What decides ethnicity and nationality?

    I left this without a poll since its a very complex question in general. But what in your mind is your national bretheren in this modern day and age, especially in Europe. Id say US excluded. But doesnt need to be.
Does blood play a factor? Race? History? Religion? What can you exclude? What would you idealize?

Nationality is a easy one, most countries have quite comprehensive legislation covering it, admittedly different in each. Personally I subscribe to the, what does it say in your passport? Solution. Saves a lot of trouble.

A dog is a creature that is recognised as a dog by another dog.

A member of an ethnicity is a person that is recognised as a member by another member

Originally posted by Theodore Felix      But what in your mind is your national bretheren in this modern day and age,

Unfortunately a dog is a creature which is known as a dog by  A MAN.

Ethnicity is primarily culture, language and to an extent, ancestry. But ultimatly its background/envirmoment that determines how individuals and groups will percieve and qualify any given ethnicity. And this is where things get interesting, especialy when you consider that a growing number of people are in a position where they will have multiple over-lapping identities that trenscend traditional notions of ethnicity.
Are English Jews ethnicly English but religiously Jewish, or Ethnicly Jewish and English by nationality? Or perhaps Anglo-Jewish, an over-lapping sub-ethnicity, and British by nationality?
Ask a dozen English Jews, get a dozen answers.

Religion trandscends ethnicity, generaly speaking, so it only plays an important role in specific circumstances, where the notion of ethnic/group identiy is bound closely to religion, as say in N. Ireland or Bosnia.
Race is the same, its only an important factor in racialised societies where atitudes to ethnicity are defined racialy. Being 'Black' is a pretty significant ethnic identifier in the US, but generaly less helpfull in a large multi-ethnic African country like say Nigeria, however, being a Yoruba retains its significance where-ever you live, even if your hosts generaly can't be arsed to aknowledge it.

So Whites, Blacks, and Asians are just illusions we all see? They are nothing but our imagination? Is that not what a ethnic group is, gentetic diversity? We are all human, but there are differences. There are races, but there are even small changes within races. It's just a name for groups of people. I believe it first was a term for race and ancestry and so on, but now could have cultural meaning too.

i don t think religion plays an important part in this, i am not saying it isnt, just take a look at mid-eastern countries

For me the point is clear. The world is divided between locals and foreigners.

Edited by pinguin - 12-Nov-2006 at 07:14