A Study of Nationalism and its relevance in Muslim States.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION 1

NATIONALISM 2

THE BASIC CONCEPT OF NATION 2

BIRTH OF THE CONCEPT OF "NATION" DURING THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 4

COMMON LANGUAGE 4

COMMON CULTURE 4

COMMON HISTORY 5

COMMON RELIGION 5

THE BASIC CONCEPT OF NATIONALISM 5

NATIONALISM A DISTINCT IDEOLOGY 6

TYPES OF NATIONALISM 7

CIVIC NATIONALISM 8

ETHNIC NATIONALISM 8

IRREDENTISM 9

EXPANSIONIST NATIONALISM 9

RADICAL OR REVOLUTIONARY NATIONALISM 9

FASCISM 9

STATELESS NATIONALISM 9

ETHNOCENTRISM 11

ORIGIN OF NATIONALISM 11

THIRD WORLD NATIONALISM 14

CULTURAL NATIONALISM 24

EUROPEAN NATIONALISM " ENGLISH PURITANISM AND NATIONALISM 25

EUROPEAN NATIONALISM " FRENCH NATIONALISM 26

European Nationalism " The 1848 Revolutionary Wave 27

ASIAN AND AFRICAN NATIONALISM 29

Asian and African Nationalism " The New Nations 30

ASIAN AND AFRICAN NATIONALISM " POLITICAL AND RELIGIOUS DIFFERENCES 31

NATIONALISM IN WORLD WAR I 32

TWO KINDS OF NATIONALISM 32

NATIONALISM IN GERMANY 33

NATIONALISM IN ITALY 33

NATIONALISM IN AUSTRIA-HUNGARY 33

NATIONALISM IN RUSSIA 34

NATIONALISM IN FRANCE 34

NATIONALISM IN BRITAIN 34

CAN NATIONALISM SOLVE THE CHALLENGES FACING PAKISTAN? 35

THE PROHIBITION OF NATIONALISM 36

NATIONALISM WITH ITS POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE ASPECTS 37

TYPE OF NATIONALISM BRINGING ABOUT SOLIDARITY 39

NATIONALISM IN SOUTHEAST ASIA DEVELOPED FROM THREE SOURCES 42

INDIGENOUS RELIGIONS 42

WESTERN EDUCATION 42

SOCIAL RADICALS 43

SOURCES FROM QURAN & HADITH FOR CREATING THE ISLAMIC STATE / UMMAH 43

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ISLAM AND OTHER RELIGIONS LIES IN THE FOLLOWING FACT 46

BENEFITS OF SACRED ISLAMIC NATIONALITY 47

NATIONALISM AND THE PROBLEMS OF 48

DEMOCRACY 48

ARISTOTLE 49

JAMES MADISON 51

THE IRONY OF MADISON'S THOUGHT FOR DEMOCRACY 55

THE BENEFICENT FACE OF NATIONALISM 57

NATIONALISM PROMOTES DEMOCRACY 57

NATIONALISM ENCOURAGES SELF-DETERMINATION 58

NATIONALISM ALLOWS FOR ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT 58

NATIONALISM ALLOWS DIVERSITY 58

NATIONALISM AS A DESTRUCTIVE FORCE

NATIONALISM CAN LEAD TO INSECURITY 59

NATIONALISM LEADS TO A FEELING OF SUPERIORITY 59

NATIONALISM MAY LEAD TO XENOPHOBIA 59

NATIONALISM IS JINGOISTIC 60

NATIONALISM CAN BE AGGRESSIVE 60

THE LACK OF FIT BETWEEN STATES AND NATION 60

CAHLLENGES TO NATIONALISM 61

CONCLUSION 64

BIBLIOGRAPHY 66

INTRODUCTION

NATIONALISM

Nationalism is a bond between people that is based upon family, clan or tribal ties. Nationalism arises among people when the predominant thought they carry is that of achieving domination. It starts from the family, where one member asserts his authority to achieve leadership in the affair of the family. Once this is achieved, the individual extends his leadership to the wider family. In this way, the families would also try to achieve leadership in the community they reside in. The next stage is that of tribes competing with each other, all trying to dominate others in order to enjoy the privileges and the prestige that comes with this authority. This breeds arrogance and ignorance along with extreme pride.

