SPARK
of the MHOC
Communities: National, Social, or International? By /u/Zoto888 The concept of a community is generally viewed in a positive light. So people may speak approvingly of community involvement in some project, or community support for some idea. You may live in a thriving community, or one that is undergoing community regeneration. But what is a community? Is it a collection of individuals residing in a specific area? Do they share a common culture, history, or religion? Or are they joined by something else, something that transcends national boundaries of identity, and are they instead all members of something far more material? Now, we can speak of the “Jewish Community”, the “Gay Community”, and of the “Business Community”, but these groups hold no common aspects other than that specified. Nothing unites a homosexual Jewish pauper in the United States with a homosexual Jewish business leader in Israel but two aspects of their individuality. Neither one can make statements on behalf of such a community, for they all are separate. The former set of communities (that is, those established on the basis of nationality) shares nothing in common with the latter set (social communities, such as the LGBT community). The first is the representation of those within a given locality, the second within a given social grouping. Does any community deserve to be thought of as a more or less legitimate and autonomous entity? Certainly not. Yet we insist upon separating the national communities into distinct bodies, with common governance, while the others are left intermingled within various other populations. “This is a good thing!”, I hear you claim. “People should not be labelled, bundled together, and shipped out like a common product. Diversity is what makes Britain British!” I agree! We should not segregate people based on their social affiliation, be it sexuality, wealth, or anything else. Then why should we do so on the basis of nationality? This concept has no real basis. Communities are created by the sum of individual relations: indeed, all of society is nothing but that. However, there is one community that claims to transcend all of these limitations and borders: the supposed International Community. This is not a community of international peoples, however, but of international nations. Specifically, it is the sum of the relations of Western hegemonic heads of state, not the individuals which make up said states. This is no more a community than the scientific community, with nothing in common but a thirst for power and domination! Whenever you read or hear about the international community, you should ask yourself who it really includes: does it perhaps mean a tiny but extremely powerful and influential group of people who do indeed see themselves as distinct in some respect from the larger society? Of course, it is nice for them if they can pass themselves off as representing the consensus of the world’s population. But only