Nationalism
Definition and the Background
As a term of “nation” is a Latin word that means “a society, which came from same fathers”.In generalnationalism is a term of referring to a doctrine and a political movement that holds a nation together with its common language, history, religion, cultur, ethnicity etc. For nationalism, national ideals are more important than universal ideals and individual rights and liberties and thus national interests are more serious.
As a concept of “nation” has existed for long times. We can understand it from the names of groups, which are before Roman Empire. Hittites, China Empire, Slavs, Gots and Normans are just a few examples. They lived with conscious of being nation. Butthis is so clear that being a nation and nationalism are so different than each other.
“Nationalism” is a new concept that begins in 18th century. It was spread with ideas of the French Revolution. Before revolution, common point that keeps people together and ties them was religion. People divided according to their religious views. After revolution, national values became important and nationalist movement started to spread.
Other big reasons of nationalism are democracy and nation states. After the revolution some values, like democracy and nation state, became important. Nations started to declare their independence and establish their own nation states. Then everyone began to vote for the state. Legitimacy of state started to come from citizens, therefore citizens claimed their nation and states. Because, it is certain that the state and nation are all theirs so they want to protect them.
Nationalism as an Ideology
We mentioned that, nationalism as a feeling and nationalism as an ideology are different from each other. Feelings support ideologies, but without feeling, you cannot create ideology. Feelings are changeable, but ideologies are views of life, thus they are hard to change.
Feeling of nationalism increases according to situation of the society. Terrorism and imperialism or occupations are basic reasons of increasing of nationalism in a nation-state. Nations hang on nationalism against these threats. That is what is in Turkey now.
Nationalism and its other levels are the radical ones, because if you are nationalist, you exclude someone. Lets explain it with an example: In Turkey there are a lot of different groups of people. They have different languages, ethnicities, religions etc. Suppose that you are a nationalist Turk in Turkey. Would you describe them as “others”? They are also Turkish citizen like you; they also work for their country, and want for the goodness of Turkey. Firstly, you would accept them, but when they want to speak their languages, they will be your enemies, right? There is a language problem in Turkey for long years.
Other ideologies
Mostly, nationalism is confused with fascism, racism, chauvinism or patriotism. If we want to descibe them shortly nationalism means “the desire for and the attempt to achieve political independence for your country or nation.” Chauvinism means “the strong and unreasonable belief that your own country or race is the best or most important.” Racism means, “the belief that peoples qualities are influenced by their race and that the members of other races are not as good as the members of your own, or the resulting unfair treatment of members of other races.” and patriotism means “love of country and willingness to sacrifice for it.” Patriotism does not include “nation”, because the limits of a nation are not limited with country boundaries.
At first time, it looks like nationalism and the others are the same, but they do not. If we look for the meanings of them: Nation means; a large group of people of the same race who share the same language, traditions and history, but whom might not all live in one area. Moreover, race means; a group, especially of people, with particular similar physical characteristics, who are considered as belonging to the same type, or the fact of belonging to such a group. Namely, nationalism and other ideologies separate from each other with different words, but the roots are the same.
Moreover, that is the truth that nationalism and other “ism”s are open to misuse. Some has used these concepts to provoke people in order to their purposes. Especially, we can see it in Turkey for years. In 1978, 1980 and 1993 there were massacres against Alaoutes in Turkey. Someone provoked the public and people thought that they do right things, because they were “ignorant” and they were filled by a bit too national feelings. At result more than two hundreds people were killed.
In multi-national countries, like Turkey, nationalism has more dangers. Because different ethnicities live together in the same territory and grouping people causes very big problems. Loving your country must be less dangerous.
Here patriotism helps us. Patriotics love their countries and work for it. Loving a country means not to separate citizens according to their ethnicities, colors, races or anything, because they are accepted as a “citizens of a country”. The USA is a country like that, because it has also so many different people in it. However, the usage of patriotism in Turkey is different from the USA. In Turkey, it means also love of your country, but belongs to left wing. It is explained in Turkey “anti-imperialism”. Feeling of “love of your country” is an instinct that every people have naturally. Loving your state, loving your territory that you were born, working for your country are natural results of being a citizen, but the limits and contains depend on you. I think the best one is not to make differentiation.
As a conclusion, nationalism both as an ideology or as a feeling, existed from the past and will be until the end of nation-state. In the globalization process, boundaries may expand, but on the other hand, localization increases like a reaction to globalization. Grouping people according to their characteristics does not befit human’s nature. The best way is, to find out how we can live together with differences. That might be good for whole world.