above is something i said over some drinks to a scottish friend. whilst i am a contrary bastard, and well, like being contrary, this was more than just pushing a mate`s buttons (even though that is fun in and of itself). where is the seat at the UN, or the olympics? where is the scottish passport? or army? if you don`t have all of those cool things, then i figured you are not a country.
but then i checked out the dictionary to see what the hell a country is. and the definitions i found did not agree with my position.
seems like i was talking about something called “an independant state”. a country is a different kettle of fish apparently. a country can be an independant state, or it can be part of an independant state.
what i would like to know is who are the other non-independant state countries? do they exist, or is it just a british thing?
i know of stacks of independant states made up of very diverse pieces – belgium has a flemish speaking south and a walloon speaking north (or something like that), spain and catalonia, indonesia, phillipines, india – places with huge cultural, racial and lingual diversity … but i don`t know who else wants to be called a country despite not having a un ticket.
ps. through having a foreigner as its head of state, australia does not qualify as an independent state. i don`t mind. how many countries have queens? i reckon thats pretty cool.
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