Homeland
A
homeland is the concept of the territory to which one belongs; usually, the country in which a particular nationality was born. When used as a
proper noun, the word (and its
cognates in other languages; e.g.,
Heimatland in German) has
ethnic nationalist connotations. As a common noun, it simply connotes the country of one's origin.
There are synonyms with varying connotations:
fatherland,
motherland,
mother country,
country of origin, and
native land.
In
apartheid South Africa the concept was given a different meaning. The white government transformed the 13% of its territory that had been exempted from white settlement into regions of home-rule. Then they tried to bestow independence on these regions, so that they could then claim that the other 87% was white territory. See
Bantustan.
The
Soviet Union created homelands for some minorities in the
1920s, including the
Volga German ASSR and the
Jewish Autonomous Oblast. Often, as in the case of the Volga German ASSR, these homelands were later brutally abolished and their inhabitants deported to either
Siberia or the
Kazakh SSR.
The term is rarely used by
United States citizens to describe their country, which made the name chosen for the
Department of Homeland Securityâ€"created following the
September 11, 2001 terrorist attacksâ€"sound odd to many. In a June 2002 column,
Republican consultant and speechwriter
Peggy Noonan expressed the hope that the
Bush administration would change the name of the department, writing that "The name Homeland Security grates on a lot of people, understandably.
Homeland isn't really an American word, it's not something we used to say or say now." [
1]
*
Homeland Security*
Separatism*
List of ethnic groups*
Ethnic autonomous regions
