[piercehawkeye45]

Originally Posted by Beestie

The crusades weren't about nationalism.

How were the crusades not about nationalism? Actually provide an argument that supports your statement.

The early people of Islam, people who identified being Muslims, believed that their religion was superior to others and should be spread throughout the region. Nationalism is when a group of individuals believes that their ideology or identity is superior to others. How was the Islamic campaign not about nationalism? If they did not believe their religion was superior, why would they violently spread it?

And Rome's expansion into the middle east wasn't about hatred any more than Hitler's attempted expansion into Russia.

When did I say that Rome's expansion was about hatred?

Rome's expansion was for the same reasons as any other imperialistic power, nationalism and power. You cannot be imperialistic without being nationalistic for the same reasons as stated above. People like Urbane Guerrilla wants to forcefully spread their ideology of capitalism and democracy because they believe it is superior to all other socio-ecomomic setups.

Rome destroyed the Jewish Temple because of the Jewish rebellions. The Jews were rebelling because they would not accept being ruled by any foreign power, which is a form of nationalism.

The hatred between the peoples of the Middle East is ancient and visceral - two words understood by Westerners on a mostly intellectual level.

Yes, and where did this hatred stem from? That type of relationship doesn't just come from nowhere. It had to come from the clashing of two nationalistic and proud identities that has been passed on through the years. In order for that hatred to be passed down, both identities needed to be kept, and the hatred involved kept the nationalism. If you get rid of the nationalism, you will naturally get rid of the hatred as well.

To compare their relationship to racism is almost comical.

I was not comparing the actual relationship but comparing how hateful relationships begin, which is with an overly proud identity.

In order to hate a group of people you need to have classifications. In the United States, the largest classification is race, then we have religion and so forth. Those classifications are identities.

Some identities do not have any pride to them and are essentially meaningless. I am identified as someone who is raised in Wisconsin, but I do not hold any pride to being from Wisconsin therefore, I can not hold any hard feelings against anyone not from Wisconsin. If someone makes fun of me from being from Wisconsin, I laugh at them for saying something that ridiculous. If I defended myself and my raised state, that would mean I do have pride in my state and have potential nationalism in that area.

To be proud of an identity very easily leads to nationalism. I am a student of the University of Minnesota. When the University of Iowa comes to play football against us, we do not like the Hawkeye fans and verbally attack them at any given chance.

So in this situation we have two identities where the population of each are overly proud of their identity to the point where they think they are superior to the other. There is no real reasoning why I should hate the Iowa fans and they have no real reasoning why they should hate me. But we still do and the only reason that tradition of hatred gets passed down is because of nationialism. If University of Minnesota fans did not think that their school was superior to Iowa, as irrational as that seems, that rivalry would not exist.

Our situation is the same for Jews and Muslims except theirs is on a much more stronger and deeper level. But the fact that both are fueled by nationalism stays the same.