Marbaniang, Domenic

In the past, empires and regimes identified national integrity with a cultural, ideological or religious unity of some kind. Thus, from Nebuchadnezzar's Golden Image and Alexander's Hellenization to Nazi Fascism and Soviet Communism, the attempt was to unify on the basis of symbols, forms, and slogans. However, it didn't unite but only divide turning a nation against itself and its own people, in some cases leading to persecution by the government of the very people it was called to protect. Opposed to such false ideals of national integrity, modern secular constitutions envisage justice, equality, fraternity, and liberty as the chief principles of nationhood. In an increasingly globalizing era, cultural pride and cultural monism can never be the answer. The parade and propagation of symbols and slogans don't help much in the improvement of the nation. Pride goes before destruction. The Parable of the Good Samaritan is one of the best illustrations of the real need. The...

To define nationality in terms of race and religion will immediately lead to confusion. For instance, if we define the term "Indian" (a nationality identifier) as "a person who belongs to the ancient races of the mainland of Hindustan and follows one of the ancient religions of the land, e.g. Hinduism, Buddhism, etc", then we immediately land into the following problems: 1. A Japanese Buddhist will not be considered an "Indian" because though he follows an ancient religion of the land, Buddhism, he doesn't belong to one of the ancient races of India. 2. Suppose, the same definition is accepted by the Japanese, i.e. they define "Japanese" as "a person who belongs to the ancient races of the mainland of Japan and follows one of the ancient religions of the land, e.g. Shintoism", then because he doesn't follow the religion of Shintoism but follows Buddhism, he will be no longer considered "Japanese" anymore. 3. However, i...