Importance of National Identity
Miscellanea / / August 08, 2023
For administrative reasons there are stateless people. For sentimental reasons, there are individuals who feel they are citizens of the world and who claim to be cosmopolitans. Apart from these exceptions, the vast majority of people identify with their homeland.
What does national identity mean?
There is no definitive answer that explains this matter. We could affirm that it is a mixture of feelings, values and traditions cultural.
On an emotional level, we feel part of a people when certain events occur: listening to the national anthem, raising the flag in an act patriotic, when we miss our nation because we are far from it or when we are filled with pride with the victory of the athletes of our country.
People from the same place can have discrepancies of all kinds and, despite this, they share a way of understanding life. Each people or nation is made up of men and women who collectively agree on a series of values, ideas and beliefs. It is logical that this is the case, since they all speak the same language, know the same history and have very similar collective experiences.
Cultural traditions play an important role in the training of national identity. If a popular festival has been taking place for centuries, it is reasonable that said celebration become a collective feeling.
The most important aspect of this term is that the person has a sense of belonging and feels fully identified with the imprint and qualities that this particular social group when it comes to perceiving the world that surrounds us, developing or spreading its national culture from generation to generation.
a complex matter
Can we have two collective identities? Yes, totally. There are people who feel Catalan and Spanish, Buenos Aires and Argentina, from the Nandi tribe and Kenyan, Londoner and British, etc.
Is it possible to be from a country and at the same time not feel identified with it? Yes, totally. There are Basques who profoundly reject everything Spanish, Texans who want their state to be independent from the United States and Italians from the north who see those from the south as if they were from a people distinct.
Does it make sense to feel nowhere? Yes, it makes sense. For some people the national symbols (flag, anthem...) do not mean anything important, because they feel part of a global project, humanity.
From love of country to nationalist fanaticism
It seems reasonable that one feels sympathy and attachment to his homeland and everything he represents. However, in some cases the intense love for the country is accompanied by other feelings: hatred to foreigners, contempt for everything that comes from outside or racial, moral or cultural.
The radical and exaggerated defense of a national identity can lead to fanatical attitudes contrary to good coexistence.
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