blatham wrote:I'm afraid I don't really see a significant difference between the meanings of 'patriotism' and 'nationalism', given that patriots unconnected to any state are a tad difficult to find.
Well, I've heard of "local patriotism" ...
Also, what "nationalism" is depends on what a "nation" is (here we go
.
Lesson one on nationalism is always on the distinction between "the political nation" (prototype France) and the "cultural/ethnic nation" (prototype Germany). The political nation encompasses all citizens of a state, the Kulturnation or ethnic nation all members of a people.
What makes "a people"? Heh - chicken and egg quickly become apparent, don't they? All citizens of France make the French people, but (historically, not to slight recent developments), 'the German people' meant those of German ethnic background, regardless of what country they lived in.
(How do you define 'ethnic background' - eh - some other time, perhaps).
Historical background - correct me, anyone, if I make some glaring mistake: in France, the concept of "the people" claiming (back) "their country" stems from emerging resistance to absolutist rule ... absolutist rule that was exercised on the exclusive logic of the monarch as ruler of his territorial posessions, his subjects all those who lived there, with no identity questions involved. To bolster organised "popular" resistance against such rule, you need a concept of "the people" first - i.e., "the French". First there was the state - then the formulation of the people living within that state as "the people".
(Likewise, in Holland, the "patriots" had a bloody conflict with the Dutch king, demanding, as they did, (a form of) democracy for "the Dutch people". Unfortunately for them, the Dutch people in majority sided with "their" monarch, in what was perhaps also an example of patriotism vs nationalism).
With the second generation of nationalism, Germany being the example in question, 't was the other way round. (Well, Blatham knows all this, I'm sure). Present-day Germany back then being a quilt of fiefdoms of local nobility, the notion of a German people was developed before there was anything like a state it referred to. German nationalists thus had to formulate "the German people" on the basis of other criteria - shared language, culture ... shared myth of common descendency, basically - and the German state was shaped around who had been identified as "German", subsequently.
Only logical, thus, that the French notion is based on inclusiveness - all those within the state are French - and the German notion on exclusiveness - the state is for those defined as German. Until last decade practical consequences were obvious: everyone born in France automatically got French citizenship, while in Germany it was practically impossible for even second-generation immigrants to acquire citizenship. (Lately the two have been moving towards each other's example).
But it was also the other way round. Pre-multiculturalism, the political nation accepted no cultural diversity: you were born French, you were to
be French - and the public schools would drill you to be so. In America, the melting pot: everyone had (in theory) to end up 'the same' so as to keep the cohesiveness of the political nation feasible. In Eastern Europe (generalising), they wouldnt even try: if your parents are Turks, you can never be Bulgarian.
The resulting violence was of a different kind. In France, cultural-linguistic minorities within the borders were (forcibly) assimilated. Though E-Europe, for sure, has had its scores of assimilation campaigns, too, the main bloody pattern of the 20th century there was that of successive wars to make the state borders 'fit' the ethnic patterns - and of collective deportations (or worse) of those who still ended up on the wrong side of the border.
Anyway - patriotism vs nationalism, is what I wanted to say something about.
If patriotism is defined as love/loyalty to one's country and nationalism as love/loyalty to one's people (nation), the result is the same for France - or for America - where "country" and "nation" are each other's equivalent (political nations).
But not for Germany or East-European countries, where nations are defined ethnically, and nation-states have been wrought after the fact. Could one be a Yugoslav patriot? For sure, there were many of those. But a Yugoslav nationalist? Hmmm ... the idea of a "Yugoslav nation" was tried out by some intellectuals/politicians early last century, but didnt really catch on. Same story (to a lesser extent) with Czechoslovakia.
Can a Turkish-German be a German patriot? Possibly, if he is loyal to the German, rather than Turkish state. But can a Turkish-German be a German nationalist? Hmmmmmm ... hardly - after all, he's not German, is what German nationalists would say. Can you be a German nationalist if you're a German living in Romania, or, say Czechoslovakia? The 1930s proved you could be. But can you be a German patriot if you're a citizen of Romania? Complicated, no?
Of course, all this is just generalized, overall definition, of course. In day-to-day use, political use too, the terms are used/brandished much more through one-another, both here and there.
But with 20th century history in mind, loyalty to a country - a territory - would seem less threatening a form of collective imagination (since that's what it is) than loyalty to a people.
