The dangers of nationalism

NATIONALISM, born out of tribalism, can take many forms, as in 1914-18 when millions died for King and Country, faithful to George or to his distant relatives, Kaiser Wilhelm or Czar Nicolas, for no good reason which anybody can even recognise today.

Nationalism is built upon the strong emotion of “belonging”, which, like all emotions, is unreliable without intelligent thought, because it leads in very different directions.

The conformist citizen whose mind has never developed beyond the loyalties of childhood, to search for ethical principles, still decides his understanding of right and wrong on a basis of nationalism, that UK and US bombs dropped on Syria are good bombs, but Russian ones are wicked ones.

Such primitive prejudices damage one’s ability to think clearly.

Patriotism is a pride which is firmly based upon the ethical standards of one’s country, such as Norway or Sweden, acknowledged and admired across the world.

But nationalism can drag a nation in the opposite direction, towards hostility, xenophobia, aggression, fascism and eventually racism, which is even more damaging to the minds of those who think like that, than it is to the lives of its victims.

Isolationism is a very dangerous political policy, deliberately to reject the civilised, values of 27 other nations who share a vision, and then choose to be a lone, right-wing bastion of prejudice against the rest of the planet.