excerpt #2

This is an excerpt from a longer article on Nationalism, submitted by Karamazov.

Arguably, nationalism has been one of the most important phenomenon of the last 200 years of world history; it has been the driving force behind many a bloodshed, inspiration behind bitter struggles.. It has provided the oppressed with a viable weapon to counter the oppressor (anti-colonial struggles in Asia and Africa), but at the same time it has worked as an excuse for racist regimes killing innocent people, committing even mass murders (Hitler’s Third Reich and the events in Eastern Europe in the recent past).

In short, it has been drawing and re-drawing the political map of the globe constantly to lead us into the present scheme of things; and this process is still on.

But from a theoretical point of view what makes ‘nationalism’ different from any other ‘ideology’ is its amazing ability of changing itself according to different circumstances. With only some minor changes any group of people as different from each other as Indians are from the Germans can use ‘nationalism’ to achieve completely different goals but with the same force.

In short, over the years nationalism has been very ‘user-friendly’ which is surely one of the secrets behind its’ enormous popularity among the human kind.

- w. karamazov