TEXT ANALYSIS

The Renaissance of Nationalism by Nuala C. Johnson.


   I have identified the following key words:


·        Imaginative Nationalism: It is the process of development of a national identity thought a
cultural, economic, folkloric, traditional, poetic… speech which is defunded by music, monuments,
media, etc.

·        Nationalism: Ideological and political movement that raise the nation as the unique
identity reference of this political community. It has two basic principles: the national
sovereignty where the nation is the unique legitimate base for the State and the nationality
principle, which says that each nation must have their own State and where the national borders
must coincide with the State ones.

·        Language planning: Process which is made up by a set of measures (standardization of
spelling, grammar…) to establish the dominance of one language in a given territorial space thought
the school and other means.

·        Homeland: It is the space where is built the national feeling, so it is also used to build
this feeling.

   The text explains how are created the national feelings through a nationalism process based in
the spreading of a community feeling according with several means as the language, the past or the
geographical space. So the author sums up all of it throught “imaginative nationalism” concept.

   To build all of it is used a lot of features within a process. The language is one of the tools
because it can give ideas of common identity, it has a link with the past and it is an important
communicative resource. So the language planning is fundamental in the identity development, thus
the existence of other language communities can generate separatist ideas as we can see in Canada
or Belgium. And it has also been important in to recover the identity in postcolonial countries,
recovering the local language.

   The spreading of a common historical past, materialized in persons, landscapes, buildings,
dates… has developed during XIX century (through the education system mainly) and XX century
(thought other tools as museums, buildings…) as a important point  to build up national identities.
We can see good examples in Scotland or United Kingdom. So, the nationalism toke up again the past
to represent its continuity, in this way take important place the monuments as symbolic figures,
events, persons (political leaders, writers, painters…) as we can see in the old Soviet Union, in
London (Trafalgar Square) or a lot of examples in USA about the wars (like monuments for the
Vietnam war). It has also been used for the separatist as a pillar of national fight.

   Another point to take in consideration is the role of the women in these issues. The women has
been a national symbol too many times (representing justice, equality… like in the French
revolution) or has taken an important role in the national construction as a revolutionary head.
Anyway, the national projects usually has forgotten this actions, putting the women role in a
secondary space.

   Finally he speaks about the territory as an important link with the national project,
introducing the concept of homeland.

   The text tries to find the things that are being usually used to the development of national
feeling. He said that there are a lot of important things which are standardized or recovered just
to put something in common to everybody into the same national space, with a common historic past.
So it is an explanation about putting pillars in the national projects, as a construction of
national identity, checking a lot of examples which explains this kind of behaviors.

   I think that during the whole history the identity feelings have existed, being developed
through different ways, according to each context. Anyway, the truly expand of national concept
began in XIX century, arriving until today but using, practically, the same tools to build this
national projects based in the language, in the past or even in economic issues.