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That's all academic. Current nationalists base their 'nation' on skin color and religion: white and Christian (though the religious aspect is sometimes less emphasized), like ISIS'/Daesh's nationalism based on Islam. You can read people advocating it in HN, just like you can read many attempts to whitewash it. The endlessly repeated lesson of history is that if human rights are not universal, if you accept the nationalist argument that 'people on my side have rights and those on the other don't', then it ends up justifying denying rights to any person or group, and the brutality that follows. That's why the foundation of the United States is universal human rights, 'all men are created equal and endowed ... with inalienable rights'. We've had enough slavery, segregation, Holocausts, Tutsi massacres, Milosovic's, ISIS's, oppression of women, Nazis, etc, etc. to know how it turns out; we don't need to try again and hope it's different this time. In contrast, universal human rights as the basis of the post-WWII order has provided the greatest expansion of freedom and prosperity in human history, with no comparison. Why would anyone want to give that up? Why are we looking for ways to divide people and to justify and whitewash hate? What is the basis of nationalism? That a human being's rights and my regard from them depend on an imaginary line on the earth? One step this way, I love them; one step the other way, I oppose them? It's absurd. Finally, nationalism is an obsession of a small group imposed on others. The nationalists say all white Christian people are part of their nation, but a most of those people don't see it that way. Certain nationalists claim me as part of their 'nation', but I abhor and oppose them and certainly am not a member. Nationalists are a small group of people who, just like the tyrants and evil people before them, simply try to impose their will on others. I believe the others should live free. |
That's somewhat true only in a very narrow world of USA and ISIS. In most of the world, nationalism is based on very different terms.
> One step this way, I love them; one step the other way, I oppose them? It's absurd.
Nah. Nationalism doesn't mean opposing anybody. It's belonging to community and working for it's greater good.
> Finally, nationalism is an obsession of a small group imposed on others.
Most people don't care about any political, societal or any other philosophical discourses. They just follow few people who are interested in that kind of stuff. As far as I looked all revolutions were imposed by a small group of concerned citizens on the rest of the community. I'm yet to find an exception where majority people truly believed in the original idea from day 1. They just followed people who seemed worthy.