Nationalism

A nation is different from other forms of collective belonging because it is not a casual collection of people. It is also different from the family, tribes, clans, and other kinship groups. In a family or tribe, people are linked by face-to-face relations, marriage, or descent. But members of a nation may never meet most of their fellow members, and they need not share blood ties.

A nation is mainly an imagined community held together by shared beliefs, aspirations, and a sense of belonging. Its members believe they belong together, share a common historical identity, identify with a territory, and often share political ideals such as democracy, secularism, and liberalism. So, unlike other groups, a nation is defined by a common political and collective identity rather than by direct personal contact or kinship alone.

The right to national self-determination means the right of a nation to govern itself and decide its own future development. It includes the claim to be recognised as a distinct political entity or state. Sometimes it is also linked to the desire to preserve or protect a group’s culture.

This idea helped in the formation of nation-states because many nationalist movements demanded independence from empires and colonial rule. For example, the freedom struggles in India and other colonies in Asia and Africa were national liberation movements seeking nation-states free from foreign control.

At the same time, it also created challenges to nation-states. The attempt to create one-culture-one-state or to redraw boundaries according to national groups led to migration, displacement, communal violence, and minority problems. Even after states were formed, groups such as the Basques, Kurds, Quebecois, and Tamils in Sri Lanka raised new demands for self-determination, sometimes seeking separate statehood. Thus, the idea has both built states and threatened the unity of existing states.

Nationalism has been both a unifying and a divisive force.

It has united people when it helped them come together as a people with a shared identity and common political purpose. For example, in the nineteenth century it united small kingdoms into larger nation-states such as Germany and Italy. In India, nationalism helped people from different regions and communities join in the struggle against colonial rule.

At the same time, nationalism has divided people and caused conflict. It contributed to the break-up of empires like the Austro-Hungarian, Russian, British, French, Dutch, and Portuguese empires. It also produced separatist struggles in places such as Quebec, Basque regions, Kurdistan, and Sri Lanka.

Nationalism has also liberated people from foreign domination, especially in Asia and Africa, by inspiring movements for freedom and self-rule. But it has also generated bitterness, conflict, violence, and wars, especially when one group’s national claims exclude others or when competing groups claim the same territory.

The statement is correct because no single factor such as descent, language, religion, or ethnicity is common to all nationalisms.

- Many nations do not share a common language. For example, Canada has English-speaking and French-speaking people, and India has many languages.
- Many nations do not share a common religion. Most states are religiously diverse.
- Race or descent also cannot explain all nations, because nations often include people from different origins.

What makes a nation is mainly a shared imagined identity, common historical memories, attachment to a territory, and shared political ideals. So nationalism cannot be reduced to one cultural feature. In a democracy especially, it is better to build national identity on shared political values than on language, religion, or ethnicity.