History of the Word Nationalism and How Its Meaning Has Changed - Assignment Example

full Kenneth J. Tiller ENG 1010 - Nationalism (An extended definition) 24 November (word count = 2,067 of text only) Introduction English is a widely-used language in the world today, especially in the academe and in business by which people can communicate and understand each other. Globalization made the mastery of English language skills a requirement for success in many fields of endeavor. It is expected of people to have at least a minimum knowledge of the English language for them to get along with most other people in the world as English is the virtual lingua franca today. If a language like English is termed as a lingua franca, it means it is used as a bridge language by which two persons who are speaking entirely in two different languages can still understand each other. English in this instance is a third language used mostly in the conduct of trade and commerce, in the field of academe whereby scientists and educators can engage in constructive dialog and exchange vital information, and in the world of diplomacy in the realm of international relations between countries to promote peace and avoid conflicts. English as a language is of West German origins and many of its words are borrowed from other languages too such as from Dutch, Latin, and ancient Greek besides West German. Any language usually changes over time and English is no exception; it had changed usually from usage and so English words also change in meaning depending on the context of usage. A good example is the word “nationalism” which is derived from the English word of nation; nation means and refers to a group of people who share the same cultural and ethnic beliefs, values, practices, and customs. So whenever the word nationalism is used in the present time, it means a feeling of pride or patriotism of belonging to a certain ethnic group. Whenever this word is used, it is technically speaking a politcally-neutral word but changes in its usage. Discussion The word “nationalism” has a very ancient origin going back to the ancient people of Sumer at around 2500-2350 B.C.E. (before current era) when a king named Sargon united northern Mesopotamia with various tribes of Sumer (area between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in modern-day Iraq). He created a centralized government under a rule that at the same time distinguished the “true sons of Sumer” from foreigners who were not natives of Sumer (Kreis para. 2) and in effect caused a division between “us” and “them.” This was one of the earliest instances in recorded history that nationalism was used to inspire feelings of pride and belonging to a nation, in this sense to the united kingdom of Akkad (Grosby 1). Many other ancient cultures like the Egyptians and the Chinese also practiced nationalism as a way to inspire feelings of pride and to unite their own people against other peoples who were not considered as natives to their area and these foreigners were even called as the barbarians. In particular, the Chinese considered aliens as less than human beings who were uncouth. The ancient Hebrews at that time considered themselves as a separate nation (group of people) who shared the feeling of being Gods “chosen people” and hence also superior to all other nations. This use of the word was mainly in reference to its deeper meaning of belongingness and uniqueness as the group of people who was given the mandate to carry out Gods will and obey commandments. The Hebrews first appeared in Mesopotamia (ancient Near East of the Fertile Crescent) about 1900 B.C.E. and they developed their concept of nationalism as the result of their captivity and enslavement in Egypt. The idea of nationhood developed from the Hebrew soldiers who considered themselves the direct descendants of Abraham (who himself came from Sumer). A feeling of nationalism was fostered when these soldiers who called themselves as Israelites wanted to unite the divided twelve tribes into one nation as a special group of people with a sacred agreement with God called a covenant. The word “nationalism” as used in this ancient historical context had a real, positive connotation because it was used primarily to inspire a feeling of pride and distinction of being considered a member of a nation. Nationalism was intended to convey feelings of patriotism and loyalty; the Hebrews were the first people to use nationalism as a means to make people who belong to the same ethnic group as a person who had a common cultural history with the group and a sense of personhood with an acute awareness of historical time since their start as a nation that is distinct and separate from their neighbors and other nationalities. This sense of nationalism has even persisted to this day with some Jews (as descendants of the Hebrews) still continuing age-old practices and customs by refusing to adapt and assimilate. Throughoutt human history, people had always formed groups because man is social by nature and the groups had started as a family, kinship, then tribes, and then tribes were united to form a single nation. The word “nationalism” as used in the present context is fairly recent. It started as a word used to denote sameness among a group of people and started to be a word that inspired people to protect their own members but at the same time regard peoples of other nations with wariness and suspicion. It soon acquired a meaning of loyalty in the political sense when monarchies rose across Europe after the ancient Greek and the Roman empires collapsed. Persons who lived on the Hellenes were considered as pure Greeks and other peoples were merely foreigners or visitors to the Greek islands (archipelago). Nationalism as a political concept had a social implication. The ancient Greeks had divided their citizens who were of pure Greek blood, in upbringing, manners, language, and customs into first-class citizens; those who did not have pure Greek blood were considered as second-class citizens such as their slaves and those foreigners who had married into old Greek society. Nationalism was used as a political tool for control purposes as only true Greeks were allowed to vote. Nationalism as a word had acquired a negative denotation: to discriminate. Nationalism acquired a different meaning during the age of empire and colonialism. This was the period when Western countries such as England, France, the Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, and Germany conquered new territories in the New World (American continent), in Asia, and in Africa. When used in this era, it denotes a sense of superiority over other races as an early form of an overt racial discrimination. Only white people as the colonizers were considered as capable