Background
It all began with a meme shared by a veteran member. A rainbow re-imagination of the Balkans where whole nations were overlaid with LGBT flags.
The following question was then plainly posited towards a Serbian member of the community:
“What is the tip of Serbia supposed to be?”
Our Serbian friend would respond:
“that’s Vojvodina
an autonomous province
ethnically diverse, but mostly Serbian
the President likes to claim every once in a while that there are people who want to separate Vojvodina from Serbia, and how ‘that will never happen’
separatists there are fringe however”
It could have very well ended there. Instead, the conversation slid, almost accidentally, into something far more philosophical: what even are countries, how do and should we talk about them, and how we as individuals can or should assign them distinct values.
What followed was one of those oddly touching moments from the Bridging Discord server… a combination of internet humor, (to a great extent, lay) political theory, and serious questions of moral judgment.
Here’s the conversation that led there. I’m posting it here on Interlocut not just for sake of archiving, but because I think the thoughts that emerged are worth continuing.
The Discord Convo (unedited excerpts)
Giving You The 
(1:37 PM):
Kamenesk [Serbian] what is the tip of Serbia supposed to be?
(image of the meme map with pride flags layered over the Balkans)
As far as I know, there’s no independent movement there. Kosovo I know is on the bottom left of Serbia.
FitzCromulent (1:40 PM):
it’s a new gender identity that just dropped
x1
Giving You The (1:40 PM):
It’s the pansexual flag
FitzCromulent (1:41 PM):
ah
Awkward (2:13 PM):
Don’t those countries hate the lgbtq
wuuwsavant (3:46 PM):
it’s the autonomous province of vojvodina
it’s a region that was historically very mixed, inhabited by slavs, hungarians and romanians and couple other groups
Giving You The (4:28 PM):
It’s from a meme
–
Kamenesk (7:39 PM):
that’s Vojvodina
an autonomous province
ethnically diverse, but mostly Serbian
the President likes to claim every once in a while that there are people who want to separate Vojvodina from Serbia, and how “that will never happen”
separatists there are fringe however
–
The Slow Turtle (8:42 AM the next day):
How can a country, an organization of people, hate anything?
Countries don’t think, do they?
FitzCromulent (8:43 AM):
What is a country if not her people?
softploy (8:55 AM):
(“Now he’s a philosopher” meme gif)
in the words of my politics professor: “Not to get too philosophical on you guys…”
The Slow Turtle (9:13 AM):
“What is a country if not her people?”
Good question.
What is a country?
Is it just some container full of people? Does it adopt the qualities of all the people it contains, the majority of those people, or just a few?
For me a country is a construct we make that involves boundaries and a population of people. Now surely the people can think, and that thinking goes on to influence the qualities of the country — but is it an equivalence? Does the population thinking translate one-to-one to the country thinking? Can countries even do anything? If so what can they do?
FitzCromulent (9:14 AM):
The answer to all these questions I think depends entirely on what kind of political structure a particular country has.
The closer to perfect democracy, the more accurately it will reflect the attitudes of the majority.
softploy (10:09 AM):
you both make good points imo. i don’t think it’s fair or of principle to consider a country, that label specifically, as leaning one way or another on non-physical things, issues as opposed to geography or count. it’s a political entity, as turtle may suggest.
but on the other hand, fitz is right in saying that it sure as heck does feel more fair to label a country a certain way if the government is democratically rooted.
to put this into practice: it would not be fair to call the iranian people or nation fanatical because of the actions of its demonstrably unrepresentative ruling regime, but it’s relatively fair honestly to call the american nation more questionable — assuming the questioner is anti-trump — when half of them voted for trump.
would make a great forum post actually. if i have your guys’ permission, i’d like to post this conversation on our forum (i’d just copy/paste it). by default i’d mention your discord username, but if you want me to omit that i’d oblige of course.
Let’s Reflect
So, this whole ordeal started with a joke. It was a mere meme map, drenched in queer color coding; a coding of a region long saturated with memories of war, and staunchly nationalist tendencies. But it was through humor and kindheartedness which we were able to bring up some underlying tension:
- Is it even fair to say “Serbia is homophobic,” or “Iran is fanatical,” if the people are not the government?
- Does the structure of a country’s political system, especially whether or not it is democratic, change how morally responsible we hold it?
- Are meme maps trivializing reality, or exposing something in how we process collective identity?
These are, I feel, interesting questions to ponder, and I think they’re worth sitting on a bit longer. I’d love to hear others’ takes on this stuff. In particular: What is a country, in your view? Is it a people, or a projection or entity?
You need not take this post too seriously, but please rest assured that should you do so anyway, we’ll be reading every word, happy to respond.