Nationalism cannot unite the people because it is based on quest for leadership. This quest for leadership creates a power struggle between the people and this leads to conflicts among various strata of society. Another drawback of nationalism is that it gives a rise to racism. This is expected if people are allowed to compete with each other on the basis of their race. Some whites, for example, may see themselves as superior to the blacks, or vice-versa, leading to polarization of the races and a divided society.

The spiritual bond among non-Muslims is a grouping of people based on their 'religious belief' which is not a comprehensive belief covering every aspect of life. An example of a spiritual bond is when people identify with each other on the basis of being a Christian, a Hindu or a Jew. Islam is not classed among these as it is a Deen rather than a religion. The term Deen comprehensively takes on the meaning as "A complete way of life". This spiritual bond does not unite people on issues other than matters of belief and worships; hence it is limited and cannot be the basis of any complete unity.

THE BASIC CONCEPT OF NATION

A nation is a body of people who share a real or imagined common history, culture, language or ethnic origin, which typically inhabit a particular country or territory. The development and conceptualization of the nation is closely related to the development of modern industrial states and nationalist movements in Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries, although nationalists would trace nations into the past along uninterrupted lines of historical narrative. Politically, the term nation means a body of people who feel them to be naturally linked together by certain affinities which are so strong for them that they can live happily together, are disappointed when disunited.

Though "nation" is also commonly used in informal discourse as a synonym for state or country, a nation is not identical to a state. Countries where the social concept of "nation" coincides with the political concept of "state" are called nation states.

According to E. Renan (1882) and M. Weber (1970) purely voluntaristic definition,

"A nation is any group of people aspiring to a common political state-like organization. If such a group of people succeeds in forming a state, the loyalties of the group members might be "civic" (as opposed to "ethnic") in nature."

BIRTH OF THE CONCEPT OF "NATION" DURING

THE FRENCH REVOLUTION

The concept of nation (both political and cultural) as we understand it today, i.e. as a basically political notion, emerges around the end of the 18th century and coincides with the end of the Ancient Régime. At that time, the first solid theoretical formulations of the nation occur and are applied in concrete political demands like the American Revolution and the French Revolution. Since, the ideas of political nation and cultural nation have evolved intertwined. Nevertheless, the term "nation", derived from Latin, existed before with other meanings.

The term Nation has two distinct meanings: The political nation, used in the domains of international law and politics is the political subjects which exerts the political sovereignty of a democratic state. The cultural nation is a sociological or ideological concept, which is more subjective and ambiguous in its meaning than the political nation. The cultural nation can roughly be defined as a community of people with certain common cultural features, which are ethically or politically relevant to them. In a broader sense, nation is also sometimes used to refer to a number of other things: State, country, territory or inhabitants of the former, people, among others.

COMMON LANGUAGE

A language is the primary ingredient in the making of a nation. Without a common language a nation cannot evolve. A common Culture, a common History is dependent on Language. Also to deal with everyday affairs within a group of people living in a specified boundary need a common mean of communication to trade and socialize. Thus even if a group of people sharing common Language, Culture and History may live in different countries but would still consider themselves attached to their respective nations as long as they share the same language.

COMMON CULTURE

Many nations are constructed around the idea of a shared culture, the national culture. The national culture can be assumed to be shared with previous generations, and includes a cultural heritage from these generations. As with the common ancestry, this identification of past culture with present culture may be largely symbolic. The archaeological site of Stonehenge for instance is owned and managed by English Heritage, although no 'English' people or state existed when it was constructed, 4 000 to 5 000 years ago. Other nations have similarly appropriated ancient archaeological sites, literature, art, and even entire civilizations as 'national heritage'.

COMMON HISTORY

A nation can be constructed around a common history i.e. chronologically recorded events in the past, their ancestors have gone through.

