Nationalism in the 21st Century
Nationalism is a fascinating concept that has reached global scale importance in a very short span of time compared to any other idea or ideology that took centuries to take deep roots in the hearts and minds of people and not just the ruling class.
The idea of nationalism is fairly new to humanity considering that we have been roaming on planet earth for thousands of years and proper nations became a common thing only in the past few centuries. The nation building processes are almost complete as of today with a few exceptions depending on the way you look at them. (It’s purely subjective, at least according to me.)
In the last few years, we have witnessed a lot of countries adopting many protectionist policies and conservative governments coming into power. The trend of putting the needs of the nation over the world did gain a lot of traction like in the case of the United States of America which has been the forerunner in global politics, suddenly withdrawing itself from various international commitments and institutions including the WHO instead of trying to address the issues and overcoming them. When a world leader like the USA starts boasting of its America First Policy, it’s only a matter of time before the other countries start following the trend. The concept of neo-nationalism has become popular in Europe as well. A sense of strong nationhood is definitely one of the reasons for Britain’s exit from the Eurozone.
The strong nationalistic feeling and its effect on different policies can be seen in different spheres of decision-making by various nations.
The world being a global village is a concept that has become a thing of the recent past. We can see that WTO is steadily losing its relevance owing to various bilateral and multilateral treaties that are signed between countries without honoring its existence. This is mainly because of the intention of the national leaders to protect the farmers and industries of their country. Nowadays, not many countries are willing to sign free trade agreements. We recently saw how India didn’t join the REC with its Asian counterparts so as to protect its local producers and manufacturers.
Moving on from trade, looking at the interaction between people inhabiting the border regions between countries. More often than not, there is not much meaningful interaction between them. Borders are heavily patrolled by armed forces and we often hear about skirmishes that take place there.
Putting nationalistic feelings in front of everything also hinders the countries from providing asylum to refugees who are ousted forcefully from their homeland. Not all nations are accepting refugees. We have seen instances of leaders trying to construct walls in order to stop the influx of people whose lives are in some form of danger. These are nothing but pure acts of selfishness that arise from strong nationalistic feelings.
The support provided by powerful nations to combat terrorism in various parts of the world is also decreasing- for instance the US is in the final stages of pulling its troops from Afghanistan and we can already see an increase in violence in the terrorism-affected country.
A lot of nations are leaving the Belt and Road Initiative of China that attempts to connect many countries by constructing an efficient trade route between them.
All these are a direct result of rising of nationalism in different parts of the world.
This was only aggravated by the onset of the COVID 19 Pandemic. The closing of borders of different nations didn’t do any good to improve the human-to-human interactions between citizens of different countries. Instead, it resulted in many governments including India opting for a more self-sufficient, self-reliant economic and social model for their future course of development.
Before deciding on the importance and relevance of the concept of nationalism today, it is imperative that we understand what accelerated the nation-building process in the first place. Going back to a time when the basis for the organization of people was religion rather than nation. After the fall of the Byzantine empire, the Arabs started dominating the globe. Renaissance took place in Europe and kings started looking for colonies to occupy. And within two to three centuries, almost all parts of the world had become colonies of a few European powers. Unable to tolerate the heavy oppression of their masters, the colonies started to revolt- And one way of gathering mass support was to invoke the feeling of togetherness and remind people of their shared past. All these were encompassed into a feeling of togetherness called nationalism. Nationalism united people like nothing else had ever done. It brought people from different races, castes, religions, and languages together in a common fight against their oppressors and guided the people towards a common goal of development and happiness. Nationalism was able to break all the barriers in a society that was present for hundreds of years. So we can say that nationalism was very important during that time because almost the entire world was trying to become independent.
The new and young nations that were formed had to protect their budding economy from the already industrialised nations. So protectionism was encouraged and almost all the countries have made significant advances in the past century with a few exceptions.
The 21st century has seen various technological and social advancements that have knit the entire world together in ways that we had never imagined in the past. This has also created new challenges like combating global warming, reducing pollution, solving advanced medical problems, exploring the universe, and so on that demand collaboration between different people that transcends national boundaries. A few examples of such a grand coalition of nations are the ITER project, the International Space Station, and the United Nations that work relentlessly to harness the combined power of humanity to achieve various ambitious targets. In the wake of such social and technological advancements, it definitely looks regressive to put forward the feeling of nationalism and waste the enormous human potential that is available to us. This not only deprives us of the developments that we can achieve but can also push the world to another world war if things are not managed properly and we have already seen glimpses of escalation of tensions between nations in the present times.
It is very disheartening to know that world countries are unable to arrive at a consensus on wavering the IPR for COVID 19 vaccines. Protectionism has risen to such an extent that the leaders are putting economic interests over people’s lives. When such decisions come from nations like Germany, which is a leader of the European Union, a setup that brings nations together, the hope for a common human future only goes farther and farther.
But rays of hope are definitely visible on seeing how the countries are trying to help each other in their own ways even in such times when they are supposed to look after just themselves. We, humans, have walked past the levels of being alone, then as families, tribes, communities, empires and now we identify ourselves with our countries. It’s only a matter of time before we start identifying ourselves as one without any physical or mental barriers and have a shared responsibility towards each other regardless of where we come from.
