European Identity - Individual, Group and Society - HumanitarianNet

BODERLINE EUROPEANS: NATIONALISMS AND FUNDAMENTALISMS 131as something that is still in the making and/or threatened. Its temptationis, of course, to exercise violence and exclusion, and it is for this reasonthat it should pay special attention to the self-affirmation means that itemploys, so that they do not violate human rights.One last distinction should be made before we close this series ofpreliminary clarifications. Nationalism fights for the construction andsurvival of one´s own nation. However, this leads to a delicate problem.In case of political conflict resulting from the demarcation of thenation, in case of conflict between nationalisms, who decides and howwhich peoples and with what characteristics and settled in whatterritories actually constitute nations? International Law acknowledgesnation states which model the States that emerged out of the Frenchand North American revolutions, as full nations as such —that is, nationswith a right to self-determination. From the point of view of thiscriterion, agreed by the States themselves, all existing States are nations,unless some of them internally agree to be considered plurinationalStates (federation of nations). However, International Law also speaksabout national minorities in the States, and in any case, there areminorities concentrated in specific areas within various States whichconsider themselves nations (frequently so, against the opinion of thenational majority within that State) and which try to build themselvesas a nation precisely through their nationalist parties. This is notinfrequent in the European Union. Should the recognition and thecorresponding exercise of sovereignty be granted to them? I will notdelve into this issue which I have discussed on other occasions 2 , but forthe purposes of my presentation, and in order to analyse the role thatnationalisms are playing in Europe´s construction, I shall take intoconsideration nationalisms which refer to European nation States andminority nationalisms within those States.Nationalisms: Borderline Europeans?It is obvious that the leading roles in the construction of the EuropeanUnion are falling on the States within the Union. These States, inturn, generally consider themselves sovereign nation-States. They are,thus, States that are nourished by the nationalist ideology. They usetheir sovereignty precisely in order to reach agreements between2Specially in “El debate sobre el derecho de autodeterminación en la teoría políticaactual y su aplicación al caso vasco”, in AA.VV. Derecho de autodeterminación yrealidad vasca, which will be published shortly.