Nothing wrong with nationalism as long as basic rights are honoured
Re: “Misplaced sense of nationalism”, Have Your Say, April 9.
The comments under this heading would suggest a misunderstanding of nationalism that would seem to be confused with baseless jingoism. Nationalism is patriotism, taking pride in a nation state, its achievements and individual culture. All people need something to identify with and of which they can justifiably be proud. As we see in Europe, people cannot identify with the European Union. They identify with their nation-state. This is becoming increasingly apparent as nation-states are being forced to accept multiculturalism. It is impracticable due to the inability and unwillingness to assimilate. But this does not prevent international co-operation between nation states.
The building block of peaceful human co-existence is individual liberty within individual democratic nation-states. Pluralism and feudalism destroy both. All people are different, as are all nations. The solution to social cohesion and inter-nation cohesion is national democracy, where fairness under the law and freedom of choice exist. Imposing any ideology on any people or any nation-state is totalitarianism. Any form of central control is fascism as is feudalism. That is why the now-defunct USSR failed and why the European Union will suffer a similar fate.
Nationalism is fine provided it is rooted in true, not pseudo-democracy. True democracies will not enter into conflict incited by the self-interest of megalomaniacs. This is why these contributors consider Thai nationalism misplaced. Thailand is not a democracy, as history and recent events show. The reason for this is the people have not been allowed to develop. True democracy has never been taught or practised. Political, self-interested individuals and cabals maintaining a feudal system have prevented Thais from contributing to world “culture, philosophy, science and technology”. Thais have been denied any legitimate right to intellectual property. All these assets from culture to technology have been imported at the expense of individual development. It’s an insult to the people’s intelligence and has distorted their sense of nationalism.
JC Wilcox