of being civilized, the rest of humanity were either noble savages or in many ways considered beneath the white race and good only as servants and slaves. It was a form of nationalism that was bigoted and an extreme form of patriotism (Oxford English Dictionary 1). English colonizers took pride in being English and fought the French for their colonial possessions, the Spanish fought the Portuguese, the Dutch against the Germans, etc. These colonial empires arose from the earlier era of strong centralized monarchies in Europe that were able to finance costly expeditions to find new territories across the globe. In turn, these monarchies arose from petty feudal states that were conquered and had been combined into larger political units that now had a common sense of identity in terms of language, economies, territory, and political thinking. These monarchies instilled in their own people a sense of common national identities but then only a few centuries later, these monarchies collapsed from change as people desired to be free from their own masters. Like the old Roman empire, the much newer Russian, Ottoman, English, Austrian, Frrench, and German empires during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries also went under due to the new political concepts of the French Revoluton which advocated for justice, equality, and brotherhood. Democracy as a political ideology came into being and with it went the idea of a nation as being closely associated with the people of a country. In this political meaning, nationalism was linked to ideas of democracy and the concept of popular will or the ability of people to form a government of their choosing or overthrow it if they do not like it. Nationalism in this era in Western civilization refers to the period prior to World War I such as the Scottish peoples aspirations to be free from British rule or the wish of Poland to be from Russian domination or to the German peoples to be free from French rule under their emperor Napoleon I. In other words, nationalism as a concept was confined to the Old World of Europe with the exception of America in the New World where nationalism acquired the very different concept of Manifest Destiny that convinced Americans to instead conquer and colonize other territories such as Mexico, Cuba, and the Philippines as a newly emerging big and strong nation with its vibrant economy and a strong expansionist military orientation. However, nationalism then acquired a different meaning altogether after the end of the Second World War when many of the aforementioned empires were dissolved after their initial defeat from the Axis Powers. World War II proved to the colonized peoples from Asia, Africa, and elsewhere these colonial Western powers were not invincible and can also be convinced to grant their colonies full independence. In this historical context, nationalism was meant to refer to these colonies who desired independence from their former colonial masters. Nationalism meant the advocacy for political independence and many former colonies sought to gain independence after World War II. The word at this period in history had a positive and constructive meaning because it was used to define the equality of peoples to be free. The word “nationalism” as used in the modern context has two different variants: the political nationalism exhibited by an individual in relation to his mental national space while the other is cultural nationalism that is by necessity embodied by that individual (Hutchinson 1543). Political nationalism can be separated from an individual if he changes his political and personal beliefs on certain issues while cultural nationalism is identified with that individual and cannot be separated because this is the very essence of that person in terms of his habits. Nationalism can be twisted to advance a political agenda of right-wing extremism. An example of nationalism gone bad was the Nativism Movement in America around the mid-nineteenth century because of massive immigration flows. The nativists demanded a favored status for themselves while opposing any new immigrants as a danger to the cultural nationalism of the original inhabitants who were descended from white settlers of the thirteen colonies. These nativists were afraid of dilution of their economic and political rights if these immigrants were granted full citizenship status by naturalization. This movement grew worse as the sense of fear and menace progressed into hatred and later on into violence (Higham 87). Two other examples of extreme nationalism was Nazi Germany (a feeling of superiority by its Aryan people) and fascist Italy under Mussolini. These ideologies were xenophobic. Conclusion Nationalism was orignally used as a positive political tool to unite people and rally them behind their king in ancient times. However, its definition had changed over the course of history. At various times, it denoted an extreme form of loyalty and feelings of superiority over other races and ethic groups. Nationalism had been used in harmful ways to dominate an ethnic minority such as during the Nativism Movement in America, Nazism in Germany, and fascism in Italy. Nationalism had a good connotation in the early decades after World War II as former colonies sought to gain full political independence from former colonial masters. The word “nationalism” has acquired a bad meaning in fairly recent times because it is used as a powerful political and ideological force in the modern world to attain questionable objectives like terrorism and genocide. Nationalism is closely associated with the idea of self-determination of a group of people as a distinct nation but it has been exploited resulting in a variant like religious fundamentalism to recruit members and promote terrorism. The breakup of the former Yugoslavia caused a genocidal civil war triggered by an extremist nationalism agenda like the genocide against the Jews and the Ottoman Armenians (Cooley 25). Works Cited Cooley, Kelly. Nationalism, Ethnic Conflict, and Genocide: A Sociological Analysis of the Factors Contributing to the Armenian Genocide and the Jewish Holocaust. Reno, NV, USA: University of Nevada (Reno), 1996. Print. Grosby, Steven. Nationalism: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2005. Print. Higham, John. Strangers in the Land: Patterns of American Nativism, 1860-1925. Piscataway, NJ, USA: Rutgers University Press, 2002. Print. Hutchinson, John. Nationalism: Critical Concepts in Political Science. London, UK: Taylor & Francis Group, 2000. Print. Kreis, Steven. “Lectures on Ancient and Medieval European History.” 02 July 2014. Web. 23 Nov. 2014. . Oxford English Dictionary. “Nationalism, n.” 2014. Web. 24 Nov. 2014. . (due on November 26, 2014 @ 10:50 a.m.) Read More