Babes of the BNP [probably NSFW]
posted by Beautiful Screaming Lady on Jul 6, 2009 - 83 comments

Why I had to recognise Georgia’s breakaway regions, by Dmitry Medvedev.
posted by stammer on Aug 27, 2008 - 138 comments

China: Humiliation and the Olympics. Orville Schell discusses China's angry reaction to foreign criticism, the film Dark Matter (based on the 1991 Lu Gang shooting in Iowa), and the Beijing Olympics. ... what gives Dark Matter wider significance is the filmmakers' use of the Iowa incident to explore—indirectly—some important psychological dynamics between China and the West: China's deeply felt sense of historic injury by foreign nations, and the ways its often thwarted efforts to gain acceptance among leading world powers have exacerbated such sentiments. In the past, feelings of injury have arisen from such events as the Opium Wars and the Japanese occupation; and most recently after the Tibetan demonstrations this spring and during the run-up to this summer's Beijing Olympic Games. From the New York Review of Books.
posted by russilwvong on Aug 7, 2008 - 41 comments

Birthright Israel , funded by the Israeli government and Jewish philanthropists, provides free all-inclusive 10-day trips to Israel for Jewish young adults. The program's goal is to promote Israel along with general Jewish unity and engagement. The blog Jewlicious has a category about these trips. (Scroll down past many promotional entries for the interesting stuff.) Some question its efficacy and results, while some Jews subvert the program. The trips end with a "Mega Rally" featuring entertainment, giant inflatable Stars of David, and speeches by dignitaries including PM Ehud Olmert. Here is video coverage (FLV) of the most recent rally. There is also a satirical Something Awful report.
posted by TheOnlyCoolTim on Jun 26, 2008 - 43 comments

The messy 3-way interaction between grassroots Chinese nationalism, foreign opposition, and the quiet hand of China's media censors continues.
posted by Tlogmer on May 6, 2008 - 21 comments

Sinhalese Buddhist Nationalist Ideology: Implications for Politics and Conflict Resolution in Sri Lanka
posted by chunking express on Dec 14, 2007 - 4 comments

Genocide: An inconvenient truth "The Armenian genocide bill has been attacked by both the right and the left -- and it may make matters worse. But it's necessary." [Cookie.]
posted by homunculus on Oct 16, 2007 - 56 comments

Interesting goings-on in Belgium (really). "Plucky little" Belgium, HQ of the very post-national European Union, is in the throes of a deep political crisis, driven by strong nationalistic feelings. The winner of the recent general election, Yves Leterme, has proved [FL] unable [FR] to form a government across the Flemish-French divide, and talk of the country splitting two (or even three) is more serious than ever before. [more inside]
posted by athenian on Aug 24, 2007 - 66 comments

Why are political extremists so interested in UFOs? The Nation of Islam has its “Great Mother Wheels.” Their melanin-challenged brethren in the Neo-Nazi movement have the myth of Neu Schwabenland, an Antarctic redoubt where the remnants of the Third Reich fled after the war, with the U.S. military in hot pursuit. There, hidden among the ice and the Emperor Penguins, the frostbitten Aryans plotted to reconquer the world. To that end, they created a fleet of UFOs, using top-secret Nazi technology that They don’t want you to know about. Nizkor has recreated pamphlets published by the Holocaust denier Ernst Zundel on this topic, one of which includes a helpful list of German phrases to be used during an encounter of the Third Kind. (This myth is also covered in the eighth chapter of this book.)
posted by jason's_planet on Aug 16, 2006 - 21 comments

"White people call them Unidentified Flying Objects." This blog covers the incorporation of contemporary UFO myths into the Nation of Islam's peculiar pigmentational eschatology. It includes a link to a fire-and-brimstone speech by Reverend Farrakhan himself on this topic. (Due to subject matter and racial themes, these might not be the best links for work.)
posted by jason's_planet on Jul 6, 2006 - 11 comments

Lying in International Politics is a 2004 speech given by John J. Mearsheimer which reminded me of yesterday's post on but controveral but well spoken Michael Ignatieff. Mearsheimer argues that...

