Nations of the mind
Borders are psychological necessities. Human understanding itself begins with an infant having to come to terms with the bizarre notion that it is physically separate from its mother. Things continue from there: spatially, economically, politically and militarily, of course. But also conceptually, culturally and spiritually.
Two current phenomena make it necessary to reassess our notion of what a border is and what it does and doesn't do. The first is the increase in world population and the rate of destruction and leeching of the Earth's natural resources. More nation states with expensive consumption habits now rely on resources outside their territorial borders to keep up their style of living. Nothing new there; previous powerful states did much the same thing. But now there's more competition for limited resources, and there exists a higher overall level of education and access to empowering information than existed previously. Colonialism, for instance, no longer cuts the political mustard.
So today's attempts at imperialism employ more subtle methods of persuasion; part of this is what theorists call 'cultural imperialism'. Military and economic strength still count enormously. But against nuclear or near-nuclear states, those can only get you so far. Hence, the rise in popularity of campaigns to win 'hearts and minds'. Imperial powers used to go in for their own blunt version of this. They trained members of the elite in 'subject nations', who then went on to work for imperial 'head offices' and represent imperial interests in the field. The British did this in India; similarly, Romans bred an educated class of conquered northern Europeans who gaily went on to wear togas and quote Virgil.
Why not - providing most people benefit. The problem is not so much the system. After all, as Cambridge scholar Mary Beard puts it, outside the intellectual world, most people know and accept that 'empire happens'.
Problems start when our era's imperial power, the US, starts to export an unsustainable way of life and when sheer proportion changes the impact of cross-border exchange.This leads to the second reason why territorial borders are becoming more and more mixed up with borders that exist in people's heads.
Borders do not hold the same meaning now because of accelerated transnational mobility, including immigration. This has allowed terrorist groups to operate on a global scale, spreading across traditional political and territorial divisions to make, in effect, a new kind of 'nation': a loosely connected network rather than a local concentration. We haven't really found a language to describe this sort of landless global entity with strong conceptual borders, nor do theorists, politicians or law enforcement officers even agree on how cohesive or stable such groups are.
In some respects, a group such as al-Qaeda can be seen as a sort of cult that aspires to imperial clout. It certainly has the hallmarks: secrecy, intensity and exclusivity - conceptual borders drawn around an unquestionable set of beliefs and the characteristic passion with which those beliefs are defended. This goes some way to explain recruitment, too; psychologically vulnerable people exist in all nations, rich and poor, and they are often attracted by charismatic figures with strong beliefs challenging mainstream ones.
In the face of these two phenomena - increased cross-border mobility and greater awareness of the Earth's limits - the conventional way of carving up the world has lost some of its relevance. We still act like things haven't changed. But, more so than at any time in the past, borders cut across human beliefs and relations. At times borders need to be pushed out to include the world, and at other times conceptual frontiers should take precedence over territorial ones.
Jean Nicol looks at everyday issues from the point of view of a psychologist
