Humanities Assignment Help online: Nationalism can never be a positive force
Question the paper asks is??
Q?? Nationalism can never be a positive force because it always creates an outsider. Critically evaluate
Solution the paper proposes is:
The concept of nationalism is very complex issue and there have been very contemporary forms of nationalism which have either intensified or emerged in Europe and the former Soviet Union in the 1990’s. Therefore it has been very difficult to come up with a uniform definition of nationalism in historical context however nationalism is considered to be an ideological movement which aims at attaining and maintaining the identity, autonomy ( by using self-determination of the nation),and unity ( through the means of social cohesion of the nations or the people who are united under a “ national” banner (Smith, 1991).
That is why the concept of nationalism is not easy enough to define in specific terminology The best features of nationalism is that it can tackle different forms as desired across the time and space. This is the reason why there as many kinds of nationalism as many countries and different cultures exist in this world (Smith, 2010). Since there is so much baffling variety of nationalism existing in the world the theorists have split them in two fundamental categories which are: good and bad. Since the proposition of binary oppositions which can be traced back to 1930’s when Hans Kohn published his seminal work ( 1939), literature on nationalism has been coming from that time onwards and is full of varied distinctions regarding nationalism like ethnic and civic, illiberal and liberal, Eastern and Western, reactionary and progressive, benign or malign , particularistic and universalist, cultural and constitutional , and aggressive and defensive. Since all these dichotomies do not show any match in most of the cases that is why the literature on nationalism is considered to be a ‘terminological jungle’ (Akzin, 1964) .
There is very critical problem attached with this kind of dualism that is such kind of dichotomous models prove to be misleading The reason being, between the positive and negative poles of every dichotomy there exists a huge and wide range of intermediate positions which get away from any kind of simplistic either/ or approach. Whenever suck kind of dichotomous models are being treated as the most realistic and right portrayals of the real world , then it becomes very ,much inevitable to overlook the complexity of historical and political reality (Laborde, 2002). Partly because of this dualistic manner of thinking the nationalism which is approved and favourable is being labelled with a positive adjective while the type of nationalism one does not like a harsh and critical stance is being maintained for such nationalism. However we cannot assume that there is good or bad forms of nationalism and might be problematic to make any such assumption.
Diverse forms of nationalism might resemble each other in some aspect but might diverge in other aspects that are why all formed of nationalism are being treated as “ unstable amalgams” (Spencer and Wollman, 2002). These unstable amalgams create a combination of rambling elements and keep on undergoing constant changes. None of the nationalism is therefore good or bad rather all forms of nationalism are morbid and healthy and in certain circumstance the good nationalism might turn into bad one or vice versa might happen (Nairn, 1977) . Therefore nationalism should be conceptualised through a two-step strategy which in its first step identifies that main nuts and bolts which are the base for all kinds of nationalism and then the nature of each constitutive part is being analysed and from it the derived definition of nationalism is a mass sentiment which is bestowed upon the population members of the national population through a sense of distinct and common identity and it also evokes a strong and collective allegiance amongst them towards the community.. This definition clearly indicates that the nationalism has four main building blocks. The first building block is the ‘national population’ which is constituted by historical and stable community of people. The second building block is national identity which is a very strong sentiment which unites the people and at the same time it also differentiates it from all the others.
National sentiment is found to be double faced the psychological attachment of population towards the nations is what formed the second building block of nationalism , which is connected with the sense of belonging an this kind of emotion is connected with the sense of longing for self-esteem, affection for the homeland, zeal for the defence of homeland and sympathy towards the in-groups.. On the other hand the very notion of identity also presumes that there is existence of out-groups too or the outsiders or the others. This takes a stance that national identity is not just about ‘inclusion’ it is also talking about ‘exclusion’ which creates an outside (Spencer and Wollman, 2002).
The third and vital block of nationalisms is the people’s attitude which they carry towards the out-groups or the outsiders,. No matter how much benign the form of nationalism is it should delineate from where the boundaries of the nation begin and ends, in order to distinguish who are the “insiders” and who are “outsiders”. This also confronts the question that what should be done about the people who do not form the part of the nation. The final block which provides the base to the nationalism is the peoples ;loyalty towards the national community. The erosion of the primo-prodigal loyalties results in nation loyalty. This involves the commitments of the people towards family, kinship, religion , ethnic groups and regions at the same time. This shows its particularistic nature of nationalism and is quite divergent from the universalistic nature of nationalism. Thus all the forms belonging to the today’s modern nationalism rest on these four pillars , but all these four pillars can be casted from different raw materials. Therefore nationalism has similar structure everywhere but its manifestations from time to time from one place to other keep on varying (Shaoguang, 2003).
