11 Fully Functional Romantic European @ Amazon.com
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Nationalism as an idea disseminate all around Europe in the 18th century. Prior to that, people lived underneath the power of some feudal lords. Then, they came together underneath a single nation-state governed by a central administration. European countries such as France and England were amidst the initial to espouse the notion of nationalism and to become a nation-state. By the 19th century, most of the nations of Europe had achieved national unity. Only two countries did not participate in this development: Germany and Italy. In both these countries, the power of principalities or of little city-states lasted much longer. Italy achieved nationhood only in 1870, and Germany only a year later, in 1871. In other words, both these countries were later than other European countries in adopting and implementing the ideas of nationalism. However, this queer circumstance was the cause of the development of a more radical brand of nationalism in these two countries than in the other countries of Europe. According to the widespread opinion of social scientists, the reason for the birth and accession to power in these two countries of the uttermost forms of nationalism, Nazism and fascism, was the disseminate of fanatic nationalistic sentiments linked with the late formation of national unity. In these two countries, and peculiarly in Germany, those who promoted the idea of fanatic nationalism were known as “romantic nationalists.” The basic features that characterize romantic nationalists are their exaltation of sentiment to the detriment of reason, their faith that their nation is endowed with a mystical and mysterious “spirit,” and that this spirit makes their nation superior to others. Towards the end of the 19th century, romantic nationalism was influenced by racist theories that were then benefitting wide acceptance, and which led to the assert that European races were superior to the other races of the world, and therefore, had the right to rule them. Romantic nationalism disseminate quickly, again, in particular in Germany, for the duration of the basi two decades of the 19th century. Writers such as Paul Lagarde and Julius Langbehn supported the idea of a kind of hierarchical world-order which Germans were to administer. They claimed this could be achieved due to the natural superiority of the “German spirit” and “German blood,” and that, to this end, Germans will have to turn their backs on monotheistic religions, such as Christianity, and return to their pagan past. Indeed, romantic nationalism’s only contribution to humanity has been to have prepared the foundation for Nazism, one of history’s most brutal and bloody regimes. Because romantic nationalists believed they were to find truth through “feeling and intuition,” and not through reason, they came to adopt a most confused view of the world, one which reflected their poor spiritual condition. The foundation of romantic nationalism was based on “feeling.” This fanciful ideology devised humans who were cut off from reality, lost in the confusedness of their own minds. Romanticism, by enslaving people to their feelings, leads them to lose touch with reality, and in this manner, may be equated to the psychological sickness of schizophrenia. (Those who suffer from schizophrenia are altogether cut off from reality and live in a world devised by their own imaginations.) The impairment of normal physiological function of schizophrenia provides a poignant analogy of the spiritual condition of romantic nationalism, which is based on a number of errant ideas, chief among them being the notion of “blood” and “fatherland,” which it then idolizes and turns into obsessions to be pursued blindly. In Germany, at the beginning of the twentieth century, the idea of “Blut and Boden” (Blood and Fatherland) gained momentum. According to this notion, German blood and the German fatherland were holy, and those minorities within the country that did not belong to the German race, were seen as polluting German blood and sullying the German fatherland. The type of attitude that regards blood and bloodshed as holy has been the cause of the bloodiest conflicts seen in humane history. The original and second World Wars were but clashes amid romantic nationalists. The current of romantic nationalism was most without doubt or question seen in Germany, but it likewise had it is influence at the same amount of time in English, French and Russian societies, where it was also responsible for drawing those countries into war. It fanned into flames those difficulties that could other than as supposed or expected have been solved through diplomacy, and in the end inflicted the world with the massacre of millions of humane lives. To understand the outcomes of romantic nationalism, it is utile to study the developments of First World War. Although a great deal of countries participated in that war, only few of them played a pivotal part. On one side were England, France and Russia; on the other, Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. At the outset of the war, all generals shared a mutual strategy: through a forceful attack, the enemy lines could be disunited and routed and within a few weeks, victory would be attained. However, the war brought victory to no one. In 1914, Germany of a sudden invaded France and Belgium. After an basi advance, forces were engaged in battle, the front-lines of assault were drawn up, and for almost three and a half years, no further ground was gained. Each side attacked the other repeatedly in the hope of dividing the opposing front, but the circumstance remained unchanged. In the famous Battle of Verdun, initiated by a German attack, a total of 315,000 French and 280,000 German soldiers died, but the front was moved back only a few kilometers. Months later, the English and French launched a counter-attack at the Battle of the Somme and, as a result of the bloody engagement, 600,000 Germans, more than 400,000 English, and with regards to 200,000 French soldiers died. Nevertheless, the German front was driven back only 11 kilometers. With their a lively interest inflamed by romantic marching songs, and through moving poetry extolling the “German spirit,” “English honor” and “French valor,” military experts in strategy and tacticians in the long run made unwise decisions, causing the slaughter of their own people. Most of those soldiers who pulled through the three and a half years in the muddy trenches, without being competent to even raise their heads because of the continual bombardment, also suffered psychologically as a result of their experiences. The same blood-lust mentality came to the fore again in World War II, but this time with even more outstanding casualties. A total of 55 million people passed away as a result of the overweening ambition of psychopathic romantics such as Hitler, Mussolini and Stalin. It is not only in global conflicts that romanticism plays a role; it also lies at the root of war and aggression amid respective countries, tribes and organisations. Without a clear understanding of the constituents involved in the circumstance in which they were living, millions, influenced by aroused slogans, tales of heroism, stirring marching songs and poems, have taken up arms and shed, not only their own blood, but likewise the blood of those they considered to be the enemy, plunging with them the world into confusedness and strife. Sentimentality is a weapon applied by Satan to divert humanity from the way of Allah (God), and to lead them into misery. This trap that Satan has set for humanity is without doubt or question evidenced in romantic nationalism. In the Qu’ran, Allah relates how Satan submits those underneath his influence to a state of terror, confusedness and hostility: He (Allah) said, “Go! And as for any who follow you, your repayment is Hell, repayment in full! Stir up any of them you may with your voice and rally versus them your cavalry and your infantry and portion with them in their children and their wealth and make them promises! The promise of Satan is not one thing but delusion.” (Surat al-Isra’: 63-64) The above verse relates how Satan, using those humans under his control, will “entice any of them whom he may with his voice” and “rally versus them his cavalry and his infantry”-the means to provoke romantic nationalism. |
