OPINION: Diversity, not nationalism, makes America great


We are in the midst of a struggle over nationalism – what it means and what is its relationship to our lives, particularly to our freedoms, such as freedom of thought, speech, press, assembly and religion. Nationalism has primal roots in the same ethnicity that originated naturally as humans proliferated, but those roots have been the source of destructive forces between nations.

Europe became an area in which many distinctive ethnic groups organized. I have a theory that it was because the distinctive tribes gained self-respect from the Christian gospel that spread to them. It was these organized ethnic groups that became nation states with established boundaries under their own rulers. The greatest number of nation states formed in Europe as seen on a map of the Euro-Asian land mass. France and England led the way in developing a sense of nationhood through a nationalistic spirit, but the drive to develop distinctive nations spread throughout Europe and then to the rest of the world. Germany did not develop a strong sense of nationhood until the latter part of the nineteenth century. Unlike the rest of the world, the attempts to develop empires in Europe always broke on the rocks of nations or aspiring nations.

More: OPINION: Ultra-nationalism, Star Wars and the Dark Side driving many Christians

The United States inherited the European drive to form a nation, but from the beginning it was not possible to base the nation on a common ethnicity as clearly as most European nations. However, there was some similarity to an ethnic base with the pan-European ancestry of the majority. It expressed itself with the exclusion of African Americans and Native Americans from full participation. But the old dependency on a common ethnicity began to be modified by the mixture of European ethnicities and their diverse religions.

Most importantly, concepts of equality, human rights, and freedom that had developed in Europe were written into the founding documents of the nation. This introduced an important new element into American nationalism to offset the influence of the ethnicity element. But the ethnicity element in American thought persisted.

In the middle of the nineteenth century a nationalistic spirit developed in the South, based ultimately on the slavery system in which one ethnic group enslaved another.

More: Visiting Our Past: African-American history in WNC

This extreme ethnicity emphasis threatened the unity of the nation. The defeat of the South and the reaffirmation of the founding ideals moved America toward the principles basis and a healthier nationalism not dependent on the old basis of ethnicity (which included the denigration of another ethnicity). But the struggle continued for another century and to the present as white (Euro-Americans) resisted a national unity based on principles introduced in the founding documents in an ethnically diverse population. Not until 1965 were the ethnic limitations on immigration eliminated.

The prophetic call of Martin Luther King Jr. for America to live up to its ideals set the standard for how the American people could establish a nation with healthy nationalism that is not based on ethnicity, but on a common acceptance and commitment to the equality of all people and the principles of democracy.

European history was marked by the struggle and conflict between competing groups, but also the stimulation of competition and innovation by the close proximity of the various nations. The United States made a break, with the exception of the Civil War, from the “warring states” pattern of Europe for the first time in human history. This was by establishing a nation not on ethnic principles, but universal principles of humanity. However, as we saw above the ethnicity basis for group formation has periodically threatened these ideals and principles. This threat is taking place once again.

I believe the old ethnicity basis for nationalism, while providing strength for national groups, has shown its unsuitability for forming the core of nationalism in the modern world with diverse populations. This was shown in Europe (as well as in our Civil War and Civil Rights struggles), where it led to numerous highly destructive wars.

Diversity in nations helps to give attention to the principles and ideals that hold nations together. Freedoms are most likely to be threatened in an ethnically and religiously homogeneous society. In the end, it is human diversity combined with the common acceptance of universal principles, not homogeneity of populations, that will contribute the most to advancing and maintaining our precious freedoms.     


Share This Story