The issues of ‘Other’ or ‘Outsider’ is found in all forms of nationalism, because without the presence of this other the national identity is impossible to construct. Therefore while studying nationalism one has to scrutinize very closely what is the perception of the people of the nation and how do they interact with their counterparts who are from other nations. However one stance is very clear out here which is that “Emotional attachment to any nation doe not entails the derogation of the other nations (Druckmam, 1994) (Mummendey and Klink, 2001). Rather the nations have been found to be assuming either of the following stances towards the ‘ Outsiders’ or the others:
Superiority, Arrogance and Aggressive Nationalism : It has been found that the nations which are strong and secured always tend to have an outward outlook rather than inward . However it has been noticed that any contact with the other nations leads to the arousal of sense of superiority in them (Shaoguang, 2003) . This superiority under certain circumstances might get transformed into arrogance , an externally directed impulse. This kind of impulse has very frequent manifestations of jealous missionary complexity and you will find such nations showing eagerness for exporting and if need be they might impose the nations own values and institutions on these others or outsiders (Cardus, 2000). Due to this behaviour of these nations , they straight away deny the rights of others to pursue their lives according to themselves . Thus by being very imposing they will definitely result in creating significant others or outsiders. These strong nations like United States of America are the first ones to criticise the “ nationalistic tendencies” of the weak or they start turning them into ‘outsiders’ by deploring their nationalistic inclination. The profound sense of superiority of these nations turns them blind towards their own aggressive, manipulative, chauvinistic and assertive nationalism or what can be referred to as “imperialism’ (Thompson, 1998) (Spencer and Wollman, 2002).
Distrust, Xenophobia and Reactive Nationalism While on the other hand insecure and frail nations carry tea feeling of distrust for everything which is foreign in their nation. For then foreign powers are supposed to be threatening and evil-minded . They always carry a suspicious and feeling of distrust for foreign intentions and tea innate anxiety of foreign infringement amongst such nations often leads to the total rejection of the outside world and they always carve for self-sufficiency (Shaoguang, 2003). This kind of nationalism amongst the insecure and vulnerable nations again creates a significant form of an outsider which they not want to consider them are their part. Moreover these nations ar4e very vulnerable which turns them into carry a thin-skinned attitude towards the insults and foreign pressure inflicted upon them by the foreign nations. However many a times the cornered-animal characteristics of such nation’s reactive nationalism is often confused with the hostile or belligerent feature ( Thompson 1998) (Spencer and Wollman, 2002).
Pride, Confidence and Affirmative Nationalism Many nations neither fall in the category of strong nor weak nations category , while they are found to be very proud of their traditional cultures and the contemporary achievements at the same time and these nations show very little capability or the desire of being invasive while dealing with the others or the outsiders or the other nations (Shaoguang, 2003). For them independence is very fundamental and an imperative feature , but they are very confident that they will definitely get required benefits by interaction with the outside world. Since their attitude is found to be moderate towards the outsiders or the others they do not turn aggressive towards these significant others and the patriotic or nationalism feelings does not give rise to more outsiders as in case of Aggressive nationalism. Their ambitions are moderate and they carry mild temperament and that is why their nationalism is supposed to be affirmative one (Oksenberg, 1987) (Whiting, 1995) .
Nationalism depicts both positive as well as negative impacts on the society on the one hand Nationalism is that uniting force which brings together people of different classes and ideologies. It helps in creating and spreading harmony and is an important mode for linking our pasts with our present and it also helps people in getting sense of identity. But many times it acts as a sharp edged tool which is being used by dictators , power hungry politicians and despots in the same manner to create very strong , powerful and mighty forces by dividing the people from varied geographies , thus simply sowing the seeds for the creation of ‘outsider’ (Wheelwright, 2005). They use nationalism to give rise to discriminatory thinking , exaggerate the differences amongst the people of a nation and foster generalizations. Both the aspects of nationalism that is positive as well as negative can be best viewed in the context of World War II. During World War II nationalism was being used by Churchill, King and Roosevelt to amalgamate their nations against the acts of brutality of the powerful enemies and at the same time preserve their democratic civilization too. While on the other hand Hitler, Tojo and Mussolini exploited the nationalism as a tool to fuel an expanse insatiability of the likes which the world has never ever seen.
