There used to be - and for all I know, there may still be - a country which did not exist. There was, of course, a land, a territory with clear, even if unmarked, boundaries, there were people living there, working pretty much like people do elsewhere. But there was, in and from this country which was not really a country, nothing of which one might have said that it came  from or belonged to it. It had no policy, no economy, no administration of its own and was governed by obscure and invisible forces of which the islanders knew nothing. And yet there were people lording over that land, very much like in the old days, when there were slaveowners almost everywhere ad their lackeys on the one hand, and slaves on the other. But no one seemed to be aware of this. I've forgotten the name of this island, but I'm sure many do know the island I'm referring to.

I hate to say it, but most of them people in this land are fundamentally dishonest, racist, corrupt, lazy, prone to various types of sadistic practices and complex-ridden. And that's a shame, because the place is really beautiful, so beautiful that Mark Twain even thought that Heaven had been copied after it. But then, the entire world is a beautiful place and it's only the presence of  Man - after he had, according to the Bible, sinned - therein that transformed the world into a place of damnation. 

Originally, that island was uninhabited and apparently remained uninhabited and  was even unknown to anyone until the Portuguese - some say the Arabs - discovered it, but  the Dutch were the very first to have settled on the island. And they gradually brought there slaves mainly from Batavia, from India ( from the west coast of Bengal), from China, from Madagascar and probably from the eastern coast of Africa too. From time to time, those slaves would revolt, so much so that the Dutch, unable to control them, finally decided to leave the island. That was during the  17th century and it was only during the 18th century that the French took possession of the island and they kept possession of it until the British took over in 1810. It is to be noted that throughout its history, the people of the island were not identified as people of the island, but according to their land and culture of origin. Even now, this has not really changed in spite of vehement affirmations to the contrary.  However, it should be noted that that the people of this land - let's call them the Taurimians - , who rarely, if ever, confess their national identity( out of shame, it needs to be added), do speak of their pride - one wonders why - of being Taurimians, but only when they are confronted with foreigners, abroad or in Taurimius, or when they meet Taurimians who make no secret of their shame of being Taurimians. The Taurimians are a very special people. They can easily be identified in spite of their ethnic ad cultural diversity. The way they behave, dress and, especially talk - the Taurimian accent is unmistakable whatever the language they speak - easily singles them out anywhere. This, one would assume, should contribute to the making of the Taurimian identity, but that's not the case. Because Taurimians probably exist for the eyes of foreigners and in the eyes of foreigners only, many of them, when they meet other Taurimians abroad, would pretend not hailing from Taurimius, so profound their shame of being Taurimians and so intense their contempt of other Taurimians. This uneasiness can be easily understood: the bare fact is that, even if there is a place called Taurimius, there are no Taurimians; at least so far. 

This probably explains why this land is such a mess, why there is no Government, there is no national cul language, no national culture, no national economy, no nothing. Nothing national is of any real importance, but the sense of national belonging is a sine qua non, hopefully temporary, a necessary stepping-stone for the unity of a land and its morphing into a country and eventually into a nation. Nor     are all those constructions really necessary, but one needs to admit that, in their absence, only strife ca prevail.