Nationalism

Nationalism is a strong feeling of pride in and devotion to one's country. Nationalism is the driving force behind many national decisions and the source of many, many revolutions. When a group of people are convinced that they are all somehow united, whether it be economically, socially, or just a sense of a shared concept comes together they form a nation of people that are bonded together in all they do. Europe was shaped by forces of nationalism that divided people into groups (or in this case countries) that eventually split the continent into the countries we know of today. Europe was shaped by nationalism, but what Jared Diamond says on geographic luck play a part too even in Europe. the Scots are very proud to be Scottish, but yet they are part of the UK. The Scots are now proud members of the UK. Nationalism today is defined by things other than a shared cultural history, but a combination of (as I previously mentioned) economic and social conditions. Nationalism can also be defined, as in Afghanistan's case, as simply a loose tie between a group of people who just happen to live within the boundaries of the same country. If nationalism is defined in this sense then the concept of nationalism is as old a the Assyrians and ancient Egyptians. All in all, nationalism is a very broad term that changes of the situations that are present in a group of people's condition. Europe and Africa are examples of where nationalism has chopped up countries into ties between the peoples of each areas.

My group did a puppet show on how Bismarck ruled his empire with an iron grasp. Our show showed how during Bismarck's rule of Germany the people where united with a strong force of nationalism even though Bismarck himself did not believe in nationalism. This unified Germany was very strong in industry and created many technological aadvances. The people of Germany also took control of the world scene by competing with Great Britain for global dominance. Bismarck himself had some bad policies against his own ruling strategy (his ruling strategy was called realpolitik which is real politics based solely on the needs of the state). Bismarck launched two campaigns against Socialists and the Catholic Church, but the people themselves turned against him on these ideas so he backed off policies against those two factions. My group's play could have better depicted the actual policies like the Kulturkampf that Bismarck used to suppress.

The nationalism displayed by the German people is different that the nationalism displayed by the Scots. The Scots were always fighting between the Highlanders (generally poorer and farmers) and the Lowlanders (people who lived south of the Firth of Clyde). The Highland culture was a much older, Scandinavian, and agricultural society compared the the Southern one which was more refined and Northumbrian. The Scots were very like the Italians because of their clan system which acted a lot like the Italian system of multiple principalities and not like Germany (Germany was divided but not between families as much a simple regional differences). German and Scottish nationalism differed mainly in the way the people were originally arranged. the Scots were held together in families or clans whereas the Germans were arranged more according to regional areas. German nationalism was built off a hatred Napoleon, who occupied their country, because the people did not want a foreign French ruler. Bismarck knew what would bind the people of Germany together. That binding force was war. People were distracted by large goals of their nation instead of their own petty disputes and came together under Bismarck to fight Denmark and Austria. Once the Germans had conquered the Danes and the Austrian they went on to conquer the French. The Germans unified together to achieve large national goals and, in my opinion, turned away from petty disputes to focus on a great national image of a unified Germany. Scottish national identity is a skewed topic in itself. The Scots were very divided in many, many topics and the Scots (being very hard headed people at times) never, ever backed off what they believed. This proves very true in how the Scots would constantly squabble over Catholicism and Protestantism. The Scots had a clan system all throughout the land that divided the country up into many, many little groups. The clan system seriously crippled the Scots in any attempt to form together since it involved much action by one leader to get hundreds of clans united in pursuit of one goal. All these little warring groups each possessed unique ideas on how to run the government and could hardly agree on anything. Germany was united because one strong man, Bismarck, worked very hard to achieve his goal of unification. Scotland has had many heroes who came to power and united all the people. Heroes like William Wallace, Robert the Bruce, and Kennith MacAlpen all are heroes simply because they worked very hard to get approval from most of the clans to united against the English (the English were constantly occupying Scottish lands or claiming Scotland as part of their own crown). The Scots really lacked a constantly strong leader who was not captured or killed too quickly to be of real use. William Wallace and Robert the Bruce succeeded at unifying the Scots, but they did not have any more strong rulers and Scotland's old plights between the clans came up again and the poor Scots would never have a true, independent nation. Scotland would later become part of the collective United Kingdom in the Act of Union in 1707.

I believe nationalism is a strong unifying force, but as i said earlier, is a term that's definition changed by scenario. Nationalism can stem from any commonly shared attribute of a group of people. That attribute can be a shared religion, common economic plight, or simply the fact that this group of people lives here. Nationalism could be reinvented to be a term as I would like to call "worldism." I am not saying that we should lose all sense of who we are in our national identity, but that we as people of the earth should come to see ourselves as one race. If every person on Earth thought not of themselves as distinctly "American" or "Korean" or "Iranian" but as "Earthlings" then I believe many social problems would be much simpler. To illustrate: a person's next door neighbor, who is a friend, is not likely to want to get in a feud with his neighbor with whom he is friends with. In that same sense if the people of the world would stop labeling themselves as "America" or what not, then people would see other people simply as another person just like himself with the same problems and worries as he has. People don't have to change clothing or what they eat, but simply look at the other person for what they are and not about which flag they stand under. Nationalism has united in countries which consist of millions of people, but if all 6.1 billion of us could see ourselves as "humans" more than "British" or "French," then I would believe we could cooperate more in a globally peaceful way.