Today the quest for identity emerges as the main goal of the spiritual efforts of people throughout the world. Identification with a particular community of congenial individuals provides the basis for realizing the meaning of one’s life; it provides possibilities for personal spiritual development, as well as feelings of safety and security for the individual. The most lively and the broadly spread identification is that with a particular nation. At the time of a breakdown of traditional values national identity can serve psy-chically as a strong and sound basis for self discovery, for the realization of one’s spiritual desires, and for fulfilling one’s existence as a human beings. It is frame in which the members of a community share the same destiny -- good as well as poor; it provides a defence against real or imagined dangers and enemies.

At the end of the 20th century humanity is divided into nations. This would be a mere fact, did it not involve a complex of problems affecting directly or indirectly humanity as the whole. "Nation" is a concept used frequently and in many ways, in many contexts, and with many aims. It designates a particular group of people with some common features. As easy as it is to use that name in common speech, it is difficult to define. Nation is a multifaceted phenomenon with many components -- e.g. ethnic, cultural, political, territorial and economic -- which only in their complexity can give a valid concept of such a problematic social reality.

Though the concept is historically limited, nations often are considered eternal. Myths from their long history intertwine with new myths regarding a long future for the nation. The present and future history of a nation are connected closely with the idea of a nation state, which is the key element in nationalism.

Nationalism, as well as ‘nation,’ is a truly modern pheno-menon. It has not been decided yet which came first: what was the cause and what was the consequent. In fact these phenomena are so closely connected that they do not exist one without the other, they are like two sides the same coin.

Nationalism as an ideological doctrine presupposes that humanity is naturally divided into nations - actual or potential. Here nation represents a distinctive reality with specific features -- its own history (very often the older it is the less the history and the more the mythology), and future (often described as destiny). Parado-xically, the present time lived now is a step from a brave history to an idyllic, materially and spiritually prosperous future. The Golden Age is gone and the future must be fought for; the present is the time when people must struggle for the welfare of future generations and for the idea of the nation.

Nationalism is both strong and weak. On the one hand, it can raise and usually does evoke the best in men for the sake of the nation. It is an ideal cause which creates the peaks of a culture’s efforts in hard times. It causes upheavals for individuals and hence for the nation as whole.

National identity is a strong bond among people which fre-quently is used as well as misused by the ideology of nationalism. The identification of a person with a nation and its destiny can play a positive as well as a negative role. If one identifies with a nation one is able to reach the best in oneself and enrich the whole; at the same time one develops both oneself and the nation. A common slogan is that if the nation is strong and secure, rich in both the material and the spiritual spheres, all its members are strong and secure, rich materially and spiritually. Undoubtedly, this bright picture of one’s life is too attractive to be abandoned. But unfortunately, from the point of view of a citizen -- irrespective of his or her membership in any particular nation -- the slogan may be false: in a sound society the reverse order can avail. A person in a positive content which can enrich one’s life and the lives of one’s relatives and make them safe feels identified with the community, especially for future genera-tions.

On the other hand, the same nationalism which stresses the differences among nations and describes the potential or actual dan-gers from other nations evokes distress on the part of its members. A community led by such an idea of permanent threat to itself from outside builds high walls strictly defining boundaries between itself and its (potentionally) hostile neighbors, which naturally results in the isolation of that community. The usual method of extreme nationa-lism, used especially in times of deepening problems inside com-munity (which are a natural accompaniment to isolation), is a permanent search for an enemy, whether outer or inner without regard to which. An enemy threatens the security of a nation and ultimately all the hard learned gains in the every-day life of each of its members. The rhetoric of nationalism frequently uses the con-cepts of the freedom of a nation and of dangers which threaten it.

Often it is said that people can reach happiness, satisfaction, and fulfillment of their goals only if they identify with an endangered nation and sacrifice their lives for it. If accepted, this mobilizes people to give up their personal happiness for a common aim. It must be stressed that they are taught continually clearly or by suggestion, that no personal sacrifice is too much for the defence of common interests and that the way to freedom is difficult, but is the real goal of all national aspirations.

The freedom of a nation seems to be the most important and frequently used concept in the ideology of nationalism. It is the aim to be reached by people fighting for recognition as an independent, self-determining and fully-responsible community, the so-called nation. No doubt many or most established nations had to fight bitterly for their freedom in remote or times or even very recently. Many nations still are fighting and their goal is nowhere in sight. Both history and the present teach nations to protect their freedom as sacred; it has become one of the most used and misused elements of nationalism. Freedom has become not only the long-desired aim but also a sacred means for justifying militant nationalism.

Generalizing the above we can speak of two sides of the phe-nomenon of nationalism -- intranational and international. Intra-nationally nationalism can produce happiness and spiritual fulfillment accompanied by material prosperity; it can lead to a strong feeling of sympathy between men within a nation; it can invoke the best in them and gives them a chance to manifest this. No doubt strong national movements bring extremely high cultural and economic results. Paradoxically, a militant nationalism also can produce psy-chic oppression, permanent fears, misery and misconceived ideals if the goals are too far away and the present is too gloomy.

A nationally divided world inevitably presupposes international relations among nations. At best, relations with other nations can vary from indifferent to friendly. Sound competition among them can prove their uniqueness and exceptionality. But, on the other hand, it can be just a thin veneer over a latent hostility: when needed from the point of view of an extreme nationalism this can be transformed immediately into malign animosity.