COMMON RELIGION

Religion is sometimes used as a defining factor for a nation, although some nationalist movements de-emphasize it as a divisive factor, such as in Ireland where The Republic of Ireland has a majority of Catholics and Northern Ireland holding a majority of Protestants, de-emphasizing religion as a factor of National Identity in Ireland is largely unsuccessful. Again it is the fact that the religion is shared, that makes it national. It may not be exclusive: several nations define themselves partly as Catholic although the religion itself is Universalist. Some religions are specific to one ethnic group, notably Judaism. Nevertheless, the Zionist movement generally avoided a religious definition of the 'Jewish people', preferring an ethnic and cultural definition. Since Judaism is a religion, people can become a Jew by religious conversion, which in turn can facilitate their obtaining Israeli citizenship. Jews in Israel who convert to other religions do not thereby lose Israeli citizenship, although their national identity might then be questioned by others.

THE BASIC CONCEPT OF NATIONALISM

The term "nationalism" is generally used to describe two phenomena:

) The attitude that the members of a nation have when they care about their national identity

2) The actions that the members of a nation take when seeking to achieve (or sustain) self-determination.

> The first point raises the questions about the concept of nation (or national identity), which is often defined in terms of common origin, ethnicity, or cultural ties, and while an individual's membership in a nation is often regarded as involuntary, it is sometimes regarded as voluntary.

> The second point raises questions about whether self-determination must be understood as involving having full statehood with complete authority over domestic and international affairs, or whether something less is required.

NATIONALISM A DISTINCT IDEOLOGY

Nationalism refers to an ideology, a sentiment, a form of culture, or a social movement that focuses on the nation. It is a type of collectivism emphasizing the collective of a specific nation. While there is significant debate over the historical origins of nations, nearly all specialists accept that nationalism, at least as an ideology and social movement is a modern phenomenon originating in Europe. Precisely where and when it emerged is difficult to determine, but its development is closely related to that of the modern state and the push for popular sovereignty that came to a head with the French Revolution in the late 18th century. Since that time, nationalism has become one of the most significant political and social forces in history, perhaps most notably as a major influence or cause of World War I and especially World War II with the rise of fascism, a radical and authoritarian nationalist ideology

As an ideology, nationalism holds that 'the people' in the doctrine of popular sovereignty is the nation, and that as a result only nation-states founded on the principle of national self-determination are legitimate. Since most states are multinational, or at least home to more than one group claiming national status, in many cases nationalist pursuit of self-determination has caused conflict between people and states including war, (both external and domestic), secession; and in extreme cases, genocide.

Nationalism is a strong social phenomenon in the world as national flags, national anthems and national divisions are examples of 'banal' nationalism that is often mentally unconscious. Moreover, some scholars argue that nationalism as a sentiment or form of culture, sometimes described as 'nationality' to avoid the ideology's tarnished reputation, is the social foundation of modern society. Industrialization, democratization, and support for economic redistribution have all been at least partly attributed to the shared social context and solidarity that nationalism provides. Even though nationalism ultimately is based on supporting one's own nation, nationalists of different states may perfectly well cooperate among each other as to support the ultimate worldwide belief that all groups of nationalities have the right to have their own states.

Nationalism has long been ignored as a topic in political philosophy, written off as a relic from bygone times. It has only recently come into the focus of philosophical debate, partly in consequence of rather spectacular and troubling nationalist clashes, like those in Rwanda, the former Yugoslavia and the former Soviet republics. The surge of nationalism usually presents a morally ambivalent and for this reason often fascinating picture. "National awakenings" and struggles for political independence are often both heroic and inhumanly cruel; the formation of a recognizably national state often responds to deep popular sentiment, but can and does sometimes bring in its wake inhuman consequences, including violent expulsion and "cleansing" of non-nationals, all the way to organized mass murder. The moral debate on nationalism reflects a deep moral tension between solidarity with oppressed national groups on the one hand and repulsion in the face of crimes perpetrated in the name of nationalism on the other. Moreover, the issue of nationalism points to a wider domain of problems having to do with the treatment of ethnic and cultural differences within a democratic polity, which are arguably among the most pressing problems of contemporary political theory.

