to think that nationalism is pretty harmless

[eretrew]

I was in a bar with a friend last night and the England match was on and there were a lot of people there watching and cheering England on. Similarly when the scores came up to show Scotland, Wales, NI and ROI losing there were also massive cheers. My friend then started arguing that nationalism is linked with extreme ideologies and is a deeply harmful and corrosive influence on society and that it is going to lead to the disintegration of the UK. AIBU to think that support your nations football team against others as well as relishing seeing others lose is pretty harmless and presents no threat to society.

Your friend needs to lighten up.

Thats what I thought.

Your friend sounds like a bit of a bore .... Someone of any ethnicity can celebrate and barrack for the teams of the country they live in

Nationalism is not harmless, but supporting your national team to my mind is just fun and a bit of banter to most people.

It depends what you mean by nationalism. Cheering your national team in a bar is totally harmless but your friend does also have a point about extreme ideologies although in the context it seems an over reaction.

I think being proud of your country is healthy up to a point. But I also think its a bit silly to assume that sharing citizenship with someone automatically means you will have more in common with them than someone from another country just because of that.

And it is also true that nationalism has been used as a tool by extremists throughout history.

The opposite of nationalism is internationalism which has been the cause of all invasions and two world wars.

I'm a nationalist, that simply means that you respect the borders of your own country and expect politicians not to hand sovereignty from the people to international or transnational entities, you don't intervene with other countries right to determine their own destiny within their own borders and oppose imperialism.

The greatest threat to humanity right now is war, those who seek to fuel civil wars by funding terrorists in other countries using the results to justify bombing and invading other countries under the guise of 'security' (right wing excuse') or 'humanitarianism' (to appeal to lefties) are internationalists. World war three will be caused by these idiots, if everyone was a nationalist they wouldn't have a chance.

I remember when George Bush Jnr was elected president and the British papers fretting that he would be 'isolationist' (the term global imperialists use to describe those who disagree with 'foreign interventions' commonly known as wars) because he made a few comments in his campaign stating that it was not America's duty to police the world and nation build. Pity he didn't hold true to his campaign promises.....

You either believe in national sovereignty and the right of people to determine their own destiny (nationalist) or you don't. Internationalism will always create war because most people don't want their future determined by outside interests.

Supporting a football team is not nationalist though, it is patriotic (and fun), your friend needs to educate herself.

Yep. Confusing nationalism and patriotism. The former is not harmless, the latter is.

Ditto on confusing patriotism and nationalism. However, I really dislike people cheering a team losing, to be honest. If you support the other team, cheering them on against W/S/NI/RoI is fine. Cheering someone losing in my opinion makes whoever is doing it look a prat.