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There was once a time when Greeks, for example, prided themselves over their national identity which was obviously based on the piece of land that Greeks occupied. However with the passage of time, this piece of land is losing its significance. Land is still important for other reasons but it is no longer the factor that sets one group of people apart from another. This is an interesting development and one that explains why geography is gradually becoming history.
Everywhere nation-states are dying and this death has contributed to rapid decline in the significance of geographical demarcations. We can blame the information age as well as globalization for this change. But according to civilization theories postulated by Huntington, this change is grounded in religious and cultural differences/similarities. West is now better known for its identity as westerns rather than as North Americans or Europeans. This is due to the fact that they share similar cultures, traditions, values and religion. Similarly Arabs are not interested in being called Jordanians, or Libyans or Syrians...
For them being an Arab is what defines their identity. This is again due to the similarity of their cultures.
It shows that geographical divisions are not as important today as they once were. In the twentieth century, French defined their identity on geographical grounds. It was more important for see themselves as natives of France, a country that was geographically alienated from say every other country in Europe. Similarly Saudi Arabia may be a separate country but it is united with the entire Arab world to the point that geographical identity takes a backseat. This development is closely connected with what we discussed earlier i.e. The clash of civilizations. With rapid decline in the importance of ideologies and economic systems, culture and religion have taken precedence. With these agents working as the defining factors, geographical differences have diminished significantly.
References
Samuel Huntington: Clash of Civilizations. Retrieved online 6th June 2006 at http://www.alamut.com/subj/economics/misc/clash.html
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