"...international lying takes four forms. Inter-state lying is where states lie to each other to gain strategic advantage. Fear-mongering is where foreign policy elites lie to their own public because they believe that the people do not recognize the seriousness of an external threat and they need to be motivated to deal with it. Nationalist myth-making is where elites tell lies about their state’s history to help foster a powerful sense of national identity among all segments of society. Anti-realist lying is where elites attempt to disguise brutal behavior carried out in pursuit of realist (or other) goals, because it conflicts with widely-accepted liberal norms." (more...)

(Mearsheimer has recently been covered on mefi on a more controversial subject.)
posted by bhouston on Mar 31, 2006 - 10 comments

INTERNET AS HYPER-LIBERALISM: By the limitations of common sense and consensus. Sometime wacky ideas can help us look at things much clearer than a technical manual description of them by rational and well argued people. Paul Treanor is a one-of-a-kind writer. don't try to argue with him about being wrong. he does not believe in communication and therefore there is no CONTACT link anywhere on his site. He writes and lives in Amsterdam, Holland.
posted by sundaymag on Jan 10, 2006 - 52 comments

Prone to Violence FROM THE French Revolution to contemporary Iraq, the beginning phase of democratization in unsettled circumstances has often spurred a rise in militant nationalism. Democracy means rule by the people, but when territorial control and popular loyalties are in flux, a prior question has to be settled: Which people will form the nation? Nationalist politicians vie for popular support to answer that question in a way that suits their purposes. When groups are at loggerheads and the rules guiding domestic politics are unclear, the answer is more often based on a test of force and political manipulation than on democratic procedures.
posted by Postroad on Jan 7, 2006 - 17 comments

Nihonjinron in images - despite being the second-largest entity in a global economy, Japan's cultural xenophobia has been said to contribute much to nihonjinron, what some describe as a near-fascist-like obsession of a small group of its citizens in restoring Japan to a monocultural, miltaristic, pre-war empire, despite one Japanese academic's contrary view of history.
posted by Rothko on Aug 21, 2005 - 40 comments

The life of an average Wang.
posted by delmoi on Aug 11, 2005 - 28 comments

The Left's Dissection of Patriotism. via
posted by peacay on Jul 26, 2005 - 154 comments

"The West Doesn't Have To Love Us"
Der Spielgel conducts a wide ranging interview with Vladislav Surkov, chief Kremlin strategist and Russia's 2nd most powerful politician behind President Putin. He comments on Chechnya, internal politics and rebellion, Russia's relationship with the west, the disappointment with the failure of progress since the fall of communism in 1991 and his role in establishing the pro-Kremlin Nashi youth organization, who have recently become very vocal and active in a grassroots nationalist campaign.
posted by peacay on Jun 23, 2005 - 6 comments

Armenian Genocide Plagues Ankara 90 Years On This weekend, Armenians commemorated the 90th anniversary of the genocide of 1915. But Turkey has yet to recognize the crime -- the first genocide of the 20th century. By refusing to use the word "genocide," Turkey could complicate its efforts to join the European Union.
posted by Postroad on May 18, 2005 - 11 comments

For more than two centuries, nationalism in all its various forms—from the high-minded chauvinism of the British Empire to the virulent poison of Nazism—has been a familiar, and often negative, phenomenon. Emerging first in Europe, which it nearly destroyed and which has now apparently learned to control it, extreme nationalism still erupts from time to time in other parts of the world. The word "nationalism" never quite seemed to fit the United States, where continental vastness and enormous power have hitherto been tempered by an often-expressed distaste for empire and by the notion of world leadership by example. In the first years of the twenty-first century, however, in a dramatic departure from traditional policy, the spirit of unilateralism and militant nationalism began to dominate Washington's policies and attitudes toward the outside world.

