Nationalism: Nationalism and Young Basque People Essay

Submitted By ampende
Words: 779
Pages: 4

Nationalism What is nationalism? To most people it is defined as a feeling of patriotism and love of one’s country with willingness to sacrifice for it. In the textbook nationalism is said to be “the belief that people’s greatest loyalty should not be to a king but to a nation of people who share common culture and history”. Nationalism spread in the eighteen hundreds, around the time when Napoleon was defeated and exiled. One of the first countries to show a nationalistic revolt was Haiti, with their want of freedom from France. They succeeded just as many other countries have. From then on Europe faced many revolutions between eighteen forty-eight and eighteen fifty, however, some countries efforts failed. The Ottoman Empire faced separation and the empire weakened and soon after broke apart. Still today countries want to govern themselves. The Basque Country in the northern eastern area of Spain wants to have their own nation-state. Some say nationalism hurts a country and some say it helps another. Either way it shapes and changes countries. The Ottoman Empire massacred and deported citizens as a reaction to nationalism. The Ottoman Empire ruled most of the Balkans and Anatolia ever since the fall of Constantinople in the fourteen hundreds. The ruling class in the empire was the Turks; they were part of a historical period where the Turkish ruled in western Anatolia. The Greeks wanted independence because they still shared a common culture and history. But the Greeks were supposed to remain under Ottoman control for several more centuries. Bust as revolutionary nationalism spread across Europe, the force of nationalism over threw the Ottoman Empire. Rigas Feraious was the coordinator of the uprising against the empire. The Greeks were successful in their independence because of its popularity around the world. And eventually the Greeks had the support of powerful European nations. This nationalistic movement acted to both unify and divide the empire. The Ottoman Empire was divided because the Greeks created a nation-state within the empire. In the end the empire broke apart after World War 1. The Greeks were unified because they developed a nation-state and created a social bond. The Ottoman Empire is one example of how nationalistic movements don’t just bring together countries but also separate them. The Basque Country is a current example of nationalism. Many countries still have nationalistic revolutions happening. Nationalism wasn’t like vacuum that happened only in the eighteen hundreds, it still continues today. The Basque country is located in between Spain and France. The Basque people want to create a nation-state of their own. The Basque Country pay their own taxes but it goes towards Spain. Spain doesn’t want to give up the country and even some of the people in the Basque country don’t want to become an independent nation. In the Basque Country there is a group of young Basque people who are considered terrorists by the United States and Europe. They are called Euskadi Ta Askatasuna or ETA. The ETA wants independence