In this view, the international side of the problem can be presented as the search for a "remedy" for such a "sickness", con-sisting in a complex of the oppressive problems which trouble a nation internally. Nationalism as an extreme ideology provides a very simple and well-tried remedy. When the situation, whether ma-terial and/or spiritual, of members of a nation becomes unbearable the responsible agent is situated somewhere outside. For deeper problems a stronger remedy is sought. Historically, there are problematic relations between neighboring nations everywhere. Nationalism as an extreme militant ideology evokes only distrust and then misuses history whether real or invented, religion, demo-graphics, welfare -- every reason for escalating distrust into hatred towards the "enemies responsible" for all the misery. Real problems are covered with unspecified fears as much as by threatening outside dangers.

Every nation has its periods crisis when strong personalities come to power. Often these national leaders have little sensitivity to the everyday needs of the common members of the community, whom they take as mere unconscious means for reaching higher spiritual aims. Such leaders cannot accept peaceful means for reaching so high a goal as is the glory of their nation. Thus, they welcome difficulties which can excite themselves and the people they lead, whether or not these causes deserve the sacred name of nation. They use nationalism to persuade people that the fight for their nation against its threats must be permanent. A skilful manipu-lation of social, economic and international events helps to hold fast the community and readies it to search for the source of its difficulties. Further escalation of the ideological war makes people ready to use violence to eradicate such a source of danger. Nationa-lism as an extreme militant ideology in the mouths and hands of narrow-minded ideologist becomes a weapon ready to fire.

Escalation of internal problems leads to further escalation of hatred, which constitutes a very fragile balance between peace and the ever-present threat of potential conflict. Undoubtedly, histori-cally rooted hostility was and still is the starting point for many crises and, at the worst, for armed conflict among nations. When stressed along with some mis-shaped events in the current life of a nation it opens room for radical solutions. Paradoxically, in the name of the freedom of one’s nation people lose their lives, and even endanger the freedom and very existence of the nation.

All this becomes even more curious if in this framework we think of states which through terminological misunderstanding stand for nations. Historically this habit is rooted in the period of the French Revolution, which gave birth of the modern concept of nation. But it must be stressed that it is very problematic if not impossible to speak about a pure nation-state, not only in Europe, but all over the world. Modern states are clearly multinational, provided the exist-ence of the other national minorities or oppressed nations within a state is not concealed. A very special situation occurs when one particular nation from a number of nations and ethnic groups existing within the framework of one particular state declares itself the only state-forming nation and its aggressive nationalism becomes a state ideology. This penetrates all spheres of life and unbalance mutual relations among nations, especially with the leading one. Not sur-prisingly, in the atmosphere of distrust and fear for the collective rights of communities excluded from the center of the life of the state it is very hard to maintain social progress. This is true not only for them, but for the state as the whole. This opens the room for the search for an enemy within the state, and/or, if this is not satisfactory enough, for an enemy outside the state boundaries.

Nationalism frequently replaces nation with state, love of a nation with loyalty to a state. It excessively emphases potential dangers from outside, which leads to xenophobia and the total isolation of a community. In fact, nationalism cannot be confused either with patriotism or with xenophobia, but it is so closely con-nected that in the practical day to day life of a nation-state they tend to merge.

There is no room for an apology for nationalism in this frame-work. Militant nationalism with its blindness and stuffiness is responsible for the conflicts which arise daily somewhere in the world. E. Kedourie shows that nationalism on behalf of an idea of perfection not only dreams a strict borderline between the real and the ideal, but in the end rejects life so that freedom vanishes in death. Rejection of one’s individual life, of the lives of the masses on both sides of a strictly drawn borderline between nations, tends to negate humanity. Such nationalism is a selfish, hypocritical, deaf and blind ideology, which sacrifices the lives of those whom it seemingly protects.

Especially in a time of searching for one’s identity it must be emphasized that the nation is just a part of the human, and as a part must not be identified with the whole. The rich content of the human cannot be reduced to one of its elements. The deaf and blind following of the narrow ideology of militant nationalism results in the negation not the fulfillment of the individual. Consequently, the destruction of individuals becomes the destruction of the nation. One possible conclusion of this reflection would be that extreme nationa-lism can lead both to the highest humanity of a people and to their eradication. In the end it becomes a self-destructive national ideology.

Having in sight such possible consequences, humanity must look for alternative identities to resolve existing problems. As the nation, and the nationalism connected with it, are historically limited concepts potentially there exist other collective identities equivalent to the above. Such aspirations are present both on the theoretical and the actual level. One possible solution actually examined in many states with a democratic political order is to build civil society.

With the final aim of realizing what is human in persons it is necessary to study the present state of the phenomenon of human identification, especially with the community, the possible conse-quences of extreme forms and the possibilities of solving them. Avoiding the danger of destruction of a part of humanity, or of the most of it, is a good reason for hard work on theoretical as well as on practical political grounds.

The concept of civil society is one rational solution which would avoid the negative consequences of either a collective determination of the national identity or the strictly individual identity of liberalism. This concept works with most of the content of national identity as well as of liberalism, the two presently predominant concepts of social identities. It would be acceptable to most sup-porters of their two ideas because the question is not one of theories, but of the future of human beings.

1. A.D. Smith, National Identity (New York: Penguin Books, 1991), P. 73.

2. E. Kedourie, Nationalism (London: Blackwell, 1993).