A concrete set of core themes can be attributed to nationalism. Out of them, The Nation is the most overt: the belief in the nation as the central principle of political organisation – be it through language, religion or ethnicity. While Malcolm X, a primordialist nationalist, may have wanted to create a new state for Americans with roots in Africa - therefore being closed to all other cultures and ethnicities – a cosmopolitan liberal, on the other hand, would favour the integration of cultures and the breaking down of national distinctions. Although both disagree over what should happen to their or other nations, they do agree that the concept of nation is of central importance for defining and reaching their objective(s). Although, while the theme of The Nation has been found to be coherent, Organic Community, which links directly into The Nation, has proved not to be as a result of liberal nationalists, perhaps in constructivist global-cooperation approach, seeing increasing different nationalities as citizens of the world. Additional inconsistencies are also found all too often in other circumstances as well. Due to this, nationalism can be described as having a schizophrenic political character – seen by such polar opposites as expansionist nationalism and anti-colonial nationalism. The first strand advocates the expansion of its country’s border via, in most cases, military means in an obvious chauvinistic manner; such as seen by Napoleon during the early 19th century and then again by Hitler and the Nazi’s in the 20th century. Whereas the other, anti-colonial, campaigns for national Self-determination; sometimes against other nationalists that had invaded them. If the nation-state is indeed the highest and most desirable form of political organisation – expressed by such by Wilson’s 14 points – then why is there consequently a huge contradiction between these two forms of nationalism which are meant to adhere to the same themes. Moreover, while nationalists of all creeds so seem to share one key them of The Nation, a substantial amount of discrepancies are found among others and thus have no concrete core themes from which to work from.
Finally it is sensible to view nationalism as a political doctrine, and not an ideology. In all empirical evidence nationalism has always been coupled with another ideology. Be it conservatism, socialism or liberalism. This is due to the necessity to provide an assessment of the status quo (a), to advance a model of a desired future (b) and to explaining how political changed can and should be brought about (c). Nationalism in itself is not capable of getting from a to c without the involvement of, for example, socialism to explain to the nationalists of the Algerian independence movement (1954-62) that colonial oppression is in fact an extension of the class system: the bourgeois in this context being the oppressing country and the would be independent nation-state the proletariat. In short, another ideology has to be coupled with nationalism to give it purpose and drive in its endeavours.
Overall, the case for nationalism being a coherent ideology has been made in so far as it has been proved that it is not simply a psychological phenomenon. Beyond that, however, it can be seen that nationalism suffers from severe discrepancies within its core themes. It is safe to assert that when one strand of nationalism quite obviously violates the core principle of Self-determination, while another uses it to justify independence for its nation there is no coherently in the ‘ideology’. To close, it is imperative that it is made clear that nationalism is a political doctrine – onto which other ideologies can attach themselves to and explain nationalism in a way that makes sense to their core themes.
by
thomasrobinson01hotmailcouk (student)
