The Inadequacy of Nationalism: A Call for Internationalism and Cooperation

The article critiques the inadequacy of nationalism by highlighting how the nation-state, initially seen as a cohesive and unifying structure, has devolved into a source of separatism, conflict, and economic imperialism. It argues that nationalism has fostered aggression and division among nations, undermining the ideals of self-governance and equality. The text advocates for internationalism as a more viable approach, emphasizing the need for cooperation, mutual trust, and the recognition of shared human interests over narrow nationalistic agendas. Ultimately, it suggests that a balanced integration of nationalism and internationalism, grounded in equality and cooperation, is essential for global harmony.

Inadequacy of nationalism:

The emergence of the nation-state was hailed as a landmark in the evolution of the State as it provided a structure for emotionally integrated people to live together in a cohesive society with shared values, interests, and purposes and the psychological satisfaction of common feelings, which made them a community of patriotic sentiments.

Many regarded the nation-state as

the ultimate unit in human organisation.

However, the nation-state soon after the start of its career degenerated and landed itself in the narrow alley of nationalism, which excessively favored an attitude of separatism, arrogance, and economic aggrandizement. Even race vanity and its Counterpart, race contempt, was intensified by the conflict of cultural and economic differences, and in this display, naked pride and political prestige surmounted the rest.

Fichte was responsible for a scheme of an international league to enforce peace, and nationhood was to him a manifestation of the primordial, divine, eternal, and absolute.

However, he felt that a nation could not dispense with arrogance. Even Mazzini attacked the cosmopolitans on the ground that it was impossible to love all without distinction of nationality. Some statesmen bluntly stated the extreme implications of nationalism.

While defending his Polish Policy, Von Bulow declared that in the struggle between nationalities, one nation is the hammer and the other the anvil; one is the victor and the other the vanquished. It is a law of life and development that when two civilizations meet, they fight for supremacy. When the nation is glorified, and the State idolized, the characteristic of such a State is vigor and force.

Tensions and conflicts mount, and disputes between States, real or imaginary, are decided by the arbitrament of war. There had been a regular succession of wars, major and. minor, since the birth of the nation. State, and there seems to be no end to such wars. Humanity is scared by past wars and is scared of new ones. In the nuclear age of our times, no country can afford to wait for the defense to ward off the probability of war and to win it if it comes. It is a contagion that ruthlessly spreads with disastrous results.

The nation-state is an exclusive State with two aspects. First, it means race superiority and supremacy. The race problem becomes aggravated in proportion to the conjecture of physiological and cultural differences, economic conditions, and political clashes.

On the economic side, the ideal of economic self-sufficiency combines with the exigencies of modern industry, its ever-present needs for raw supplies and markets, and sometimes cheap labor to prompt the annexation or control of territories inhabited by weaker peoples.

An old maxim is that the flag follows trade, and economic nationalism has its counterpart in economic imperialism. Extensive industry and high finance manipulate patriotic sentiments and enthusiasms and equate nationalism with imperialism.

At this point, nationalism merges itself into the broader questions of race, especially of color, and we come to the sliding scale of diplomatic language, hinterland, the sphere of interest, the sphere of influence, paramountcy, in the protectorate, veiled or open… lease, the rectification of frontier concession, etc.

The eighteenth and nineteenth centuries saw many wars between the imperial powers. It was estimated that about half the world’s population spread over more than half the surface of the earth had been under the suzerainty of the imperial powers. This phase in the history of the Colonial powers is more or less over now, but colonialism has taken a new form. There is a regular race between the “big” powers to establish and extend their spheres of influence, and the apparent victims are the underdeveloped and strategically important states. The most recent example of this political maneuvering is Afghanistan and Kuwait.

Internationalism:

The rationale of the nation-state was democratic as it joined nationality with the twin principles of self-government and equality. However, in Tagore’s words, nationality became one of the most potent anesthetics that man’s ingenuity has ever invented. Education often inculcates the type of patriotism that sanctifies an attitude of

my nation, right or wrong.

The feelings of patriotism so drummed into us from earnest childhood that it is only by a considerable intellectual effort that we can liberate ourselves from these forms of thought to which we have been molded. Such a patriotic fervor to which nationals of all States had been taught and trained did not usher in an era of peace, cordiality, mutual trust, goodwill, and cooperation in the family of nations.

On the other hand, the nation-state system is a dismal chronicle of national arrogance, aggression, chauvinism, expansionism, and all the worst that human nature can display. Accordingly, Hayes concludes that it is highly doubtful if the recasting of political geography on national lines has actually promoted either humanity or justice and whether nationalism is a reliable harbinger of a quieter and better world in the immediate future.

However, old ideas about the relations between races and nations have become anachronistic, and former notions of nationalism are breaking down in the atmosphere of contemporary civilization. Laski says that “the scale of modern civilization has made the national and sovereign State an institutional expedient of which the political unwisdom and moral danger are both manifest.

