Literally, the Spanish word "patria" translates as "fatherland" although a more faithful translation would be the English "country"; not as a nation-state, but as in the land of your birth to which you owe ultimate loyalty. Robert E Lee thought in terms of fighting for his country, Virginia, and not the United States of America. In fact, this distinction played a great role in the American Civil War, where the very concept of "country" was challenged, and eventually changed. In the old Confederacy, you can still hear the term "War Between the States" used in preference to "Civil War". It is difficult for us today, with our poor grasp of history, to understand this.

The nation-state is a relatively recent historical development, tracing back, as some scholars claim, no further back than the Treaty of Westphalia (1648).

"The Peace of Westphalia resulted from the first modern diplomatic congress and initiated a new order in central Europe based on the concept of state sovereignty."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_of_Westphalia

In the not-too-recent past, your country was the place you knew, where the local dialect was familiar to you and where the dress and music, cuisine and customs were part of your heritage, and not too familiar to those who lived more than a few days walk (or ride) from you. You weren't from France, you were from Aquitaine or Provence. Paris was where the King lived, France was just an abstraction. Your immediate familiar countryside was your "patrie" (the French word for "patria".

I'm reading Don Quijote de La Mancha (La Mancha being Don Quijote's patria, and a legitimate part of his name, as opposed to Don Quijote de España). It was published in 1605, about the same time Shakespeare was working in his country, England (NOT Great Britain or the United Kingdom). The action of Don Quijote occurs in La Mancha, and in parts of adjoining Aragón and Cataluña.

My edition of Don Q is prefaced by several modern critical essays, here is an excerpt from one, "A Novel for the XXIst Century", by Mario Vargas Llosa, which addresses this issue, and I believe may have some relevance to your comments concerning the New World Order. I apologize in advance for any errors in my translation.

"With the passage of time, this idea of "patria" would fade and more closely approach the idea of "nation" (which wasn't born until the XIXth Century) until it became indistinguishable from it; it must be made clear that the "patrias" of Quijote have nothing to do with that abstract , general, schematic and essentially political concept of the "nation" which is at the core of all nationalism, a collectivist ideology which presumes to define individuals by their membership in some human conglomerate to which certain characteristics--race, language, religion--have been imposed with a personality specific and different from others. This concept is a world apart from the exalted individualism celebrated by Quijote and which permeates Cervantes' novel, a world in which "patriotism" is a generous and positive sentiment, of love of the land and your own, of memory and the familiar past, and not a means of differentiating, excluding and raising borders against the "other". The Spain of Quijote has no frontiers, and is a world of openness and plurality, of countless patrias, which opens itself to the world, blending with it while opening its doors to those who come from outside, as long as they come in peace and in the Christian faith (in accordance to the Counter-Reformation of the times)."

Llosa, of course, is not rejecting out of hand the concept of national borders and some form of centralized government to defend the nation, administer it, dispense justice, collect taxes, and so on. After all, that existed in Europe long before the 17th century. What he does allude to is the arbitrary and rather recent nature of modern nationalism, and how it is neither a natural condition of man, a true representation of a natural human love of homeland, nor a social institution that deserves to be preserved indefinitely.