Long live separatism.
Bavaria should leave Germany. Moravia should leave Czechia. Scotland should leave the United Kingdom. Catalonia should leave Spain. The Basque Country should leave Spain. Corsica should leave France. Flanders should leave Belgium. Wallonia should leave Belgium. South Tyrol should leave Italy. Veneto should leave Italy. Sardinia should leave Italy. Sicily should leave Italy. Quebec should leave Canada. Texas should leave the United States. California should leave the United States. Alaska should leave the United States. Kurdistan should become independent. Balochistan should become independent. Western Sahara should become independent. Bougainville should become independent. Somaliland should become independent. Tibet should become independent. Xinjiang should become independent.
Why stop there?
Prague should separate from the rest of Czechia. Brno should separate from Moravia. Every town should become an independent republic, every village should raise its own flag. Every family should establish its own sovereign state. Moravia should declare war on Czechia.
Ridiculous?
Exactly.
Two hundred countries? We need more of them
The world already has almost two hundred countries. Apparently, that still does not satisfy us. Every few years another region demands independence. Politicians promise that a new border will solve old problems. Nationalists promise prosperity. Activists promise freedom. Reality usually proves much less romantic. New borders rarely eliminate conflicts. They often create new ones.
Every new country needs another parliament, another bureaucracy, another tax system, another customs service, another police force, another army, another diplomatic corps, and another set of politicians eager to explain why their neighbors suddenly became foreigners. We keep multiplying governments while pretending we reduce problems.
History should have taught us a different lesson. Europe spent centuries fighting over borders, languages, dynasties, and national identities. Millions of people paid with their lives because one ruler wanted another piece of land or because one nation believed it deserved another border. We should remember those lessons instead of repeating them.
Many people fear international cooperation because they imagine a sinister world government controlling every aspect of life. They picture a handful of bureaucrats ruling billions of people from one distant capital. I do not want that either. Unlimited political power always becomes dangerous. Democracy needs checks and balances. It needs competition. It needs accountability.
Rejecting a world government, however, does not mean rejecting international cooperation.
The opposite makes much more sense.
Climate change ignores borders
Climate change ignores borders. Pandemics ignore borders. Organized crime ignores borders. Terrorism ignores borders. Financial crises ignore borders. Pollution ignores borders. Cybercrime ignores borders. Human suffering ignores borders. Problems that affect the whole world require countries to work together instead of constantly pulling apart.
The same principle applies to human rights. A child born in Prague should enjoy the same basic rights as a child born in Nairobi, New Delhi, Buenos Aires, or Tokyo. Freedom of speech should not disappear at a border crossing. The right to a fair trial should not depend on a passport. Governments should enforce human rights in every corner of the world because human dignity does not change with geography.
The world also needs more solidarity. Some countries enjoy enormous wealth while others struggle with poverty, hunger, weak healthcare, and poor education. Wealthier societies should help poorer ones build functioning economies, schools, hospitals, and infrastructure. That does not mean writing endless blank checks. It means creating opportunities instead of permanent dependence. Prosperity spreads. Despair spreads as well. Every rich country eventually discovers that instability somewhere else becomes instability at home.
We should also stop pretending that unlimited economic power poses no threat to democracy. A handful of billionaires should never possess enough wealth to shape elections, dominate public debate, influence legislation, or pressure governments. Citizens should govern democracies. Money should not. We should limit the political influence of the super-rich because democracy cannot survive if financial power overwhelms political equality.
Why not independent capitals?
None of it requires replacing Prague, Berlin, Paris, or Madrid with a single global capital.
The real choice does not lie between nationalism and a world government. It lies between endless fragmentation and sensible cooperation. One path creates more borders, more bureaucracy, and more opportunities for conflict. The other encourages countries to solve problems together while preserving their independence.
Separatism sounds attractive until everyone wants to separate from everyone else. Then the absurdity becomes impossible to ignore. We would eventually divide continents into countries, countries into regions, regions into cities, cities into neighborhoods, and neighborhoods into family republics. Perhaps Moravia really would declare war on Czechia. Someone would probably demand independence for the winning side the following week.
The future should not belong to smaller and smaller states arguing over smaller and smaller pieces of land. It should belong to stronger cooperation, enforceable human rights, fairer economic rules, democratic governments, and societies that remember one simple truth.
We accomplish far more together than apart.