In today’s context of North America such kind of polarised comparisons seem to be very silly because in North America there exist both positive as well as negative impact of nationalism which can still be analysed (Wheelwright, 2005), but these nationalist issued do not rise so much that they start affecting the real life or death. These issues are merely described as matter of tastes. Although nationalism is supposed o be a very strong force in both the nations that is Canada and U.S. , but the expression of nationalism is very different on both the nations which are divided by arbitrary boundary lines.
It has been found that in some of the most recognizable ways the English Canadians are very much like the Americans; from the way they eat food , the kind of food they eat, the language and the way they speak, the ideas which have been upholded by them and the sports which are being played by them (Greenfled, 1992). Except for the language there is not much which carets a separation between the French Canadians and English Canadians or US Americans. However there exist many differences between the US Americans and Canadians , but there exist very few national differences which can be pinpointed , which has been cited by the Canadian journalist and author David Frum too (Wheelwright, 2005):
“ What we have is one large, English speaking North American culture with a number of components, of which Ontario is one, Western Canada is another. It’s true that you get in a car at Anchorage and drive diagonally south east until you hit Miami and speak the same language, use the same credit card, pump the gas same way. I think you’d be struck much more by the similarities than the differences. And the places where you would notice dissimilarities would not match the border.”
While the definition of Canadian nationalism can be explained in much more reactive terms and is found to be largely based on identity which is non-Americanism, but the reverse is not applicable to the American nationalism. That is why once the famous Canadian poet Margaret Atwood described Canadian nationalism as the “ Canadians looking through one-way mirror into the United States and the US Americans are very much blind about the ongoing behind that mirror (Wheelwright, 2005). It has been found that the US Americans are very less likely found to be contrasting and comparing their country or themselves with Canada or Canadians. Even if they do it is very less likely that they would look at Canada with righteous indignation or the feeling of contempt. It is majorly a friendly feeling which the US Americans carry towards the Canadians rather they see Canadians as their brothers and sisters or cousins, which was mainly the feeling before the American Revolution. On the other hand the Canadians are very timid and doubtful about the fact that Canada has been forged by the Americans and they hate to be considered as the part of American family. The reason might be that the Canadians are very well aware of the fact that when they enter the United States , they can pretend to be US Americans , but they will be treated as outsiders because they will not have all the rights which are being enjoyed by the US citizens in the United States (Wheelwright, 2005). This includes the right to live, travel and work in the United sates without restriction which will not be given to the Canadians , thus they will be treated as complete outsiders and it is all because of the nationalism factor.
This second-class citizenship which is being granted to the Canadians is very undesirable. And moreover the Canadians cannot match with the United States in relative terms like size of population and this the reason why many Canadians believe that they are more kind, peaceful and civilised than the US Americans (Calkins, Pomeroy and Schneider, 2006). The people growing up and who understand that they are US Americans are found less likely to compare and contrast with Canadians and they do not denigrate the nation Canada also . That is why some researchers believe that the US nationalism involves an introverted outlook towards the world and that is because the importance and the vastness of the whole United Nations. However there has been great deal of change in the identity of the two nations but the Canadian Identity still remains the identity which thrives on negation. The reason being nationalism being the most powerful force which thrives in both the countries. So the Canadians need to retain all the positive aspects of Canadian identities and move ahead of the negative identities which have been created due to nationalism. Even the Americans need to realise the importance of united continent and should recognize the Canadians as their fellow without treating them as outsiders (Wheelwright, 2005).
