One of the most frequent arguments that advocates of partition advance & that naturally put them in league w local chauvinists is that a particular polity is somehow “fake” or “invented” or the result of some non-indigenous processes. 1/
You hear this about states like Iraq & Syria these days, how their borders are the result of imperial cartography but it’s long been a trope in the Balkans about BiH, Kosovo, & Macedonia in particular. (@DenisonBe & I wrote a bit about it re: MENA.) 2/ washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-ca…
What partition advocates mean to suggest here is that the only “real” state is the ethnically-pure “nation-state” which none of the three Balkan states above are; they've all remained a complex patchwork of peoples throughout their history. It is intrinsic to them as polities. 3/
Aside from the fact that no such "purity" has ever existed even in ostensibly “classic” nation-states (i.e. France) & that all states are the product of internal & external socio-political dynamics... 4/
...these arguments invoke as the primary basis of statehood not the administrative apparatus but the 18th & 19th century ideological construct of the “nation”. A romantic & almost entirely fictitious fable about homogeneity that, again, never really existed, anywhere. 5/
Bc to argue that BiH, for instance, this is not a “real” country bc it’s not a classic nation-state (i.e. the “homeland” of one, exclusionary “state-founding” ethnos) is to ignore that this is, arguably, the most historically coherent polity in the region. 7/
Consider the following maps from the 14th-20th centuries. Notice BiH is a far more coherent administrative unit, even as it transitions from sovereign kingdom to imperial province, than almost any of its neighbors. That matters. 8/ 
Throughout this period, BiH is always a culturally & religious diverse polity, home to Slavs, Roma, Turks, Italians, Germans, Catholics, Muslims, Orthodox Christians, Jews, & all manner of pagan practices interwoven with each of these. "Majorities", as such, do no exist here. 9/
And for much of this period, *there is* a distinct Bosnian identity precisely bc this territory has for so long part of one coherent whole. But it's never an exclusionary, "ethnic" identity of the sort that emerges in 18th/19th centuries. That's true of most of the Balkans. 10/
Ironically, what advocates of partition insist on then as the alpha & omega of statehood today, ethnic homogeneity, never really existed & is in any case rapidly disappearing in the 21st century. And that's a good thing: homogeneity is an evolutionary & cultural dead end. 11/
So, we cannot let the notion of “history” become a byword for despair or the weapon of the chauvinists. History matters precisely bc it reveals the complexity & durability of collective life, in the Balkans, but most everywhere else too. 12/
That elites manage to make particular aspects of individual or collective identity salient, usually in moments of regime crisis, is not an argument for partition, it’s an argument for collective agency, participation & dialogue. Cheers. 13/13
