What is a nation? From Corsica to Kashmir, from Quebec to Bosnia, violent separatist movements are fighting to form their own nation states. This edition of Arena explores the fabric of national identity, and follows four of the world's leading commentators on the subject - Eric Hobsbawm, Eqbal Ahmad, Desmond Tutu and Maxine Hong Kingston - as each embarks on a personal investigation into the different stories their nations told them.
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Directors Fred Baker , Tim May , Kate Meynell and H O Nazareth; Producer Anthony Wall

Arena 7.55pm BBC2
Three-and-a-half hours of television, four world-famous writers and thinkers, locations as far flung as Vienna and Johannesburg: those are the ingredients that make up this Arena special, Stories My Country Told Me.
The issue of national identity has never been so pressing as small chunks of the globe are fiercely defended as the homeland for certain groups of people. But why, when world culture is increasingly amorphous, should this be? Archbishop Desmond Tutu gives the keynote to the enquiry in a report from South Africa, where the disenfranchised black population brought urgency to the struggle for citizenship. Historian Eric Hobsbawm reports from Austria, writer Maxine Hong Kingston travels to Vietnam and Professor Eqbal Ahmad returns to India and Pakistan.

Polly Toynbee offers her views on the state of the nation on page 11.