The Banter
Why it’s going to take us a long time to love each other
A few days ago I had a conversation with some of my old buddies and in the course of our conversation we started talking about Nationalism and it’s effects. Some my friends were inclined towards pro-nationalism while the others were strongly against nationalism. After hours of going back and forth I started seeing how literally everyone around me is affected by the issue of nationalism. Some don’t even know whether they are nationalists or not, they consider themselves to be somewhere in between. The definition of nationalism according to the Oxford dictionary is:
‘identification with one’s own nation and support for its interests, especially to the exclusion or detriment of the interests of other nations.’
Most recently cases of extreme nationalism have been rising in the Western world, especially in the United States of America where the former president Donald Trump was the symbol for nationalists everywhere. The reason why Trump had such a large base of followers(he still does) was because he had the interests of his nation at heart(which is a good thing) but was really extreme in how he implemented his policies, most of the time it was at the expense of others. Trump has proved himself to be a leader who isn’t afraid to speak his mind. This made him a hero to people all over who share his sentiments yet had previously been afraid of talking. It is ironical though because supposedly there is Freedom of speech. If we specifically decide to address the issue of immigration for example we get to sides of a coin. There are those who are for the idea of immigration because “it’s my fellow human trying to get a better life’’ and then there are those who say “but they come and take our opportunities, disrespect our way of life, introduce and impose their culture et cetera.”
During the 2020 elections in the USA something interesting happened. While the election was going on scores of Nigerians were meeting in churches and praying for Trump to win the election. Despite Trump having never visited Sub-Sahara Africa, his approval ratings were quite high down there. So the question begs, why would a country like Kenya be so supportive of Trump or his policies when they don’t affect her in any way whatsoever. It all comes down to the fact that Kenya identifies with Trump and some of his policies. To be more elaborative, Kenya’s next door neighbor is Somalia to the East. For many years this two countries have had a nice relationship that was beneficial to both of them. In fact there are a lot of people with Somali origin living in Kenya and vice versa. However, there has been the issue of terrorist groups crossing over from Somalia and causing mayhem in Kenya. These terrorist groups operate independently and have been condemned time and again by both the Kenyan and Somali governments yet this hasn’t stopped them from causing trouble. For most Kenyans however, these terrorist groups are Somali and it doesn’t matter what they are told, according to them, Somalis are the bad guys. So when Trump says that he is going to build a wall between the US and Mexico it makes Kenyans think, “Doesn’t sound like a bad idea, we can make one between Kenya and Somalia as well.” And that’s how Nationalism starts and grows.
Nationalists, apart from a select few who tend to be extreme, tend not to be be vocal about what they think. But when someone speaks out what is in their hearts, they rally behind that person’s back and would follow them to hell if the highway led them there. And that right there is the problem. When someone harbors something inside for so long it becomes a poison to the extent that when the time comes for them to express themselves, they don’t do it with love but with a lot of hate and extremism and before you know it one hateful act leads to another. Another good example is what happened when an American country singer filmed himself saying the N-word and despite his Label dropping him and radio stations removing his songs from their playlists saw his sales soar. This should give you an idea of how many people are racists but hold it in until someone makes a racist move and they rush to support that individual.
It’s not wrong to have a personal views and beliefs, everyone is entitled to their own personal views. It becomes a problem when we hold these views in to the point that they become toxic and make us hate those with opposing views. Until we get to that point, forget about love.