Extreme Makeover - Brian Urquhart reviews America Right or Wrong: An Anatomy of American Nationalism. And here is Gerald Rellick's take on the book. From Asia Source, a long and informative interview with Anatol Lievin. From the Institute of International Studies, UC Berkeley's Conversations with History, A Conversation With Anatol Lieven. Also by Anatol Lieven, A Trap Of Their Own Making.
posted by y2karl on Feb 14, 2005 - 10 comments

A Conversation with Anatol Lieven, Senior Fellow, Carnegie Endowment for Peace and author of America, Right Or Wrong - An Anatomy of American Nationalism, of which The nationalism thing is a review. In related March Of Folly news, Letter From Iraq: Out On The Street by Jon Lee Anderson with accompanying interview How Iraq Came Undone. At one bottom line: The Faces of The Fallen.
posted by y2karl on Nov 14, 2004 - 4 comments

Portugal: Officially the greediest, laziest and most drunken country in the West. What dubious, highly debatable sources of pride do you attribute to your own country?
posted by MiguelCardoso on Sep 12, 2003 - 36 comments

July 1942: United We Stand "Seven months after the United States entered World War II, magazines nationwide featured the American flag on their covers. Adopting the slogan United We Stand, some five hundred publications waved the stars and stripes to promote national unity, rally support for the war, and celebrate Independence Day."
posted by owillis on Jul 5, 2003 - 60 comments

Why Must America Always Be The Greatest? Be it the greatest sham or show on earth; why is American nationalism and anti-nationalism always couched in hyperbole and a childish hankering for being number 1, whether in the best or the worst senses? Dinesh d'Souza's interesting list of ten reasons to celebrate why he's an anti-anti-American, although passionate and partly persuasive, ultimately fails to convince because of this constant desire to make the U.S. great by artificially and ignorantly belittling or aggrandizing supposed competitors. Perhaps it's not all a game and America is quite simply an OK country, with a standard battery of qualities and shortcomings, like most OK countries in the world?
posted by MiguelCardoso on Jun 30, 2003 - 59 comments

War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning The AC130 video thread yesterday got me interested in this book. The author - a veteran New York Times war correspondent - argues that, to many people, war provides a purpose for living; allowing individuals to rise above regular life and participate in a noble cause. He discusses nationalism, the wartime silencing of intellectuals and artists, the ways in which even a supposedly skeptical press glorifies the battlefield and other universal features of war, arguing not for pacifism but for responsibility and humility on the part of those who wage war.
posted by Zombie on Dec 18, 2002 - 17 comments

The far right's success in setting the national agenda is provoking an identity crisis for Israel. Radical settlers are effectively in the driver's seat and are redefining Zionism in terms that threaten the future of a Jewish state. Meanwhile, demographics is a hotter issue than ever in Israel, as Israelis on the right and left struggle with the questions "Can Israel be a Jewish and democratic state? Is there any such animal?" [More inside.]
posted by Zurishaddai on Jun 28, 2002 - 20 comments

Warwick university has banned England flags from its campus for the duration of the world cup. Does this tell us anything about tolerance, nationalism and patriotism in a multi cultural society?
posted by Fat Buddha on May 23, 2002 - 25 comments

Literary lynching, the practice of attacking authors who make statements against the U.S. government or engage in dissent, gets a comprehensive overview with a book in progress. As 72 year old author Dorothy Bryant puts it, "More than ever, we need free exchange of facts and opinions. I hope that looking back on a few cases that have had time to cool off will help us to understand the psychology of literary lynching, and to resist it — not only in others but in ourselves." But in today's world, is there any distinction between a thoughtful response and a downright ugly rejoinder anymore? (via Moby Lives)
posted by ed on Apr 2, 2002 - 7 comments

Florida company tells its 850 employees, there is no place for patriotism in our office Although the memo from its CEO Bill Schrempf called displaying American flags nationalism (not patriotism). Wouldn't it be great to see the 850 workers stage a patriotic "blue flu" sometime in the near future. Doesn't Mr. Schrempf realize the crisis that this country is going through?
posted by Oxydude on Sep 16, 2001 - 39 comments

Fosters Beer's new site and ad campaign is a ripoff/parody of another certain beer ad campaign. What's with the small country pride? Tired of the Americanization of the world? Or just the (American) corporatization of the globe?
posted by mathowie on Sep 14, 2000 - 20 comments

I despise parades. The author gets a bit theatrical at the end but the core of the editorial is true. I live in NYC and often these ethnic pride parades devolve into some kind of justification for violence. Last Sunday's PR Day Parade was en especially bad example of this.
posted by Nyarlathotep on Jun 14, 2000 - 23 comments