Updated February 20, 2008:
There are a lot of problems on this blog involving confusion between nationalism and patriotism. Further, there is confusion over this blog's stated opposition to nationalism. Nationalism, as a progressive movement in the context of self-determination, is potentially a good thing. There is a chauvinist, jingoist, racist type of nationalism that heads towards what we can call the fascist continuum.
Fascism is not something that either exists or does not exist. It, like so many other things in life, is a continuum. Fascism is just an extreme form of rightwing nationalism, usually tinged with lots of racism or at least xenophobia and repression of minorities. Fascism smashes all minorities down and demands that they assimilate to the singular ethnic nation-state.
Communism, on the other hand, is internationalist. At the same time, Communists and progressives in general have acknowledged the right to self-determination of ethnic groups. This basic right is held in serious ill-repute in our world today - a world that worships the state. Let us be clear: the progressive and even Communist mindset allows for self-determination of legitimate nations, within reasons.
While asking for some basic assimilation, this trend offers education, publishing, and even administration in the native language. At they time they undertook their national autonomy project, was there any nation on Earth that did more to advance the cause of ethnic autonomy than the early USSR? I think not.
Although much of this noble project was tragically reversed by Stalin in a wave or paranoia in the 1930's, the language policy of the Bolsheviks set an example for the world that is today mirrored as a progressive litmus test for linguistic rights.
Linguists fanned out all over the land to create alphabets, often the first alphabets ever designed, for obscure and widely-spoken minority languages all over the USSR. The principle of education in the Mother Tongue, a scientifically proven principle to this day, was upheld. The results were often haphazard, but the effort was made.
At the same time, the right to succession was granted to all nationally recognized minorities. None exercised it until Gorbachev, but even then, Gorbachev allowed 15 republics to secede from the USSR. This was a model for civilized behavior that has not been matched anywhere.
Let us say for the moment that granting the right of succession to legitimate nations within a state is one of the ultimate expressions of civilized behavior in our time. Tellingly, only Euro-White nations are even considering allowing the breakup of the state. Czechoslovakia split amicably after 1989, and the UK and Canada have granted the right to secede to established nations.
By this metric, let us say that any nation that does not allow secession of legitimate nations is uncivilized. It is interesting that by this metric, the only civilized nations today are the former USSR, parts of Europe and Canada. No other nation anywhere on Earth has allowed the right to secession, no matter how rich or poor they are.
Successful secessionists have won only battles drenched in blood. At the same time, the world has upheld a statist fetish in which the fake right of states to territorial integrity (any student of history must fall down laughing at this one) trumps the ultimate human right of legitimate nations to self-determination.
In this context, let us note that Communists and the Left tend to support self-determination or at least national rights in the state, while all fascists have tried to aggressively force all minorities to assimilate, often in the context of massive crimes and death.
Once again we see an important distinction between fascism and Communism, two philosophies that are increasingly married in ignorant popular discourse.
There is good nationalism and there is bad nationalism. Bad nationalism I will call the nationalism of the Right and good nationalism I will call the nationalism of the Left.
Rightwing nationalism fetishes "preservation of our rights and customs". Nothing wrong with that, but these nationalists usually want to go backwards and preserve or reinstate the most regressive, reactionary, backwards and stupid aspects of culture. Rightwing nationalism, in a word, opposes all progressive change.
The failures of the modern state are glossed over and excused as inevitable. That Indian capitalism kills 4 million of its own citizens every year by not adapting a Chinese model, that 200 million Indians live on the streets, that 14 million starve every year, mostly in the capitalist states of South Asia, is all excused away. All failures of the model will be cured with time. The backwardsness of society will gradually wither away with time.
A reflexive opposition to the West upholds the most backwards, cruel and Medieval aspects of the culture on the basis that if the West hates them, then they are wonderful. Rightwing nationalism is chauvinist and jingoist. Colonialism is hated not only as a usurpation of rights, but as an outside force that tried to force progressive change on a nightmarishly backwards system.
In this context, let us introduce a species called progressive Pakistani nationalism. It tends to be secular and relatively free from jingoism and chauvinism. It opposes most, if not all of the backwards, stupid and evil aspects of Pakistani religion and culture.
At the same time, it upholds the existence of its state and history in the face of a cruel menace called India that denies Pakistan the very essential right of its existence, culture and history. In its self-affirmation in the face of Indian threats, it is de facto progressive.
The post below was written by a young Pakistani friend of mine. I think he is a fairly secular fellow and he may have even left Islam for all I know. At best, he is a cultural Muslim. He opposes everything backwards, cruel, murderous and stupid about his land.
The patriotic and progressive Pakistani nationalism of him and his friends, which can be found at their website, Pakhub, stands in stark contrast to the reactionary and chauvinist nationalism of the Hindutvas.
Despite the horrible problems of Pakistan, progressive Pakistani nationalists should be supported by progressives the world over. These people, like the ill-fated Communists of Afghanistan in the late 1970's, are the finest of their generation.
Evolution of a Pakistani Patriot
The problem is while in the West people are aware of Islamist terrorism, they are unaware of Hindutva terrorism. Most of the funds these Hindutva fascist groups come from from Hindu expatriots in the West and many of the founders of these groups are citizens of these countries.
