I still wouldn’t support it and would probably pull my money from someone who is actively promoting it. Often this kind of sentiment is a soft pedaled version of more ugly policies, and I just don’t agree with it in the first place. I think nationalism is generally an ignorant position and the lesson of the 20th century should be that trying to maintain homogeneous states nearly always leads to genocide in the worst cases and apartheid states in the best of times. So this doesn’t assuage me much.
You are of course free to do what you want with your money! :)
Nationalism is about believing and wanting the concepts of nations/borders. And with that the analysis of the ethnicities within or outside those borders (by ethnicity I mean cultural not race), and that a nation should be a collection of people that work together to make that nation better. So blaming apartheid and genocide, is like blaming a hammer because it can be used to kill someone.
Perhaps, but one could argue it happens so often that the hammer lends itself to hammering this particular nail, and so often devolves into that. The Balkans are this experiment played out, attempting to carve out ethno states, and we’ve seen how that’s gone. Once you start saying things like “this country should only be (or primarily be) for X people”, you almost necessarily have to engage in some degree of genocide (in the wider sense of removing a people and culture that doesn’t fit the paradigm), or apartheid, otherwise the statement ends up a bit vacuous, no?
Israel is, in my view, a very clear example of this; once you’ve decided “this is a Jewish state”, anyone not Jewish by definition become second class citizens.
If we’re just talking general assimilation, that’s more nuanced… I don’t oppose calls for more assimilation, but I think governments have done a very poor job in using more stick than carrot. They tend to not put any effort in helping people integrate, which is, from experience, very difficult. One could argue it isn’t their responsibility, but I think such framings for state action is silly… either the state has an interest in a thing being done or it doesn’t, and in this case I think they very much do. Most immigrants that form insular communities do so not out of any inherent pull to, but because they’re already being somewhat ostracized. In the US, Chinatowns arose as a direct result of ostracization and discrimination.
I do think there is a danger of assimilation programs overzealously wiping out culture… the Sami have faced multiple attempts in the past at trying to stamp out their culture, the US and Australia religiously forced the elimination of many native cultures in the name of assimilation. It is also a fine line to walk. But there is undoubtedly a state interest (and immigrant interest!) in assimilating into society.
I’d argue the binding culture that should be assimilated shouldn’t be things as fuzzy as ethnicity… the culture that binds should be the values of that nation. Which doesn’t really have anything to do with ethnicity.
I still wouldn’t support it and would probably pull my money from someone who is actively promoting it. Often this kind of sentiment is a soft pedaled version of more ugly policies, and I just don’t agree with it in the first place. I think nationalism is generally an ignorant position and the lesson of the 20th century should be that trying to maintain homogeneous states nearly always leads to genocide in the worst cases and apartheid states in the best of times. So this doesn’t assuage me much.
That said, extra context is always welcome.
You are of course free to do what you want with your money! :)
Nationalism is about believing and wanting the concepts of nations/borders. And with that the analysis of the ethnicities within or outside those borders (by ethnicity I mean cultural not race), and that a nation should be a collection of people that work together to make that nation better. So blaming apartheid and genocide, is like blaming a hammer because it can be used to kill someone.
Perhaps, but one could argue it happens so often that the hammer lends itself to hammering this particular nail, and so often devolves into that. The Balkans are this experiment played out, attempting to carve out ethno states, and we’ve seen how that’s gone. Once you start saying things like “this country should only be (or primarily be) for X people”, you almost necessarily have to engage in some degree of genocide (in the wider sense of removing a people and culture that doesn’t fit the paradigm), or apartheid, otherwise the statement ends up a bit vacuous, no?
Israel is, in my view, a very clear example of this; once you’ve decided “this is a Jewish state”, anyone not Jewish by definition become second class citizens.
If we’re just talking general assimilation, that’s more nuanced… I don’t oppose calls for more assimilation, but I think governments have done a very poor job in using more stick than carrot. They tend to not put any effort in helping people integrate, which is, from experience, very difficult. One could argue it isn’t their responsibility, but I think such framings for state action is silly… either the state has an interest in a thing being done or it doesn’t, and in this case I think they very much do. Most immigrants that form insular communities do so not out of any inherent pull to, but because they’re already being somewhat ostracized. In the US, Chinatowns arose as a direct result of ostracization and discrimination.
I do think there is a danger of assimilation programs overzealously wiping out culture… the Sami have faced multiple attempts in the past at trying to stamp out their culture, the US and Australia religiously forced the elimination of many native cultures in the name of assimilation. It is also a fine line to walk. But there is undoubtedly a state interest (and immigrant interest!) in assimilating into society.
I’d argue the binding culture that should be assimilated shouldn’t be things as fuzzy as ethnicity… the culture that binds should be the values of that nation. Which doesn’t really have anything to do with ethnicity.