In defense of nationalism:

By:M.S

1-     Without share memories and meaning, without common symbols and myths, without shrine and ceremonies and monuments, except the bitter reminders of recent holocausts and wars, who will feel European in the depths of their being, and who will willingly sacrifice themselves for so abstract an idea? In short who will die for country.

2-     Basic ideals of nationalist movement, they are: the world is divided into nation, each with its own character and destiny.

The nation is the source of all political power, and loyalty to the nation overrides all other loyalties.

To be free, human being must identify with particular nation. To be authentic each nation must be autonomous. For peace and justice to prevail the world, nations must be free and secure.

The basic ideals that flow from these propositions are three: national identity, national unity and national autonomy.

Ceremonies, symbols and myths are crucial to nationalism: through them nations are formed and celebrated.  Any culture element can function as diacritical mark of dodge of the nation-though it may make a considerable difference which it chosen in certain circumstance.

One should not therefore castigate nationalisms for inconsistency on this score, since there is hating in the core doctrine or ideals which lay down which culture element must secure as criteria of nation-self.

Nationalism does not have a theory of how the national will or the national boundaries may ascertain: it requires other ideologies for that purpose, and so nationalism has been combined with all kind of other movements and ideologies from liberalism to communism and racism.

Nationalism’s core doctrine provides no more than a basic framework for social and political order in the world, and it must be filled out by other idea-system and by the particular circumstance of each community’s situation at the time.

Nationalism combines a high degree of fixable abstraction with a unique ability to tap fundamental popular need and aspirations, but it does not pretend to offer a comprehensive and consistence account of history and society.

The ethical arguments against nationalism are first, that it is necessarily extremes in nature: that is concern for culture homogeneity lead to exclusiveness and social closure against minorities; and that it denies the independence diversity and human right of individuals.

Charge against nationalism: that it is destabilizing and divisive. One can point to particular case of destabilization and division of nationalist deliberately stirring up resentments among populations in ethnically mix areas.

It is not nationalism per se that is responsible for the breakdown of state; nationalism tends to emerge on the ruins of states that are, for other reason as well as ethnic ones, no longer viable. Where states are for one reason or another no longer viable, nationalism may offer an alternative to the often unstable status quos one that is more viable because it is better attuned to popular aspirations in particular regions.

Nationalism cannot be hold responsible for the rivalry of states, which long pre-dated the emergence of the doctrine. What nationalism has done is to ground the competition of sovereigns states on a mass culture base, there by providing some social concession in periods of rapid social change: it did not invent that rivalry.

Nation and nationalisms remain political necessities because, (and as long as) they alone can ground the interstate order in the principle of popular sovereignty and the will of the people, however define. Only nationalism can secure the assent of the governed to the territorial units to identification with historic culture communities in their homelands. As long as any global order is based on a balance of competing states, so long will the principle of nationality provide the only widely acceptable legitimating and focus of popular mobilization. The sense of nation identity is often powerful enough to engender a spirit of self-sacrifice on behalf of the nation in many, if not most, of it citizens. This is especially true of cries and wartime. Here one can witness the degree, to which most citizens are prepared to endure hardships and make personal sacrifices in defense of the nation to the point of lying down their lives willingly, often in vast numbers, as occurred in several of the combatant countries during both world wars. Such self-sacrifice on this scale is unimaginable for any other kind of collective cultural identity and community on our epoch, except perhaps for a few religions communities, and it is the singular power of the nation in eliciting mass sacrifices that has made it so often the object of unscrupulous demagogues. By the same token, the nation has become main vehicle of warfare and nation identity the chief justification for participation in lethal combat.

M.S

Baloch_m_s@yahoo.se