"The earth is but one country, and mankind its citizens." (Baháʼí Faith, Gleanings CXVII)
True, false, good, bad, useful, not so useful, etc.? Discuss.
My thoughts:
Those familiar with my positions on borders and immigration might expect me to wholeheartedly embrace this one. I don't.
While the word "citizen" originally just meant "city-dweller," it has evolved over time to imply that a citizen is someone who -- due to accident of birth in most cases -- owes allegiance to, and has obligations to, a monopoly Westphalian Model nation-state.
A citizen, in other words, is livestock. Most conceptions of "citizenship" pretend that the state has a reciprocal duty to treat its cattle well in some respects, but ultimately a "citizen" exists to be milked, sheared, and slaughtered at will by its owners.
Some might argue that I'm reading too much into that single word for an otherwise inoffensive aphorism, but the origin of the aphorism matters: The Bahá’í faith explicitly and in detail supports a "world government" -- what Shoghi Effendi explicitly defined as "the world's future super-state."
My political position is not that all people should be brought under the rule of one state; it is that no person should be kept under the rule of any state. So I have to reject this aphorism, even if, in partial agreement with other Bahá’í teachings, I'd like to buy the world a Coke, teach it to sing in perfect harmony, etc.
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