Identity: Nation and Homeland, Separated from the State Apparatus

Identity: When the Homeland Separates from the State Apparatus

The nation-state is not a two-century phenomenon. The concept that today seems intrinsic to the identity of a people—borders, ID cards, administration—dates back to the dawn of the 19th century, while language, custom, and parents' land predate any ministry. This paradox frames the open debate surrounding «Identity, homeland, and nation,» the author Eugenio Gil’s work, and has peine an uncomfortable question: who claimed ownership of the homeland's name?
The diagnosis that recurs is one of massive cognitive dissonance: having accepted that the state apparatus is identical to heritage, land, and language.

What is the Difference Between Nation and Homeland

The distinction maintained by this school of thought draws from Natural Law and Saint Thomas Aquinas’s readings. The Nation—birth, language, custom—and the Homeland (Patria)—the land of parents, the spiritual legacy—are described as organic, complex, and spontaneous realities that emerge from below. The State, in contrast, appears as social engineering: an artifact obsessed with power and control exerted from above. When both merge into what this reading calls the monster of the nation-state, the bureaucratic apparatus has hijacked identity to legitimize itself. In the Spanish context, it is maintained that the dissociation between State and nation-homeland would be absolute. Some argue against this, suggesting that the right wing equally uses the idea of nation to glorify the State, and that patriotism is merely another vice, not a civic virtue.

The Nation-State as 19th-Century Engineering

A portion of this analysis places the modern nation-state schema at the beginning of the 19th century and links it to the French Revolution, describing it as a laboratory design rather than a structure born to protect the real nation: people, culture, language, and tradition. France is cited as the canonical example of a country that attempted to mold its internal nations by invoking an official identity. The thesis extends beyond national borders. It argues that there are political forces that destroy their own nation-state from within by ceding sovereignty to higher structures; that Western and non-Western lefts have been coordinating for decades in transnational spaces, approving social engineering laws almost identical in Madrid, Paris, or Buenos Aires; and that the rights start to copy this pattern. Cited examples include the European Union, the Soviet Union, and the São Paulo Forum. The interpretation that gains traction avoids the secret plan narrative: it is an evolutionary convergence of incentives, not a coordinated conspiracy in a hidden base.

Ortega, Santayana and the Dream of a Timeless Europe

A historical curiosity runs through this discussion. George Santayana (Jorge Ruiz de Santayana), born in Madrid in 1863 and moved to Boston at age eight without knowing English, read The Revolt of the Masses between 1939 and 1940 and annotated the chapter where Ortega y Gasset announced that Europe could become a national idea. His question was devastating: without England or with it? Without the United States? With Russia?
His reading of Ortega was merciless: he wanted to be English, French, and German while remaining Spanish, but internationalism is not another nationality; it is something spiritual or common to all. Santayana, an atheist who gave great importance to religion, left another enigma at the end: in the spring of 1951, he still had not decided where or how to be buried. He dismissed cremation and refused to return to the United States.

Madrid as Capital of the Spanish Lands Versus Local Identity

Here, the matter moves beyond metaphysics and descends to the neighborhood level. Facing those who claim the Hispanic community as an asset—in a world of 9,000, Spain would not amount to 30 million, and pushing the figure could reach 700 million—another current views this same expansion as a replacement for local identity, with Madrid becoming the capital of that community. The discussion devolved into a sharp exchange about what anti-Spain exactly is, and in it, both the defense of cultural mixing and outright rejection of it emerged. It should be stated clearly: the homogeneity of a neighborhood is not a demographic argument, and demographics are not an identity. But no one discussed that.

The Open Question

They say that the homeland is a refuge for scoundrels, but also for babies born, children who grow up, and above all, stateless persons. Others describe it as a jail: that is how men organize themselves, in jails, because outside it is too cold. The only thing is that the jail doesn't appear so.
With these two images in hand, how much of the imagined community of hundreds of millions is project and how much is simply miscounted demography? The answer, like Santayana's burial, remains unwritten.