This indicates that Nationalism although is a positive force but has another very severe and horrifying face too which brings in despair and destruction to the world. That is the reason why even Pope John Paul II also spoke about two kinds of nationalism while addressing the UN General Assembly. One aspect was Positive Nationalism which in pontiff’s words is “ proper love for ones country…..[and] the respect which is due to every [other] culture and every nation.” The other aspect is negative nationalism which is an unhealthy form of nationalism which teaches the people to develop contempt for other cultures or other nations and it also seeks to move ahead at the expense of the other nation, this is how the negative nationalism tries to bring in wellbeing for ones’ own nation. Thus nationalism has a dark side too and even the former President Bill Clinton cautioned that militant nationalism is rising at very fast pace. To support this fact it has been noticed that the number of ongoing ethnonational conflicts regarding self-determination have risen from 4 to 41 in the year span of 1956 to 1990. However the number of ethnonational conflicts decline in 2004 and reached to 22 and may be they will decline in future too (Fearon and Laitin, 2003).
It has been realised that the troubling face of nationalism arises when we get to study that how the nations relate to the other nations. Although the definition of nationalism is defined as the feeling of kinship which is nurtured for the people “like” us but differentiating oneself from others does create negative effects related to nationalism Since we start identifying ourselves with the we-group, we start considering the they-group or an outsider group being apart from us. This lack of identification is the main reason which leads to major factors of negative nationalism which are: reluctance to help others exceptionalism and xenophobia, exclusionism, external aggression and internal oppression.
The nationalist sense of difference which comes along with separateness puts a limit to our sense of responsibility and even the human caring attitude also becomes restricted for the ‘they’ which leads to the creation of outsiders. It is only the we-group we want to help and feel we have duty towards them and we try to help them through national social welfare budgets and various other methods. But the sense of responsibility in international terms is much lower. For example in Sub-Saharan Africa the prevalence of HIV/AIDS is almost 371 times more than prevalent in United States. Therefore the chances of an infant perishing in Sub-Saharan Africa before his/her first birthday are 15 times more than the risk to the American babies. Had this been the scenario in America the funds would have flooded America from various sources and there would have been total outburst of national anguish. Then too the American response to the similar human tragedy in the Sub-Saharan Africa is just limited to sending proximately $2 billion as humanitarian and economic aid bilaterally as well as multilaterally. This comes out to be just $3 per person in sub-Saharan Africa and do you think this is enough to save the lives of the dying infants.
The next negative aspect of nationalism is exclusionism. (Gijsberts and Scheepers, 2004) Millions of people are forced for they seek to flee from their homes and that too due to political violence, poverty or other forces and that is why refugees are becoming a globally oriented problem. The we-they basis of nationalism gives rise to near-universal resistance of “them” coming to “our” country. In a survey done on people from 40 countries it was found that 46% people on an average wanted to promote or extend their limits in relation to immigration. Amongst them a strong majority of Canadians (69%) and Americans (81%) felt this way , even most of them arrive from the immigrant stock only. Nationalism’s another positive aspect is valuing one’s own nation but it turns around negative when the feeling gets converted into the feeling of superiority as compared to others which might turn into fearing them or hating them . This gives rise to the outsiders who are seen with xenophobic eyes. Xenophobia is said to be one destructive way in which some of the people in countries related to the they group or the outsiders. This kind of emotion is being powered by feelings of dislike or fear for other nationalities. However it has been found the Exceptionalism is lesser virulent than Xenophobia but it too has troubling effects and leads to creation of outsiders (Bordeau, 2010).
In a global survey done on around 43 countries the people in majority almost 39 countries agreed “mostly” or “completely” with the statement “ Our people are not perfect, but our culture is superior to others.” 68% of the people supported this though and the Indians were the most exceptionalistic who defied the common stereotype while the French were found to be least exceptionalistic (Wimmer, 2008). Some critics have even said that there was this Wilsonian impulse to advance the democracy in the world which helped the Bush administration to invade the Iraq which shows the exceptionalistic urge of America to reshape the whole world as per their own image (Dorman, 1993). That is why Xenophobia and Exceptionalsim have been the factors in nationalism which lead to conflict (Marx, 2003) (Wimmer, 2002).