In recent years the focus of the debate about nationalism has shifted towards issues in international justice, probably in response to changes on the international scene: bloody nationalist wars such as those in the former Yugoslavia have become less conspicuous, whereas the issues of terrorism, of "clash of civilizations" and of hegemony in the international order have come to occupy public attention.

TYPES OF NATIONALISM

Nationalism may manifest itself as part of official state ideology or as a popular (non-state) movement and may be expressed along civic ethnic, cultural, religious or ideological lines. These self-definitions of the nation are used to classify types of nationalism. However, such categories are not mutually exclusive and many nationalist movements combine some or all of these elements to varying degrees. Nationalist movements can also be classified by other criteria, such as scale and location.

Some political theorists make the case that any distinction between forms of nationalism is false. In all forms of nationalism, the populations believe that they share some kind of common culture. A main reason why such typology can be considered false is that it attempts to bend the fairly simple concept of nationalism to explain its many manifestations or interpretations. Arguably, all "types" of nationalism merely refer to different ways academics throughout the years have tried to define nationalism. This school of thought accepts that nationalism is simply the desire of a nation to self-determine.

CIVIC NATIONALISM

Civic nationalism defines the nation as an association of people with equal and shared political rights, and allegiance to similar political procedures. According to the principles of civic nationalism the nation is not based on common ethnic ancestry, but is a political entity, whose core is not ethnicity? This civic concept of nationalism is exemplified by Ernest Renan in his lecture in 1882 "Where is the nation?" where he defined the nation as a "daily plebiscite dependent on the will of its people to continue living together".

ETHNIC NATIONALISM

Ethnic nationalism is based on the hereditary connections of people. Ethnic nationalism specifically seeks to unite all people of a certain ethnicity heritage together. Ethnic nationalism does not seek to include people of other ethnicities.

IRREDENTISM

Irredentism is a form of nationalism promoting the annexation of territories, which have or previously had members of the nation residing within them, to a state which comprises most or all of the nation's members.

EXPANSIONIST NATIONALISM

Expansionist nationalism promoted spreading the nation's members to new territories; usually on the claimed basis that existing territory which the nation has resided in is too small or is not able to physically or economically sustain the nation's population.

RADICAL OR REVOLUTIONARY NATIONALISM

Many nationalist movements in the world are dedicated to national liberation, in the view that their nations are being persecuted by other nations and thus need to exercise self-determination by liberating themselves from the accused persecutors. Anti-revisionist Marxist-Leninism is closely tied with this ideology, and practical examples include Stalin's early work Marxism and the National Question and his Socialism in One Country edict, which declares that nationalism can be used in an internationalist context i.e. fighting for national liberation without racial or religious divisions.

FASCISM

Fascism is an authoritarian nationalist ideology which promotes national revolution, national collectivism, a totalitarian state, and irredentism or expansionism to unify and allow the growth of a nation. Fascists often promote ethnic nationalism but also have promoted cultural nationalism including cultural assimilation of people outside a specific ethnic group.

STATELESS NATIONALISM

With the establishment of a nation-state, the primary goal of any nationalist movement has been achieved. However, nationalism does not disappear but remains a political force within the nation, and inspires political parties and movements. The development of state nationalism leads to the development of stateless nationalism movements that feel oppressed by the mainstream nationalistic conception of the nation - such as the "eternal Spain", "La Grande France" - and aspire at setting up their own state either within the nation state or a state of its own.

Stateless Nationalists in this sense typically campaign for:

> Defending from strengthening national unity, including campaigns for national salvation in times of crisis.

> Confronting nation state policies that attempt to impose a model of political behavior from the top.

> Unlike state nationalism, it is more open to foreign influences. Influenced by civic liberalism stateless nationalists reject the extreme xenophobia of state nationalist parties.

> Attempting to make borders flexible so as to collaborate with neighboring territories sharing common interests.

