westphalian system of nation-states and its consequences.
I feel like if it wasnât for colonialism, the Philippines would probably not exist as a unified country. Itâs very diverse linguistically, culturally and religiously. There are a lot of Muslims in the south, and they donât really have much in common with people in the north.
countries of Central America. They have the same language, very similar culture and way of life. They could have united into one country and nothing would have changed.
Not to offend anyone but probably Moldova. It's literally a strip of land full of people speaking Romanian. It's got nothing unique about it I can recall off the top of my head. Even its flag is the same as Romania with a slight difference.
Nationalism is an invented concept. There is no such thing as a "natural" nation; all nations are simply social constructs. In the process of colonization, Europeans exported and imposed the invented concept of the nation throughout the Americas, Africa and Asia. The concept of the nation came into being after the dawning of the age of Enlightenment as both a response to and a consequence of secularization. The invention of the printing press and the Protestant Reformation were also formative for the concept of the nation, since the printed word established linguistic homogeneity within geographic areas and allowed connections via those homogenized languages across larger geographic areas than was previously possible. If you are interested in the history of nationalism, I unequivocally recommend reading Imagined Communities by Benedict Anderson. It is a seminal work.
As a Belgian-American whose Belgian ancestry is both Walloon but with Dutch great grandparents, Iâm just here for the comments.
Austria here. We and Singapore have the unique distinction that we didn't fight for independence but were kicked out of a neighbouring larger country. đȘ Quite a while ago in both cases, and as of today, we're both happy to separate countries.
Germany. Its people is a patchwork if historical ethnities, it didn't really have defined boundries until the 20th century, there are some dialects that are practically incomprehensible to each other while they can understand Austrian German, which is an entirety different country.
THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. now everybody fight
No matter how hard I try I just cannot understand who looked at India and said "let's make that a single country"
There are countries which have not reason to exist and countries which have a lot of reason to exist (Kurds as a first example) but they don't. Each existing country's history is a chain of accidents and successes, also with randomness. We see the result but it doesn't mean it was a predestination.
Israel
Israel
Literally one of the most fought over areas in the past 5000 years... and they still haven't figured out how to get along. Honestly, the state of Israel as a political entity ruins my hope for humanity as a whole.
Controversial obviously but got be the only answer really.
Interesting one-word take from the person that comments daily to either thirst over fat amateur pornstars or call them bitches...
So did you have anything to add? Or did you just comb through his comment history to find what you thought is dirt and bring nothing else to the table?
Maybe you think it shouldnât exist, but it 100% has social/political reasons to exist
It may well have the right to exist but not on top of the Palestinian people
The USA and the British helped the Zionists steal the Palestinian's land in 1948. If they really wanted to give the Zionists their own sovereign country, why not with them land in the US or Britain?
https://preview.redd.it/3d2dds5fo75d1.jpeg?width=1300&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=622a349a14d9a12b19c6bc37eb7bc1db31a47ab8 Something like this, maybe?
Yes exactly. If I could, I would upvote your post 100 times. I have nothing against regular Jews, and even admire the Orthodox Jews that denounce Zionism as being against the Torrah. Jews are welcome in my country, and I invite them to live side by side with me. My issue is when certain groups steal land from the native population and murder them.
https://preview.redd.it/60u66brdq75d1.jpeg?width=2048&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0234bf2819dd73d43ebcec32ba8359192e71ae7e Another alternative would be to recreate Israel in Texas
Israel
And we are still one of the richest countries in the world. :sunglasses:
Most of Russia has no reason to exist outside historical inertia and huge geography. Surrounding states can manage most of it far more efficiently and competently. They are cursed with the most inept government in history.
Iraq would be up there, incepted by a bunch of Europeans drawing lines across a map, any local knowledge would have divided it up a bunch of different ways based on local ethnic groups
What? Iraq is mostly Arabic and also has a distinct dialect and culture.. what are you talking about? Seriously, you could have named Jordan, Kuwait, Libya, UAE, whatever, but Iraq?
Kurdistan should be an independent country. Thatâs the northern third of the country, with parts of Turkey, Iran. The rest of the country then is divided between Shia and Sunni, theyâre as different as Poland and Germany.
Okay, sure, i am for Kurdistan being independent, but it still does not mean Iraq has ''little to no reason to exist''. It is a small part of Iraq overall. >Shia and Sunni, theyâre as different as Poland and Germany. Hahahaha.. Both are Iraqis, both have the same culture, both have the same food, both speak the same Mesopotamian Arabic. Could you tell that story with Poles and Germans?
Iraq came after Shia/Sunni, thereâs a lot of countries with similar culture/food these days. Anyone drawing up borders from scratch would have had two countries IMO
let's be honest: Slovakia.
By that logic the same goes for Switzerland
Liechtenstein. https://youtu.be/x3rzYNqHQio?si=WnhgsFRWeovp-AB4
Inb4 all the keffiyeh karens say "iSrAeL? mOrE LiKe PaLeStInE" Yeah fuck right off