Nationalism: Cohesive or Divisive?

Although nationalism can associate images of people getting together and being cohesive to emphasis the greatness of their country, I think nationalism is more divisive than it is cohesive. Some factors that prove nationalism is divisive are: how nationalism can provoke xenophobia in the citizen, and how jingoism is born from it. A factor that shows nationalism is more cohesive is how it supports the economy.

Xenophobia, or the fear of outsiders and strangers, supports how nationalism can be divisive because the nationalists start avoiding the outsiders and the strangers that aren’t from their country or are not for their country. An example could be how the Nazi hated Jews and the Gypsies. Because of their hate, even the Jews and Gypsies avoided them, which led to greater division. In this way, xenophobia is a major factor that causes nationalism to become divisive.

Jingoism is the idea that your country can do no wrong and that whatever is a benefit for your country is something right. This belief itself isn’t bad, but when it leads to things like terrorism, nationalism starts becoming divisive. An example would be when Spain attacked America for god, glory and gold. The Al-Qaeda can also be something like jingoism, but Al-Qaeda is more for their religion.

On the other hand, nationalism can be cohesive because it supports the economy. An example of this would be the nationalists of Kenya rebelling against the British rule. The British were using Kenya so that they can benefit themselves. All the nationalists united and were able to kick the British out. From this, some of the economic problems in Kenya recovered.

Nationalism can be both divisive and cohesive. I believe that nationalism is more divisive because it brings about xenophobia and jingoism. On the other hand, it could be cohesive because it supports the economy. Therefore I believed that the divisive characteristics were stronger than the cohesive characteristics, but other people may disagree.