TENSION BETWEEN PATRIOTISM AND NATIONALISM
My other country, the US, is in the opposite default state. Here, flags flutter everywhere, from houses to cars and clothes; the anthem is played at almost every high-school game, and most people not only stand for it but place their hands on their hearts. When pilots learn that a soldier is on their flight, they announce it to the cabin, which erupts in applause and cheering.
The post-nationalist anti-patriotism of West Germany was neither healthy nor sustainable. Too many Germans couldn’t maintain the rituals of national shame. In a psychological ricochet, some became susceptible to a new nationalism, which today manifests in the record popularity of a far-right and xenophobic political party called the Alternative for Germany, which polls around 20 per cent.
By contrast, the genuine patriotism of the US too easily becomes contaminated with a messianic exceptionalism that tempts Americans to ignore or gloss over the dark chapters in their history.
Even if the narrative of liberty dominates, the truth also includes mass enslavement, ethnic cleansing of indigenous peoples, and episodes of Otherization such as the Chinese Exclusion Act of the late 19th century and the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II – and of course the racism that many Americans of colour still encounter in everyday life.
A patriotic culture that is selectively and deliberately blind to reality can turn into nationalism, such as the White or Christian variants increasingly in vogue on the American right.
The tension between patriotism and nationalism is also playing out across much of the world. In Poland, a nationalist party has for years been stoking resentments at Brussels, Germany, Russia and LGBTQ+ people, but has now been replaced by a patriotic government that wants to make Poland inclusive and open again to the world.
In next-door Hungary, a hyper-nationalist prime minister, Viktor Orban, vilifies domestic Others while provoking neighbouring countries with maps of “Greater Hungary” that include chunks of Ukraine, Romania, Slovakia and Serbia. Nationalism is also on the rise from Turkey and India to China and beyond.
Owing to its global stature, though, the US is more likely than any other country to bend the arc of history. And here, voters in the primaries, and then in the general election, will incessantly hear both kinds of entreaty in the coming months, the nationalist and the patriotic.
Some candidates will pander to voters’ resentments. Others will appeal to ideals such as truth, civility and tolerance. Some will postulate American decline and promise renewed Greatness. Others will celebrate the greatness of America as it is. Some will demand loyalty to themselves and their group. Others will ask for loyalty to the republic and its constitution.
All will drape themselves in red, white and blue. But some will be nationalists, others patriots. And then, come November, just one of them will win.
Source: CNA