> Redefining the national territory which is considered part of the national homeland. This is called irredentism from the Italian movement Italia irredentism.

> Small nations cannot survive unless they are opened to foreign trade so that they reject economic nationalism of nation states.

The term 'nationalism' is also used by extension, or as a metaphor, to describe movements which promote a group identity of some kind. This use is especially common in the United States, and includes Black Nationalism and white nationalism in a cultural sense. They may overlap with nationalism in the classic sense, including black secessionist movements and pan-Africanism

The emotions can be purely negative: a shared sense of threat can unify the nation. However, dramatic events, such as defeat in war, can qualitatively affect national identity and attitudes to non-national groups. The defeat of Germany in World War I, and the perceived humiliation by the Treaty of Versailles, economic crisis and hyperinflation, created a climate for xenophobia, revanchist, and the rise of Nazism. The solid bourgeois patriotism of the pre-1914 years, with the Kaiser as national father-figure, was no longer relevant.

ETHNOCENTRISM

Nationalism does not necessarily imply a belief in the superiority of one ethnicity over others, but some people believe that some so-called nationalists support ethnocentric protectionism or ethnocentric supremacy. Studies have yielded evidence that such behavior may be derived from innate preferences in humans from infancy.

In the USA for example, non-indigenous ethnocentric nationalist movements exist for both so-called "black" and "white" peoples. These forms of "nationalism" often promote or glorify foreign nations that they believe can serve as an example for their own nation, see Anglophobia or Afro centrism.

Explicit biological race theory was influential from the end of the 19th century. Nationalist and Fascist movements in the first half of the 20th century often appealed to these theories. The National Socialist ideology was amongst the most comprehensively "racial" ideologies: the concept of "race" influenced aspects of policy in Nazi Germany. In the 21st century the term "race" is no longer regarded by many people as a meaningful term to describe the range of human phenotype clusters; the term ethnocentrism is a more accurate and meaningful term.

Ethnic cleansing is often seen as both a nationalist and ethnocentrism phenomenon. It is part of nationalist logic that the state is reserved for one nation, but not all nationalist nation-states expel their minorities.

ORIGIN OF NATIONALISM

Recent general theory has looked at underlying issues, and above all the question of which came first, nations or nationalism. Nationalist activists see themselves as representing a pre-existing nation, and the primordial's theory of nationalism agrees. It sees nations, or at least ethnic groups, as a social reality dating back twenty thousand years.

The modernist theories imply that until around 1800, almost no-one had more than local loyalties. National identity and unity were originally imposed from above, by European states, because they were necessary to modernize economy and society. In this theory, nationalist conflicts are an unintended side-effect. For example, Ernest Gellner argued that nations are a by-product of industrialization Modernization theorists sees such things as the printing press and capitalism as necessary conditions for nationalism. Unfortunately, this theory falls short of addressing all nationalist efforts, including the Flemings repulsion of the French in the 14th century, or any nationalist efforts against empires before 1800.

Anthony D. Smith proposed a synthesis of primordial's and modernist views now commonly referred to as an ethno-symbolist approach. According to Smith, the preconditions for the formation of a nation are as follows:

> A fixed homeland (current or historical)

> High autonomy

> Hostile surroundings

> Memories of battles

> Sacred centers

> Languages and scripts

> Special customs

> Historical records and thinking

Those preconditions may create powerful common mythology. Therefore, the mythic homeland is in reality more important for the national identity than the actual territory occupied by the nation. Smith also posits that nations are formed through the inclusion of the whole populace (not just elites), constitution of legal and political institutions, nationalist ideology, international recognition and drawing up of borders.

One of these poisonous concepts that stigmatize the Prophet's (saws) Ummah is Nationalism. It is a dangerous concept that has become the emotional basis for the state of the Ummah today and one, which visibly fortifies the division among those who profess to believe in the same ideology. Furthermore, the Muslims identify themselves as Turkish, Arab, African and Pakistani. If this is not enough, Muslims are further sub-divided within each country or continent. For example, in Pakistan people are classed as Punjabis, Sindhis, Balauchis and Pathans. This fragmentation continues to gain momentum amongst the Muslims.

