<\/p>\n
When I visited Harmon to talk about history and politics, questions quickly arose about the title of my latest book: The Patriotic King: Alfonso XIII and the Nation<\/em> (Barcelona, Galaxia Gutenberg, 2023). Why is it called that? What does patriotic<\/em> mean? Isn\u2019t a patriot the same as a nationalist? Later, during the debate, another question came up, related to nationalism and national identity: can someone feel Spanish, or Catalan, or French, without necessarily being a nationalist?<\/p>\n The answers are not easy, and they\u2019ve been the subject of debate among specialists for decades. There is, by no means, a general consensus on the matter. After giving it considerable thought, I have my own perspective on the meaning of these concepts, which underpins my work as a historian. That\u2019s why the book is titled The Patriotic King<\/em>. In short, I don\u2019t believe there are strong reasons to differentiate between a patriot and a nationalist, and the book could just as well have been called The Nationalist King<\/em>. However, we must distinguish between national identity and nationalism. A Spanish king is not the same as a patriotic or nationalist king. Let me explain.<\/p>\n In everyday political language, the words patriot<\/em> and patriotism<\/em> carry positive connotations, whereas nationalist<\/em><\/strong> and nationalism<\/em><\/strong> tend to have a negative bias. In theory, the difference is clear: the patriot loves their homeland, is an exemplary citizen, committed to the common good, peaceful and inclined toward inclusion; the nationalist exalts the uniformity of the group and excludes those who are different, is driven by emotion and becomes aggressive. If patriotic attitudes promote the enjoyment of freedom in a democracy\u2014something already perceptible in ancient Greece\u2014nationalist attitudes reject tolerance and foster tyranny in the modern world. It\u2019s not hard to recognize the radical impulses of nationalism in recent catastrophes, from Russia to Israel.<\/p>\n However, in practice, things are more complicated. From the late eighteenth century onward, once the nation became the source of sovereignty\u2014the device that legitimizes political power in the contemporary era\u2014old patriotism merged with the new nationalism. There are patriots who think in terms of their small homelands\u2014villages or regions\u2014but in general, they swear loyalty to nations. That is, they defend the ubiquity of homogeneous communities, endowed with rights, capable of forming states with recognizable borders. Multinational empires, with their dynastic loyalties and confusing cultural pluralism, were doomed to extinction. Since such imagined nations almost never existed, nationalists set out to construct them: to standardize and spread the national language, to write a national history, to seek the soul of the people in music or art.<\/p>\n Typically, supporters of an existing nation-state identify themselves as patriots, while labeling as nationalists those who seek to grant their homeland an independent state. But both advocate a similar goal: aligning state boundaries with those of their own community. At most, we might liken patriotism to what is called political or civic nationalism, which emphasizes shared values embodied in laws, in contrast to ethnic or cultural nationalism, which prioritizes identity traits\u2014religion, language, lineage\u2014that make each nation unique. Of course, the former is more compatible with democratic principles than the latter. The problem arises when reality contradicts these distinctions, since there are hardly any nationalist ideologies or practices that don\u2019t emphasize their homeland\u2019s cultural characteristics. No matter how tied France is to the civic legacy of its great revolution, it still promotes the French language. In the end, one might conclude that the patriotic Dr. Jekyll and the nationalist Mr. Hyde, as in Robert Louis Stevenson\u2019s novel, are the same person.<\/p>\n As for national identity, some believe we are all nationalists, even if we\u2019re unaware of it\u2014that any emotional or affective bond with a homeland turns us into current or potential activists in its favor. But here, in my view, a clearer distinction is in order. Just like many other collective identities that converge in each individual and should not be confused with active involvement in a cause or socio-political movement. Someone can feel Spanish or Catalan without that automatically making them a Spanish nationalist or Catalanist, just as a woman doesn\u2019t automatically behave like a feminist or a worker doesn\u2019t necessarily join a union. Nationalism involves mobilization, and while national identity may facilitate that, it doesn\u2019t imply partisan commitment.<\/p>\n The debate remains open. These questions, whether we like it or not, affect our lives and lie at the heart of our coexistence\u2014especially in countries like Spain. Undoubtedly, it is always better to choose civilized approaches that preserve peace, avoid discrimination, and guarantee the enjoyment of rights and freedoms protected by the legal system, under conditions of equality. That was, for example, the effort of those in Germany who advocated for constitutional patriotism, in opposition to the sinister legacy of Nazism. Within the logic of nationalism, many federal solutions can fit\u2014symmetric or not. But perhaps it is also wise to seek a supranational horizon, one that allows us to move beyond entrenched conflicts: the European Union represents the most successful model in this respect. Or to look at the world with cosmopolitan eyes, focusing more on humanity as a whole than on its parts, to explore paths far from those already trodden again and again. One thing is certain: the future is not yet written.<\/p>\n Javier Moreno Luz\u00f3n is a Professor of History at the Complutense University of Madrid.<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When I visited Harmon to talk about history and politics, questions quickly arose about the title of my latest book: The Patriotic King: Alfonso XIII and the Nation (Barcelona, Galaxia Gutenberg, 2023). Why is it called that? What does patriotic mean? Isn\u2019t a patriot the same as a nationalist? Later, during the debate, another question…","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":5359,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4872","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-la-pecera"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n