Friday, April 17, 2009

The dark heart of nationalism : personal pronouns

Oooh, nationalism. It has to be said that, even as a nationalist myself, I appear to have a weak understanding of the concept. Fortunately, some of my fellow nationalists, especially British nationalists such as the self-styled Alpha Male of Scottish political blogging AM2, possess much greater self-awareness on the matter than I do, and are fearless in exposing the narrowness, pettiness and frankly sheer utter evilness of the philosophy they have espoused all their lives. AM2's latest courageous piece of self-reflection on the subject is somewhat startling - it appears that the "divisive essence of all nationalism" lies in the seemingly mundane use of the words 'we' and 'they'. I must admit the malevolence of personal pronouns had never occurred to me before, and it'll be fascinating over the days and weeks to come observing how non-nationalist politicians - devoid as they are of divisive essences - simply never utter the words 'we' and 'they'.

In other matters, AM2 notes that Alex Salmond should "respect the law" and allow the UK government to build new nuclear power stations in Scotland. And I'm sure just as soon as we see a court order confirming that, contrary to all popular belief, the Scottish government do not in fact possess a clear-cut statutory power to reject new-build nuclear at the planning stage, he will do.

AM2 - nationalism, pronouns, and a complete reinvention of the law, all in the space of about 100 words. I salute you, sir.

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