Extreme nationalism and the security of contemporary society

Abstract

Ethnic groups are characterized by certain collective identity whose foundations are made of language, religion, race, and country of origin with its culture and customs. Since ethnic identities differ one from another, in multinational and multicultural societies there is a latent danger of having ideologies that advocate ethnic distancing, imposing a danger to the security of other ethnicities, the change of constitutional order, as well as separation of certain parts of sovereign states with the aim of creating new countries or accession to some other ones. Besides the fact that these phenomena cause collective discrimination and severe violation of human rights, they are also, very often, accompanied by individual and collective violence - terrorism, (civil) wars, genocide, war crimes and other forms of inter-ethnic violence. Alongside with the extreme intolerance, these ideologies also propagate particularization of a society by ethnic, religious and race criteria. Given the fact that their base is made of glorification of their own national identity and negation of other ones, it is reasonably justified for them to carry an epithet of extreme-nationalist. Regarding the mentioned, this paper gives a perspective on definition and typology of nationalism, its consequences for the security of contemporary society, as well as on contemporary social reaction to it.

Etničke grupe karakteriše izvestan kolektivni identitet u čijoj su osnovi jezik, vera, rasa i zemlja porekla s njenom kulturom i običajima. Kako se etnički identiteti međusobno razlikuju, u multinacionalnim i multireligijskim društvima postoji latentna opasnost od rađanja ideologija koje zagovaraju etničko distanciranje, ugrožavanje bezbednosti pripadnika drugih etniciteta, promenu ustavnog poretka i otcepljenje delova teritorija suverenih država radi stvaranja novih država ili pripajanja drugim državama. Pored kolektivne diskriminacije i grubog kršenja ljudskih prava, takve pojave neretko prati izvesno pojedinačno i kolektivno nasilje - terorizam, (građanski) ratovi, genocid, ratni zločini i drugo međuetničko nasilje. Osim izrazite netolerantnosti, ovakve ideologije propagiraju partikularizaciju društva po etničkim, verskim i rasnim kriterijumima. S obzirom na to da je u njihovoj osnovi veličanje sopstvenog i negiranje tuđeg nacionalnog identiteta, s pravom se nazivaju ekstremno nacionalističkim. S tim u vezi, u radu je učinjen osvrt na određenje i tipologizaciju nacionalizma, na njegove posledice po bezbednost savremenog društva, kao i na savremenu socijalnu reakciju na ovaj problem društvene bezbednosti.