NATIONALISM (Part5); Case for and against Nationalism

__ By Shaikh Zakzaky (h).

Continuation of part4......

Case for and against Nationalism

 

I have spent much time defining and giving characteristics of nationalism; I may not 

have enough time to compare it with Islam. Nationalism as an ideology has a lot of shortcomings and dangers. One of it of course has to do with its logical thinking. That is its consideration of land (territory) and blood as criteria for what is good or bad. How on earth can God use this as a criterion? Some of the basis of this thinking I have enumerated earlier only exposes this (territory and blood as criteria for judging everything). The territory itself is not even precisely defined as such as it cannot be permanently defined because it keeps on changing. We are living witnesses to what used to be the Soviet Union that no longer exists today. Two years ago the map of the world reflected a nation, a large one for that matter, known and called the USSR. Now

the map has changed as the USSR was dissolved and instead we now have the Russian Federation and a number of Balkan and South-East Asian nations. So also Yugoslavia is now broken into six nations (Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia Herzegovina, Macedonia et al).

 

Therefore, the territory cannot be used as a foundation for an ideology since it goes on changing. Sometimes what may be part of a country today may not be tomorrow or

what is not today may become part of the country tomorrow. In which case when new people are being brought in they find it very difficult to adjust into the new nation.

Likewise one of the reason why nationalism was preferred to religion or any other thing was the fact that, they thought nationalism will bring in people living within a geographical area if they identify themselves with their own nation, they will forget all other differences like religious, linguistic and cultural differences.

 

However, it has always been true of all the nations that they have never solved the 

problem of the so-called minority. The minorities in this nations end up being

considered as second-class citizens of the nation, with their grievances well

documented, Nigeria is a typical example, this can be read in the daily newspapers.

There is, for instance, this question that “must the presidency be the birth right of some people” (they are right in this case if truly you are one nation, you shouldn’t monopolize presidency since all nationals are one and equal. Are some people more equal than others?). Instead of unifying people it ended up disuniting and creating hatred among members of the same nation. Their exist small packages of other nations raising up as the case of Zangon Katab in Nigeria, where the Katafs consider themselves a nation

within a larger nation. In fact one of the staunch Katab nationalists refused to speak in Hausa language while testifying in a panel because of the belief of his smaller nation. In short nationalism always create itself packages of other nations within it. Thus there will be counter nationalists within a nation and some small packages of nationalists

also creating their own brand of nationalism with the same view that is been preached for the nation will also be preached to the sub nation. 

 

As a result there will always be conflict within it, at the end there wouldn’t be unity

within a nation. Even within one language there exist different dialects, and if you have strong urge to say, your own language is best, some would say (even within the same language) that their own dialect is the original and then you end up having conflict. Similarly, when you say culture, some can say the origin of the culture in this country of ours, others will say particularly in our own state, therefore you may end up having problems and conflict within the nation.

 

This is true because nationalism lacks objectives. People found themselves wondering, without anything to sustain their society, and man being what he is has to be sustained with an ideology so a baseless ideology was founded to at least sustain them, but it ended in defeating itself.

 

Another argument for nationalism is that it moves people into action. That is to say if

people are urged to promote their own nation above others they will work hard and produce more. For example, farmers will work hard in order to feed the nation;

engineers will work hard in the construction industry and so on. You may be asked is it always true? If it is true for a whole nation then it will also be true for a sub-nation.

 

When you are developing an area and making it very beautiful with roads, electricity and so on some will, of course, say even though it is within or a part of the nation, why is my village neglected? Then you will begin to have sub-citizenship and 

sub-nationalism. Actually it hardly moves people to action. Nigeria is a typical example on this matter. 

 

Some of the dangers of nationalism also are ego-centrism, superiority complex, tribal prejudice and fanaticism. Ego centrism means making yourself the focus of everything good and others the focus of everything bad. Superiority complex makes you consider yourself superior to all others. You automatically become fanatical not only as a nationalist but also as a sub-nationalist or neo-nationalist promoting nations within a nation (which is the worst form of fanaticism). Likewise, it narrows mental horizon, that is to say making man to narrow himself to one area as if to say the whole world should be narrowed into one pocket while all other parts are ignored. All outsiders are considered aliens, foreigners and sometimes even enemies.

_ We will Continue at part 6.