Nationalism is imperialism

The argument

Nationalism, on this argument, is not simply attachment to a country but the exultation of one's own nation over all others. People praise their nation to the skies and ignore its flaws, arriving at the belief that it is inherently superior to every other. That belief is not inert. Once a nation is held to be superior in kind rather than merely different, the interests of other nations and groups become subordinate by definition, and there is no longer any principled reason to treat their claims as binding. This is what connects nationalism to imperialism abroad. A doctrine of inherent superiority supplies a standing justification for aggressive foreign policy — for seeking to dominate other nations and groups rather than negotiating with them as equals. Conquest ceases to require its own defence, because the superiority of the conquering nation has already been assumed. Nationalism, on this account, does not merely accompany imperialist conquest and domination; it is what makes them intelligible to the people who carry them out. The same logic then turns inward. A nation held to be singular cannot easily accommodate internal diversity, so difference within its borders is stamped out. People are pushed, and sometimes forced, to adopt an idealised national culture, and the cultures that do not fit the official model are destroyed in the process. The argument names this an act of internal colonisation, and the naming is deliberate: the relationship between the official culture and the minorities subjected to it reproduces the relationship between an empire and its colonies. Post-colonial nations illustrate the point, having themselves engaged in aggressive nationalism and the promotion of an official national culture at the expense of their minorities. Imperialism persists internally despite formal political independence. Because nationalism is imperialism in both directions, this argument concludes, nations mean coercion.

Context

While many anti-imperialists hoped to find liberty through national independence, others such as Rabindranath Tagore were critical of the idea of a nation, even if they supported independence. These thinkers observed that nationalism, which they believed went hand in hand with the nation, was often used to justify the imperialism they were fighting against. After decolonisation, thinkers who felt political independence had led to little actual change argued that this was because imperialism still persisted in the ways that the new nations acted and organised themselves.

Premises

Counter-arguments

Nationalism isn't always synonymous with nations. Writers such as George Orwell have attacked nationalism as aggressive and imperialistic while asserting the benefits of patriotism: love of one's country without wishing it to dominate all others. Others reject the view that nationalism is aggressive. Figures from Giuseppe Garibaldi to Benedict Anderson argue that nationalism is inherently opposed to imperialism as its fundamental principle is self-determination - people choose to be part of the nation. Attributing coercion in post-colonial nations to the legacies of imperialism strips local people of agency. It pretends they aren't responsible for their own actions, making them doomed to stay trapped in the past acting on the ideas of "the West".

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] Nationalism isn't synonymous with nations. [Rejecting P1] Nationalism is opposed to imperialism. [Rejecting P2] Not all coercion by post-colonial nations can be simply attributed to the legacies of imperialism.