The Muslim Ummah was never confronted with such a dilemma in the past during Islamic rule. They never suffered from disunity, widespread oppression, stagnation in science and technology and certainly not from the internal conflicts that we have witnessed this century like the Iran-Iraq war. So what has gone wrong with the Muslims this century? Why are there so many feuds between them and why are they seen to be fighting each other? What has caused their weakness and how will they ever recover from the present stagnation?

There are many factors that contributed to the present state of affairs, but some of the main ones are the abandonment of the Arabic language as the language of understanding Islam correctly and performing Ijtihad, the absorption of foreign cultures and thus the abandonment of Islamic beliefs, the gradual loss of central authority over some of the provinces, and the rise of Nationalism since the 19th Century.

Nationalism did not arise in the Muslim world naturally, nor did it come about in response to any hardships faced by the people, nor due to the frustration did they feel when Europe started to dominate the world after the industrial revolution. Rather, nationalism was implanted in the minds of the Muslims through a well thought out scheme by the European powers, after their failure to destroy the Islamic State by force.

The concept of nationalism is very large and cannot be understood without studying the way humans identify and relate to each other in society. This study will enable a differentiation to be made between various forms of grouping and nationalism. Human beings can identify or group together on the basis of:

* Love of a particular land or a country - patriotism

* Tribe, lineage or race - nationalism

* Religion - mere spiritual rituals

* Faith or Aqeedah - creed

THIRD WORLD NATIONALISM

The first Marxist to recognize the significance of Third World national liberation movements was Lenin. His analysis of imperialism demonstrated the "colonial and financial enslavement of the vast majority of the world's population by an insignificant minority of the richest and advanced capitalist countries" and showed that this enslavement would inevitably provoke a wave of revolts and wars of liberation. What Lenin envisaged was a world alliance between the proletarian revolution, principally in the west, and the national liberation movements, principally in the east, to crush imperialism in a pincer movement. He insisted therefore that it was of the utmost importance for Communists to support these nationalist movements, especially in struggles against their "own" imperialism.

At the same time Lenin realized that this strategy carried with it the danger of blurring the Marxist distinction "between the interests of the oppressed classes, of working and exploited people and the general concept of national interests as a whole, which implies the interests of the ruling class". Lenin's theses on this question at the Second Congress of the Comintern, therefore, stressed the following:

... the need for a determined struggle against attempts to give a communist coloring to bourgeois-democratic liberation trends in the backward countries ... The Communist International must enter into a temporary alliance with bourgeois democracy in the colonial and backward countries, but should not merge with it, and should under all circumstances uphold the independence of the proletarian movement even if it is in its most embryonic form.

Lenin also warned against "the deception systematically practiced by the imperialist powers" of setting up states which were formally politically independent, but economically and militarily wholly dependent. His conclusion was that:

Under present-day international conditions there is no salvation for dependent and weak nations except in a union of Soviet republics ... Complete victory over capitalism cannot be won unless the proletariat and following it, the mass of working people in all countries and nations throughout the world voluntarily strive for alliance and unity.

Under Stalin, however, the policy of the Comintern, dictated by the need to win friends for the Soviet Union, proceeded in precisely the direction warned against by Lenin. The classic case, of course, was China, where the Chinese Communist Party not only entered the bourgeois nationalist Kuomintang party, but also accepted a prohibition on criticizing the principles of Sun Yat-sen, its founder, and handed its own membership list over to the Kuomintang leadership. Chiang Kai-shek was made an honorary member of the Communist International.
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The process of giving bourgeois nationalist movements a "communist coloring" and merging Communism with bourgeois nationalism received a further intensification after the Second World War, when selective support for national liberation movements in the opposing camp became an important element in the Soviet Union's global power struggle with the United States. By the 1950s and 1960s a situation had been reached where, on the one hand, almost every nationalist regime and movement in the Third World called itself "socialist" and many claimed to be "Marxist", while on the other hand large sections of the left in the advanced ...

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