Description

How can we be free, living in the community of our choice, according to rules we fashion, in dignity and equality? Nationalism was the nineteenth century answer to this question of emancipation, and the paradigm persisted within the twentieth century's post-colonial movements. The result is a world of States today, where every piece of the map has been divided up and flagged. We see conflicts still raging in many parts of the world (Abkhazia is one of them). We see also the poverty of this way of thinking and acting in a world that is increasingly globalised (a dead-end on the road to nowhere?), and we witness the impossible coexistence of nationalist aspirations on a map where ethnic and cultural boundaries do not match the demarcations of existing states, and never will. What is the present future of emancipation in the twenty-first century? What alternatives are there to nationalism and the State? Does non-territorial emancipation have any meaning in a world of States? Must emancipation always be grounded in territory to have lasting power? Can individual emancipation provide real answers that are meaningful at the community level? Can we imagine new forms of emancipation?