European Identity - Individual, Group and Society - HumanitarianNet

130 EUROPEAN IDENTITY. INDIVIDUAL, GROUP AND SOCIETYHowever, these clarifications do not presuppose that it is a questionof choosing between good nationalism and bad nationalism —obviouslyopting for the former. Every acceptance of the nation, every nationalism,signals frontiers, separating nationals from foreigners and, thus, openingthe door to exclusion possibilities. From the sensitiveness in favour of theunion of all human beings, any frontier is repugnant. We may, thus,advocate going beyond nationalism —and the nation, from a politicalpoint of view— and advancing towards cosmopolitan post-nationalism.This is an issue we will also have to bring up when we face Europeanconstruction. We will have to see, specifically, whether such postnationalism(which must not be mistaken for faint nationalism) is notonly preferable to other modes of nationalism but also whether it isfeasible; we will also have to see whether frontiers are in themselvesnecessarily bad, or whether they are inevitable for the constitution ofidentities – for instance, the European one – which we legitimately desireor even need, in which case it would be more a question of building upgood frontiers than of getting rid of all of them.The protagonists of some of the aforementioned specific examplesof nationalism would probably protest, asserting that they cannot beplaced within any of the given categories. In order to clarify this issue, Iought to make a new distinction between what I would call peacefuland combative nationalism. The first type of nationalism is the oneexperienced in situations where there is national established stability:citizens and institutions move within it like fish moving in the ocean“ignoring” that they are in the ocean. The fact that there is anationalistic feeling despite all becomes obvious when a conflict affectingthe nation arises. It is then when it becomes clear that, as it has beensaid, national communities are “batteries which engender popularpower”. Sometimes they are asleep but they are ready to get movingwhen it is necessary. In any case, leaving the issue of feelings aside, andby way of testing, I would say that there is nationalism when we seeimmigrant control as “natural” and fully acceptable on the grounds that“he or she is foreign”; when we think that it is normal that anAndalusian citizen should migrate to Madrid without any control and atthe same time believe that controlling the immigrant coming fromMorocco is indeed legitimate (this same test shows that something isoccurring within European nationalisms which make intra-Europeanmigration more flexible). Compared to this peaceful type of nationalism,combative nationalism is, of course, explicit nationalism, and it insists onthe construction or the defence of the nation because, seeing it assomething clearly valuable, regarding it as the fundamental referencefor the exercise of sovereignty and justice and even identity, it deems it