Importance of National Unification

The concept of nation is a relatively recent concept in Western history since it emerged as we know it today in the 19th century. This idea then allows us to analyze the territorial realities of each place on the planet from a renewed conception and in which the national community is essential to understand the possibility of union.

The rise of the nation in a troubled age

Although historically in the West we find numerous periods in which the concept of nation and the feeling of belonging to the community, the conception we have today of belonging to a homeland and a national community arose in the 19th century when European societies went through the famous and intense French Revolution and from that they can begin to build their national communities based on values ​​other than those known up to now.

This is why the 19th century has served, with its comings and goings, the construction of national States that could define more concretely from practice the identity and the feeling of belonging to a community. This occurred in various areas of Europe in which the 19th century served as a moment of national unification of territories that were once separated or fragmented. Such are the cases of Germany and Italy, for example.

The need to build a national identity from the community union

It is essential to point out that, from the conception that we are defining here, the construction of a National identity it was essential to strengthen the state and consolidate its presence in civil society. Thus, we can say that those territories that went through national unification processes achieved it by having the vision of thinking about the community. civil and social as a collective that should remain unified and strengthened based on values, practices, traditions, language, history.

In this sense, the national States converged towards forms of territorial unification that annulled the internal fights, which end the confrontations and, in addition to pacifying the region, establish forms of both administrative and military control over a geographical space certain. In the case of Germany, for example, this union was achieved thanks to customs unification and the creation of a common tax area that favored economic exchanges between all regions.

Unification seen from civil society

Although States have always been responsible for ensuring the development and consolidation of a unified national community, the Civil society has historically been a protagonist in this process, responsible for and a decisive element in making this unification a reality.

In this sense, the failed attempts at national unification have run up against the obstacle of populations that have not felt part of or represented, such is the case of countries in Africa or the Middle East that include within their arbitrary borders conflicting populations among themselves or that they do not recognize each other as sisters and thus the unification becomes a mere formality since it is not present in practice social and shared

Images: Fotolia. albiberon – holoholo