…had big feet and Italian women had big breasts and Italian men were careless and German men paid attention to their hygiene and had no sense of humour. And Irish men drank way too much and Scottish men were great hikers and French men were arrogant and the Greek complicated and the Czech cowards and the Polish drunk way too much and the Italians were noisy and Bulgarians retarded and the Spanish dark and Hungarians pretentious. And the Spanish danced the flamenco and Gypsies would glare at you and the Russians were arrogant and the Swedish pragmatic and the Jewish crafty and the French careless and the English pretentious and the Portuguese retarded. And the French knew HOW TO LIVE and the English were FAIR PLAY.
 And some philosophers said that national identity was built from within the mind, that all citizens were citizens of the world and knowing a human being’s ethnic origin didn’t really matter, that the most important thing was knowing what you were aiming for and what your philosophical, religious or political intentions were.
But others continued to think and claim that a national identity was the most beautiful thing a person could be given, a sense of belonging to a community and its history, and that it was the only foundation possible of a human identity;
A Jewish woman with Russian and German origins, reported herself as being French to the police, as she was accidentally born in New York but lived in Paris.
And a Congolese citizen tried to cross the Mediterranean to get to Europe seventeen times, because regardless of his country and origins, he knew he was going to die if he didn’t leave;