Nationalism is scary, dangerous too

The column below appears in this week's INM Irish regional newspapers.


By Michael Commane
About four or five months ago I discovered a shop, which sells tasty oranges and cheaper too than in any of the big stores.

There was nothing Irish about the shop, neither language nor what was on the shelves. I presumed it was eastern European.

After about two or three visits I got talking to the young woman behind the counter.

She told me she was from Lithuania but of Russian background. I got the message. She was part of the Russian community who lived in Lithuania and was proud of her Russian ancestry. Her grandparents were moved there during the Stalin regime.

With an interest in the battle of Stalingrad, I asked her if her father had fought on the Volga. Of course a stupid question. She was in her early 20s. Not only was her father too young to have been at Stalingrad, so too was her grandfather. But she did have some idea her great-grandfather might have fought at Stalingrad.

Tempus fugit.

So over the months we have become friendly with one another. Always a smile and a topical comment.

The evening of the Ireland Estonia game she was chatting outside the shop with a young man in her own age group. They were both having a smoke.

Curious as I am, I asked him where he was from. And his story was the same. He was living in Lithuania but fiercely proud of his Russian origins.

He stressed that he was shouting for Ireland.

This young man of Russian ancestry was no friend of the Baltic states. Not only that, but I sensed he was almost aggressive towards the people of Lithuania.

And just as I walked away I was thinking a mile a minute. I went back to him and said that far too often people and nations are in rivalry with one another for no reason at all. I went on to point out we are all human beings, with all the traits of human beings, whether we are born on the Volga, on the Liffey or on the Neman.

I added that maybe it is the trick of the capitalist class to have us fighting with one another while they run away with the loot.

This young man, who had expressed his strong links to Mother Russia, maybe even his disgust for the Baltic states, looked at me. A great smile appeared on his face and then he simply said, "You know, you're right".

Of course nothing is as simple as that but the more I think of all forms of nationalism the more scared I get.

Any dogma that says it knows best scares me.

Just last week the world saw the nasty and sinister behaviour of a neo-Nazi group in Germany that has killed at least 10 people in the country over the last 11 years.

The German authorities were blaming the mafia, criminal elements, everyone but a hard core dangerous right wing cell. What is most worrying about the development is that experts are saying that the group must have support in the community to be able to carry out such atrocities and not be apprehended.

It's terrible to think how easily we can all be sucked into a crazy nationalism.

Instead of being loyal to my country I'd much prefer to be loyal and helpful to people - irrespective of their colour, gender, nationality.

Have two horrific world wars not been lesson enough for us? There is something scary about the times in which we live; a mix of crazy right wing thinking with nationalistic tendency would lead us down a terrible road.

While different people and cultures have different characteristics and traits, far too often we shout nonsenses that imply ‘we’re better than the other crowd’.

As Christians we easily say that all of us are made in the image and likeness of God.

It's a question of living that out in our lives.