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Nationalism, Patriotism, Hate Crimes
Miah, Malik
http://solidarity-us.org/atc/198/nationalism/Date Written: 2019-01-01 Publisher: Against the Current Year Published: 2019 Resource Type: Article Cx Number: CX23463 A look at the (mis)use of the word "nationalism" to describe Trump and white supremacists. Abstract: -- Excerpt: In rejecting claims that "nationalism" of states can be positive, Macron completely ignored the crucial distinction between the nationalism of oppressors and the oppressed. "The lessons of World War I were not the same everywhere," argues Walter Russell Mead in The Wall Street Journal (Nov. 12, 2018) in response to Macron. "In Eastern and Central Europe, the war demonstrated the value, not the dangers, of nationalism. It broke the transnational bureaucratic empires that denied Poles, Lithuanians, Czechs and many others their freedom." Nationalism, he continued, later helped countries break out of the Soviet bloc and thus "confirmed their belief that the cause of nationalism was the cause of freedom" from that "multiethnic, bureaucratic imperial system." (Mead is Professor of Foreign Affairs and the Humanities at Bard College.) The debate about nationalism, thus, is not so black and white. But it is extremely important. Nationalism has been used by oppressors to cause divisions and scapegoat peoples who are not like the majority. The nationalism of oppressed peoples on the other hand, such as the Palestinians living under the state of Israel, is justified and can be a progressive force. Subject Headings |