Had I discovered the Algerian nation, I would be a nationalist and I would not blush as if I had committed a crime.… However, I will not die for the Algerian nation, because it does not exist. I have not found it. I have examined History, I questioned the living and the dead, I visited cemeteries; nobody spoke to me about it. I then turned to the Koran and I sought for one solitary verse forbidding a Muslim from integrating himself with a non-Muslim nation. I did not find that either. One cannot build on the wind.

DEFINE: Illustrates the constructivist view of nationalism — nations as invented, not eternal entities. XREF: Connects to Benedict Anderson's 'imagined communities' and the broader literature on nationalism as a modern construct.

Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Alge…, loc. 112