NATIONS AND NATIONALISM - REPLY

Nationalism, in contrast to national identity, is a political programm e that always has exclusionary effects. It supposes that groups define d as 'nations' can and should form territorial states of the kind that came into being from the time of the American and French Revolutions. In practice, the nationalist programme aims at constructing sovereign state control over a clearly demarcated territory. Since nations rare ly live physically apart from other nations, nationalism implies separ atism and xenophobia. Nationalists are not merely opposed to 'foreigne rs'. They are also in favour of setting up 'their' own state, in which 'their' nation holds a monopoly of power, or at least enjoys a privil eged official status. Not surprisingly, cultural discrimination and ph ysical harassment and, in extreme cases, mass expulsion and genocide o ften follow.