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Friday, 30 April 2010

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Developing Sri Lanka; Sense of Nationalism

As much as the sense of 'self' is required for a person to survive, a sense of nationalism is a pre requisite for a nation's survival and its way forward. A man's personality is what the outsiders will identify him with and similarly nations have their own identities in the world community. Just as a man's image in the society is the collectivity of his personal attributes, a nation's image in the modern world community depends on that nation's collective strength in economic, social and military matters.

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Nationalism can also be compared to the brand or the reputation of a company. The reputation of a company depends on the quality of goods or services that company produce and that in turn decides the identity and living standards of those who comprise the company, the shareholder, the employee etc.

It is a symbiotic relationship. Hence, in whichever way we describe nationalism, it is the collective identity of a mass of people bound together by reason of language, culture or geography to ensure their protection, well-being, and the way forward.

Collective functions

The Government of a country is also expected to perform collective functions, in that it undertakes the functions in a country that the individuals cannot perform on their own. Then, is nationalism the Government or the State? State, no doubt is a part of a nation but the scope of nationalism stretches beyond the functions of a mere State. For instance, when I was lost in Japan looking for a particular bank, a Japanese man went out of his way to be helpful and took me in his vehicle to that bank that I was looking for, a few roads a way.

Now that act has nothing to do with the functions of the Japanese State but has everything to do with the image of the Japanese nation. Nationalism therefore is born out of a person's own patriotism towards his own nationality because your nationality should be a source of pride to you, whether you travel abroad, do business abroad or whatever dealings you have with the outside world.

In practical terms, the rise of Japan as an economic giant in the modern world was a corollary of the standards Japanese export goods were able to build up in international markets. Then, in order to build up those standards, every Japanese had to work selflessly with the firm belief that 'sacrifices and dedications today will bring benefits to the whole Japanese nation tomorrow'.

Similarly, even though Japan is the most tangible examples of 'from devastation to development' in the post Second World War period, all the nations that have progressed during the past few decades have used nationalist patriotism among its people to achieve those heights. It is the realization in every citizen of the country that his own development is inextricably linked to the development of his country.

Ex-colonial masters

In ex-colonies like Sri Lanka, nationalist thinking has been on the wane because for years we have been accustomed to be dependent on ex-colonial masters for our economy, language and education. Hence the 'exploitation by mental submission' continued. The recent victory over terrorism could be a turning point for Sri Lanka to re-group its thinking and resources to charter a more nationalist course for the benefit of the country and its citizens.

Nationalism should not be mistakenly believed as a concept that restricts the achievements of a country to what is within it. Again as in the case of Japan, you could borrow or even plagiarized more advanced nations but what is important is that those have to be adopted to suit your own national course.

However there is a school of thought that advocates that nationalism is a 19th Century phenomena that developed after de-colonization. This may be so with regard to countries like India and West Indies that were born out of colonization and slave trade respectively, but a great many of the world nations had been always conscious and have enjoyed proprietorship of nationalism.

To believe that nationalism is a result of de-colonization would be as mythical as believing that civilization is a result of colonization. It may be that nationalism as a means of interacting with nations became more common as a result of the world graduating from physical wars to political and trade wars.

Another factor is that when the two world powers tried to dominate the world through their 'globalization' and 'world proletariat' notions, the nationalism of small states became an irritant and hence this propaganda against such resistance.

Adverse consequences

Even today the advanced nations, inspite of the fact that they brandish their nationality in about everything they do, look down upon the nationalism of less powerful States. There is a deliberate move to give a bad taste to nationalism as if it is a form of extremism identified with despots such as Hitler and Mussolini.

It is a fact that Hitler's Nazism was 'national socialism' and Fascism means nationalism in Italy, but yet they are just two instances where nationalism was abused by pushing it in to an 'ultra' state. Excessive use of anything, even science, could bring adverse consequences. In order to denigrate nationalism some also use catch phrases like, "nationalism is the last refuge of a scoundrel". But such sayings describe the scoundrel and not nationalism.

Mahatma Gandhi said of Indian Nationalism, "Our nationalism is a requirement to prevent us from being exploited and it is no peril to other nations as we will exploit none." It is with such pronouncements that Gandhi made India into a nation practically out of dust.

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