Nationalism and Colonialism (Essay Sample)

Commonality between Nationalism and Colonialism
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Nationalism is a socio political philosophy whereby the nation’s or state’s welfare as an entity is regarded paramount. It is essentially a collective consciousness or mind state in which people have the belief that their primary loyalty and duty is to the state. In most cases, nationalism glorifies different virtues of the nation as well as implying superiority of the nation. In nationalism, the love for the nation is likely to be overemphasized. Though a recent move that probably started during the French Revolution, nationalism has been instrumental in the formation of the bonds that keep modern states intact. Nowadays, the ideology of nationalism operates along legal structures and adds up to the formal institutions in the society, thus, providing order and cohesiveness required for a modern state to exist. On the other hand, colonialism is an ideological, economic and political subjugation of nations that are poorly developed either economically or socially, by the rulers of the exploiter nations. As such, there exists a similarity between nationalism and colonialism. This similarity is therefore thoroughly investigated in this paper. Additionally, an account for the commonality is also given.
To begin with both ideologies are intrinsically different and therefore the difference lies in the end. In justification for this claim, nationalism portrays positivity, the love of one’s country until the individual is ready to sacrifice for the welfare of the country. On the other hand, colonialism refers to a situation where the country is under the control of external rulers. Either way, there is the overall ruler to whom all the other parties are answerable CITATION Loo05 \l 1033 (Loomba 2005). In both cases, the will of the ruler is accomplished. While the people in a country where nationalism is adopted do the will of their ruler willingly out of love, the colonized people still do the will of the ruler though they are coerced. To understand this better a comprehensive review of each ideology is resourceful.[Loomba, Ania. 2005. Colonialism/Postcolonialism. London: Routledge.]
Starting with nationalism, the creation and spread of the ideology throughout the land is very essential in explaining the similarity. Firstly, the origins of nationalism were found in the activities of bilingual intelligentsias. Having access to the modern culture of the west in a broader sense particularly with nationalism, nation-state and nation-ness which were produced in other places during the nineteenth century. In Africa for instance, nationalism figures such as Julius Nyerere of Tanzania and Nkrumah of Ghana spoke their colonial masters’ language, having lived in North America and Europe CITATION Ire01 \l 1033 (Irele 2001). The indigenous intelligentsia forged a consciousness of nationalist drawn from experiences and knowledge gained. They were denied positions of authority by the colonial masters and ended up becoming spokesmen for nationalism, which was anti-colonial. From this example it would not be in any contradiction to conclude that both nationalism and colonialism were made, shaped and propagated by the intellectual and political history of the Europeans. In this case, nationalism is reduced into a derivative discourse that is essentially dependent upon the language and models that were obtained from colonial masters. Partha Chatterjee, while challenging the conception of nationalism as a derivative discourse seeks to know if the nationalists in other parts of the world have to select their imaginary community from some modular forms given by the Americans and Europeans, what is then left for them to imagineCITATION Who04 \l 1033 (Chatterjee 2004). From this illustration it is noticeable that both nationalism and colonialism propagated by the Europeans are both oppressive and cause misery to the subjects directly and indirectly. As Chatterjee continues to denote, when either nationalism or colonialism are in use even the imaginations of the subjects remain colonized forever.[Chatterjee, Partha. 2004. "Whose Imagined Community?" In Internationalising Cultural Studies:an Anthology,Internationalising Cultural Studies:an Antholog, by Ackbar Abbas, John Nguyet Erni and Wimal Dissanayke, 19-23. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.]
So far it can be observed that nationalism is more or less the same as colonialism, the only difference is the fact that it is modern and the colonial masters are not present on the grounds like the colonialism of the past. However, the systems, ideologies, imaginations and forms of government applied in the countries that have upheld nationalism resemble the ones used in the colonial times. This is not nationalism as it is meant to be, but colonialism disguised in the name of nationalism CITATION Loo05 \l 1033 (Loomba 2005). In actual fact, some of the people in the countries once colonized, deny the fact that they have anti-colonial nationalism, since it focuses on a given identity and not derivation, rather on the disparities between African/Asian and western identities. Therefore, to understand nationalism, there is need to look at the ways in which colonial difference was challenged and maintained instead of only focusing on the concepts borrowed from colonial powers.[Irele, Abiola. 2001. The African Imagination: Literature in Africa & the Black Diaspora. Oxford: Oxford University Press.]
Drawing a difference between nationalism mirrored as a cultural concept and the same as a political drive, is critical to achieve the desired understanding. While nationalism in the view of political movement pursues to challenge the state of colonialism, nationalism in cultural concept enables the subjects who are colonized to create a personal space that is autonomous. In the second process, nationalism functions in a manner that fashions a modern development that is not Western. In this case, nationalism declared sovereignty over some issues like popular culture, schooling, art, novels, religion and language CITATION Who04 \l 1033 (Chatterjee 2004). On the other hand nationalism in the reflection of a political drive fights relentlessly to remove the marks of the differences of colonialism. Colonial state powers, were premised on the idea of preservation of the separation of the group that was ruling. By affirming superiority, colonial masters could legitimize their deeds. This was followed by a couple of forms that race marked a palpable selection in many of the nations. It was also used to draw the difference of the people who could take part in forming the government and those who could join the civil society. In the same way, language was at times used as a tool to help make decisions on who were allowed the freedom to speak. Nationalism also sought to under look colonial difference by illustrating the inherent impracticality of reconciling modern regimes of authority which were constructed by colonialists and the conditions of the colonial rule. The regimes of modern power were grounded on the justification that power would be made more humane, more effective and productive by making the social regulations a self-disciplinary aspect of normalized persons. Accepting the notion, nationalists argued that colonial rule was not in the operation of imposing new state institutions upon the indigenous society, rather it was violating and restricting the actual principles of a modern form of government.[BIBLIOGRAPHY Thomas , Martin. 2005. The French Empire Between the Wars: Imperialism, Politics and Society. Manchester: Manchester University Press.]
The relationship between colonial difference and nationalism, is very resourceful even to date. It helps in the understanding and recognition of the key similarities between post-colonial nationalist states and the colonial ones, in relation to the techniques of rule, as well as the centrality of gender and rule. Gender is central in both nationalism and colonialism ideologies in the sense that women were often used as the vehicles to maintain spiritual and cultural purity. The centrality of rule is evident in both ideologies in the sense that the systems of rule used in both were similar. In actual fact, nationalism had borrowed a good number of its techniques from colonial rule.
The commonality between nationalism and colonialism can be accounted for by a number of reasons. First, the two ideologies were propagated by the Europeans. This implies that the systems of rule applied in colo...