Nationalism as a form of central unity of a nation state
Since the formation of states, people have had the need to seek a way of unity either through religion, common origin, shared beliefs or other reasons that make them feel that they belong to the same territory, forming the feeling of nationalism, but there are cases in which, although the requirements to form a nationalist feeling are met, countries are more regionalist, even cry for independence.
Before entering the subject more, it is pertinent to develop the concept of nationalism, which, as Ernets Gellner defines it, nationalism is defined from the universal and necessary principle of exclusive identification between social organization, culture and state.
For this author, nationalism is of historical origin related to the socio -economic, cultural and political factors, which with the outbreak of the modern era and all the advances it brought with Sigo, the beliefs, myths, legends and the hierarchical order developed in a waylinear from top to bottom, they contributed to form a feeling in common.
In the American case, historical construction has forged the common feeling. This case is very particular because its construction of a nation and the way they forged their nationalist feeling is very interesting, since in principle they were not conceived as a country, not even as a nation, but as a meeting of independent confederate statesthat fought for the same cause.
While nationalism within this country began to emerge within the 18th century together with European nationalist movements, they differ widely since Europeans sought common features such as religion, historical presence, even took colonialism as a way of nationalism, in the United States, he did not want to be linked to his independence past as British colony, therefore, they did not act in the same way.
The independence of the United States meant, for many, the separation of a group of British colonies and therefore, they did not want to identify themselves as descendants of British, but shared the history of their war of independence, so, although they were colonies that were self-governing, they shared a constitution that united them and from there began to forge a feeling that has been increasing over the years, be extremely – like Trump’s anti -immigration policy, or the "native Americans" that means "recover"The Nativity prohibiting migration or taking the right to vote to the citizens of different origins such as Afros or Latinos- or more passively, such as feeling proud to belong to the army of their country and small acts that people consider to claim theirplace in the national territory.
It is interesting and paradoxical to analyze as the United States, being a country with a particular construction from the historical point of view, it is in turn the country with the most entrenched and strengthened nationalist feeling around the world. But beyond all common history or cultures in common, there are territories that present strong disputes due to the lack of a nationalist feeling. Being the best known case I have interesting Spain, a country that has not been able to consolidate its national unit and therefore, it is not a nationalist country.
Experts classify the Spanish case as "the curse of Spain", since it is a country known for its little unit and one of the few where the inhabitants have a bad image of themselves. During the 18th century a movement called ‘Spanish nationalism’ began to take force, which sought to give Spain a national unity, which moved social, political and even economic aspects, but in the end this movement ended up failing. The question that arises is why.
In a country that has independent elections that does not even manage to agree to establish a language- depending on the community or province, they decide what the language is although the national is Spanish- and where autonomous claims have a very large political force,the political is complicated.
In Spain, the Autonomous Communities such as the Basque Country, Catalonia, the Canary Islands, Navarra or Galicia demand their independence, since they consider that they are subject to an empire that they reject and the other communities or provinces have a more provincial feeling that nationalist is very difficult to establishMarcos in common, since, despite what history tells us, in Spain communities are identified as small states under an empire that they flatly reject.
The Spanish case is particular especially since the Spaniards themselves are not considered as such, but depending on the region they perceive themselves as Catalans, Basques, Andalusian, Murcians and thus. And xenophobia between inhabitants of the communities reaches astronomical levels. But why does this occur? Experts agree on a failed- or lack of nation project and also the lack of a national and supranational plan to consolidate a nation as such.
The Spain and the United States case show two faces of how beliefs are consolidated and how a feeling of a nation is formed and also teaches us that it does not matter to have a common growth to form a feeling of the nation among its inhabitants. Likewise, if you start from nationalism as something that gives rise to the construction of a stable and lasting nation, with strong relations it would be necessary to think about firm policies regarding the nation and the population to have merits of effective governance, without riskthat the nation goes to the ruins.
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