what is nationalism?
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Long explanation
What came before: people were subjects, not citizens, they had little rights and existed more like employees of a lord. As such the land they lived in could be traded, inherited, divided or given away during peace negotiations without their consultation. The lord was the political actor. By the end 18th century, it wasn’t odd to find people of the same culture divided and ruled by different foreign or indigenous states. For example Romanians existed in parts of Austria, Russia and Bulgaria, and in semi-independent states of Wallachia and Moldova.
What changed: the English Civil War(1642), Glorious Revolution (1688), American Revolution(1776), French Revolution(1789), Revolutions of 1848 redefined the relations between a state and its people. They introduced rights, democracy, self-determination, and popular sovereignty: that the government is as a result of the consent of the people. Most people did not consent to be governed by foreigners, and did not want to be minorities while their kinsmen across the border were independent. This was (proto)-nationalism: we should be united, we should rule ourselves, we should be independent.
Problems arose after the success of independence and unification movements in terms of self identity as the new nations were not homogenous. e.g. can Jews be German? can Hindus be Pakistani when India exists? shouldn’t the Italians in Yugoslavia be part of Italy? shouldn’t we reclaim this land where our ancestors used to live? Is the European Union imposing laws that undermine our independence?
How people solve these question is what defines nationalism. To some it requires expulsion of minorities, genocide, denial of rights. To some it requires conquest to unite all their people. To some it requires affirmation of rights to all citizens.
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