He categorically affirms that the notion of a sovereign independent State, on the international side, is fatal to the well-being of humanity. How a State should live about other States is not a matter to which the State is entitled to be the sole judge.

The everyday life of States is a matter of joint agreement between States.
Contemporary opinion in favor of internationalism is so strong that one may even say that if our forefathers thought nationally, we think internationally. Suggestions have also been made for a World State based on a world federation.

It is not implied that the tangles of centuries can be resolved so immediately. It is not given to any generation of men to write on a clean slate. The logic of history rules out the sudden dawn of internationalism. However, much leeway has been. made during the past seven decades or so. The rapid technological advancement in every country and the consequent economic growth and economy of plenty have removed the conflict’s root causes, which made nations so exclusive in spirit and aim.

The new means of transport and communication, the new industry, and the new commerce have made the world a single economic unit and produced a new economic homogeneity in the economic interests of all nations. In the seventeenth century, an English writer vigorously propounded the doctrine that a country could progress commercially only at the expense of another.

That is no longer true, and with general economic improvement, it will become the exact antithesis of the truth. Easy and frequent travel in all the countries has not only broken the barriers of distance but has also produced a better appreciation of the peoples, increased mutual understanding, and removed crude notions held so far by Western nations, particularly about the Asiatics and the Africans.

Internationalism is a way of life and pattern of behavior, and its prerequisite is to master the art of living together. Its rationale is the well-known dictum of Kant. So act to treat humanity, whether in your person or that of another, in any case, as an end and never merely as a means. If nations follow the voice of reason and eschew emotions, parochial loyalties, and narrow considerations ipso facto disappear, and an atmosphere of fellow feelings prevails that knows no territorial limits.

The brotherhood of man is the basis of internationalism. It rouses no passions and does not blur man’s vision to distort his notions. Reason is the just steward of man’s mind. Internationalism presupposes the existence of sovereign national states, and the voice of reason enjoins reconciling national interests with the more extensive interests of humanity with a just mind in an atmosphere of mutual trust and goodwill. Interdependence is the natural necessity of nations, and all are integral parts of one single human society, and their weal and woe are inseparably intertwined,

Laski has succinctly said that there are

no more extended lotus fields where men may linger careless of life about them. The world is one and indivisible in a sense so compelling that the only question before us is how we represent this unity.

The method of this unity and international solidarity is reflected in a vast network of inter-governmental bodies and a series of international organizations and voluntary international organizations established during the present century. Any problem that affects or is likely to affect the peace, security, and well-being of humanity is a matter of common concern, and all States must accept the decisions arrived at by the inter-governmental bodies and international conferences.

International conferences and agencies’ scope and subject matter have expanded so tremendously that virtually every topic is included in international treatment.

For example, discussions on the values of national currencies are frequent and a matter of vital common concern, as the rise or fall in the value of the currency of one State impacts the economy of other States, if not to the same extent, at least to a disturbing level of disequilibrium. Similarly, it is true of self-employment policies, health measures, educational policies, labor problems, population, protection of human rights, and many other problems.

A sovereign nation-state, however, remains the basic foundation of all international activity. Laski and many other eminent thinkers have assailed the moral validity of the doctrine that attributes sovereignty to the State and emphatically maintain that it will pass as the divine right of the kings had its day. But it seems highly doubtful that it will happen in the foreseeable future.

Sovereignty remains sovereignty, and no State is prepared to surrender it, not even the communist countries whose ideological base is a stateless society. Even the subject matter of International Law is sovereign States and membership in the United Nations is open only to them.

Accordingly, within the framework of the national State, sovereignty is to be interpreted restrictively to broaden the scope and obligatory nature of the decisions reached at international conferences. The obligatory character of the decisions made by majority votes in various organs of the United Nations goes counter to the principle of sovereignty and its orthodox tribute.

To sum up, the modern nation-state is a sovereign State, and it is with the four walls of this framework that nationalism is to be reconciled to internationalism. A revision of present-day political arrangements is the sine qua non of the emergence of nationalism free from intolerance and aggression. It has two dimensions.
Nationalism and internationalism are not antagonistic and exclusive, provided nationalism,

as Laski says,

is equated with right.

The right of every nation to be equal to others, to preserve and promote its individuality, and to ensure its security. With the corresponding obligation of recognizing the same rights as other nations and states. Thus, harmonizing and balancing diverse national interests in a spirit of mutual trust, cooperation, and goodwill. Secondly, the spirit of exclusiveness and aggrandizement, which has long characterized human relationships and the educational machinery in every nation-state used to inculcate, is out of tune with the present trends.

It must give way to political equality and cooperation among all the world’s peoples. If this can happen, it may be.

safely said with Zimmer that

the road to internationalism lies through nationalism.