In teh states where the ethnonational groups are found to be dominant and there is existence of one or more minority groups it has been witnessed that teh dominant group gets the advantage politically, economically as well as socially over and above teh minorities. In teh extreme cases it has been seen that teh dominant group sometimes tries to suppress the minority groups through violence and many a times they have attempted genocide too. The recent examples are the Serbs ethnic cleansing frenzy in Kosovo and Bosnia, in Rwanda the genocidal attacks are being conducted on the Tutsis by the Hutus and teh most recent incident of internal oppression due to nationalism is teh murderous campaign which was launched by the Arab Muslims against the black Muslims and black Christian groups in Sudan. Another much more horrific example of Internal oppression can be seen in the Mein Kampf written by Adolf Hitler, where he preached amongst the Nazi Germany that the teh Germans compromise or form the ‘Aryan Nation’ (Thies, 2012). And which portrayed human development. Thus in contrast the other Slavic and Russians were considered to be marginal human beings who were kept as virtual slaves and in degrading and segregated conditions. While teh Jews and Gypsies were called by him “ racial vermin” or “ the non-people” who were exterminated along with the homosexuals and insane (Thies, 2012).
In the same context it has been found that negative aspects of nationalism can also lead to external aggression which is based on teh thought that it is acceptable to conquer or incorporate the other subdued nations. The best example which can be quoted for external Aggression is teh Russian/Soviet history. The Russian or the past Soviet was a classical example of a country which was built on multiethnic empire which comprised of territories which were seized by centuries of czarism Russian expansion and which were further expanded by the Russian army. The USSR became the world’s largest country but in 1991 many if its territories were lost when the whole Soviet Union fragmented. This time was right to remember teh warning given by Karl Marx (1818-1883) who said that teh Russia was governed by changeless policies however the tactics, manoeuvres and the methods of Russia might change but the pole star of the Russian policies that is the ‘world domination’ will always remain fixed and this proved to be very right (Bugajski, 2004). The true evidence of ambitions of Russia were revealed time and again first when it attempted in 2004 to repeal teh 2001 act which was defeated in overwhelming manner. Secondly in December 2004 President Vladimir Putin tried to intervene in Ukraine trying to support the fraudulent presidential election of the Russian-leaning candidate Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych over the Western-leaning Viktor Yuishchenko.
It has been seen that people have identified with one or the other group on the varied basis like the religion, family, extended clan or skin colour , but nationalism has been a political form of identification which brings together the mutually identifying people , along with their territories and teh self governance. Nationalism has been thriving and also dominating the political consciousness in many ways but there have been doubts about nationalism and it has been found to be weakening and some of teh theorists and researchers have also predicted that there will be diminution or demise of nationalism sooner or later or it might get extinct as the primary focus of political identification in future. The thinking regarding nationalism has changed drastically in teh recent past from World War II period the establishment of the United Nations in the year 1945 indicates the world wants to shift its progress form the competitive yet conflictive nationalism towards cooperative globalism. The power of this kind of thinking has led many scholars to predict the preeminent demise of the national state. While some scholars believe that although there is news of and predictions about nationalisms impending extinction, but nationalism does not seem to go away rather its is gaining much more strength and is now becoming a world force as seen in teh case of America (Weibe, 2002).
Thus teh million dollar question is that is nationalism is melting away because of its negative impacts which it creates by giving birth to outsiders and giving rise to the various negative impacts on the world like terrorism , external aggression, internal oppression , exclusionism, Exceptionalism and Xenophobia and most importantly the reluctance to help others. But teh continuing strength and power gaining feature of nationalism does not mean that teh scholars who predicted teh demise of nationalism were wrong. It is juts that they were rather premature in their predictions. The main point here is that the existence of diverse cultural identities is something very ancient and according to some analysts it is very important too and rather inherent too because it is human trait which merges from teh psychological security of teh sense of belonging which leads them to the we-group. Therefore by being a member of a nation helps them to satisfy their sense of belonging and to find an individual place in teh world in which he/she is living and they also get a senses of being a crucial part of the uninterrupted chain of being (TAMIR, 1995). Then too it can be said that nationalism and group identification are not treated as synonyms of each other. One scholar says that nations and nationalism has never been the permanent characteristics of teh human history (Lang and O’Leary, 1997). Moreover since it does have negative impacts and denies to act as a positive force and carets outsiders in teh world so it should be changed to a sense of global nationalism which will emerge on teh basis of the similarities among the human beings and the common goals, needs and experiences of the human beings and give rise to a “ United States of the World” (Greenfled, 1992) so that teh negative impacts of creation of outsiders can be overcome easily.
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