Here in good ol’ Western Europe, for the last fifty years human rights organizations and anti-bigotry coalitions have advocated that nationalism is fascism, a view resulting from hindsight after WWII. As a result, this half of the continent is encouraged to unify and tries to emphasize cooperation instead of differences.
The reaction of the U.S. to the terrorist strikes, however, confuses some people here. The US is feeling a rebirth of patriotism, which to many people is precisely the sentiment that leads to bigotry and war.
So, the question is: is patriotism/nationalism truly a form of or forebear of fascism, and should it be condemned?
Patriotism and nationalism are not the same thing (in theory at least). Patriotism is a love for one’s country that does not necessarily include a hatred of or feelings of superiority towards other countries. When it turns nasty you get jingoism – the idea that not only is my country great, it’s unarguably superior to yours.
Nationalism is a political philosophy that promotes the idea of the nation as the ‘ideal’ political unit – i.e. self-government for people sharing some real or imagined history or culture.
Nationalism has taken on the negative connotations because the struggle for political independence seems so often to be a violent one, with terrorism a common feature. Similarly, when political leaders have tried to whip up popular support for their actions – particularly war – nationalism provides a handy appeal to emotion. Do it for the fatherland or motherland just sounds so much catchier.
Personally, I think nationalism has become a reactionary, negative force and deserves the reputation Hitler et al gave to it. Patriotism is a fine thing, so long as it doesn’t become jingoism and result in mindless bashing of other countries.
There’s nothing wrong with being patriotic provided your country is worth your adoration. Many Canadians I know are proud of their country and love it. I wouldn’t describe many Canadians are being fascist or evil.
The US has a long tradition of patriotism. It has led to such things as congressional committees on Un-American Activities, but never to fascism. Perhaps part of the reason is that American patriotism depends on associating the US with freedom, liberty, justice and such things, which are anathema to fascism.
My opinion is that the Europeans have learned the wrong lesson - WWII (in Europe - Japan is another story) was caused by transnational ideological movements - Communism and Aryanism (for lack of a better name), both of which appealed to people estranged from traditional nationalism (fifth columnists in France and Austria). Resistance to Hitler came from nationalists, in France, Britian, and even Germany (where nationalists eventually realized that Hitler did not care what happened to Germany itself - if he couldn’t achieve his transnational goals, he would not care if Germany was destroyed). Even in Russia, Stalin had to unleash Russian nationalism before Germany was effectively resisted (the USSR expanded as Communists, but defended as Russians). But that’s just my opinion.
Also, “nationalism”, in the perverted form bandied about by the fascists to achieve power, incorporated the element of totalitarianism: that the ‘nation’ is not just the ideal political unit, but that it is the unit of human existence, some sort of super-organism of which individuals are mere cells.
IOW, “nationalism” was ruined as a descriptor of ideology because fascists and terrorists insist in calling themselves “nationalists”.
(The other totalitarianism, communism, replaces the nation with “the revolution” or “the working class” or the idea of leninism (or maoism) in and of itself.)
And yes, Andy L, the component of Aryan Supremacist Cult took Nazism to a different league than the run-of-the-mill fascists in Italy, Spain, or the Balkans. But though that may have helped gather around the Quislings, most of the Nazis were quite sure of exactly which nationality of “Aryan” should be the one giving the orders – Pan-Germanic nationalism was deftly exploited in order to reach power.
While I won’t say that nationalism leads to fascism, it most certianly does lead to tyranny, which facsism is tyranny but tyranny is not necessarily fascism. As for the US freedoms being anathema to Fascism, the more we take away that’s one goosestep closer to fascism.