For instance, the founder of Hindu Unity was an Indian-American. This group has a website and a hit list in which president Musharraf is also in.
When my friend Waq first started Pakhub and invited me and others to it, a Hindutva Wikipedian posted a request on Hindu Unity forums to spam the hell out of our site. My friend even had the screen shot of that post saved.
There is something that you should know about Hinduism that many people don't know. The concept of "Hinduism" being a religion was introduced by the British. Previously, this notion did not exist. The name comes from hind which came about form the word Sindhu (the Sindh province of Pakistan)
We have rare maps drawn by the Europeans on our site showing India known as hind while Pakistan was known as Sindh.
Anyway, the Indian subcontinent was filled with various cults throughout history, and never was there a concept of there being a common religion, much like pre-contact Africa and South America filled with various indigenous cults. I even have found a quote by Gandhi admitting that the Vedic people slaughtered cows, ate meat and buried their dead.
Declaring all the cults of South Asia as one "Hinduism" is the same as declaring the various cults in South America & Africa as one. This is the reason why "Hinduism" has so many "sects" and Gods. I learned this as recently as a month back.
The problem is Hindutvas have buried so much of actual history, while at the same time spending years creating their own pseudo-history and feeding western historians with false propaganda.
You'll notice many "ancient India" maps drawn by Indian "historians" are hand made and relatively new, while others are computer- generated graphic maps.
On our site we have copies of extremely rare maps drawn by European empires before the British prior to when the British declared the entire continent "India". Even the label "India" varied place to place on these maps.
Hindutvas also propagate the notion that Islam was "spread by the sword" in South Asia. That holds a lot of truth in it; there was a lot of conquest and killing done by the Muslims, but at the same time, it is not entirely true. For one thing, many lower-caste Hindus converted to Islam.
I became a Pakistani patriot when I noticed that Indians always associate everything about Pakistan to India. I was openly insulted by Indians only weeks after moving to Canada just because Pakistan chose not to join India.
I was also saddened that all countries could parade their culture as "Finnish dance" and "Finnish food" or "Chinese dance" and "Chinese food" but whenever it came to Pakistan it always had to be "Pakistani-Indian dance" or "Pakistani-Indian food".
When asked in front of an Indian where I'm from, the Indian would always have to butt in: "Same thing - Pakistani, Indian".
Even while living in the Middle East when Arabs would laugh at the Indian accent (particularly South Indian, Dravidian) they would always laugh at me cause they thought it's how Pakistanis talk. They would ask me about funny Indian songs they saw on TV, but no matter how I hard I tried to explain to them that it has nothing to do with me, I could not convince them.
A Sri Lankan Hindutva in my gym class in high school was spreading the same bullshit in the class that India is so "great" and "diverse" and is a powerful country like America which builds it's own weapons, whereas Pakistan buys from China, and Pakistan is always bothering India, and India is the friendly one, and so on an so fourth. I couldn't believe the ignorance of such an educated person.
An Indian friend asked me a stupid question "Why did Pakistan make nuclear weapons; it is copying India?" "Copycats?" I mean it's like him pulling a sword out on me and me pulling out my own sword and him accusing me of 'imitating' him.
When I lived in Pakistan I couldn't understand why people had an enmity towards India or Hindus. But after seeing the true face of these liars here in Canada, it all started to make sense to me.
I even found an Indian website with the Indian and Azerbaijani flag; a site claiming that India and Azerbaijan had the "same history" and "same identity" because a few ancient Hindu temples were found in Azerbaijan. I finally came closer to the realization that all this cultural imperialism by Indians is deliberate.
In Pakistani areas of Toronto where there are amazing restaurants with Pakistani flags on them. Indians move into the area and the first thing they do is place their banners right next to the Pakistani flags and imitate Pakistani cuisines, calling their restaurants "South Asian" cuisine.
Also, many things that constitute "ancient India" are really stolen Pakistani history, while everything about Pakistanis is portrayed negatively by the Indian propaganda machine. I finally decided I'd had enough. Every country on Earth is credited for it's contributions to humanity and is given the right to be proud of it's culture. All but Pakistan, a "terrorist country", while India is the "great", "shinning", "secular democracy".
I mean these people hate us and they are using our accomplishments. Our works. Our great history. Even the Jews don't try to steal Egypt's history, and Egypt is to this day given credit for it's works.
After I decided I'd had enough, I went on a quest to find other patriotic Pakistanis who were willing to work to reverse all the things Indians had twisted about us. I found Waq, Siddiqui and Szhaider on Wikipedia. Mr. Siddiqui was amongst the best contributors on Wikipedia; he'd gotten so many awards, but he got blocked so many times for edit warring with the Jews and the Hindutvas.
He was the most defiant of us all against the Hindutvas and the Zionists. But after all 4 of us got banned after the phony Wikipedia Arbcom case in which many Jews ganged up with the Hindutvas against us, he'd decided he's had enough and left for good.
Waq was on the same quest as me and he started PakHub forums which was dedicated to our cause. After we got banned, we found many other patriotic Pakistanis on Youtube such as Omer that we brought to our forums.
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