Deralla, CIVIL: It is interesting that this debate has developed in the public discourse and that a difference has been made between nationalism and patriotism. In this occasion, I would like to quote the title of the column of Zlate Lozinovski, written for our platform CIVIL Media, in which he says: “The patriot defends his country, and the nationalist defends himself with the country!”.

Here we have a very interesting thing about the difference between patriotism and nationalism, which we see everywhere in the public discourse, especially in what we call the war on Facebook, or war of words on the social media. Here we can notice that a patriot is actually the one who loves his country, loves the society in which he lives in, in which he is trying to contribute. He or she is an active citizen. With their love, their idea, their energy, they are trying to give new quality to life in their country. Whereas a nationalist is one that hates. It is a destructive phenomenon, a destructive character that belongs to a past when nationalist had a positive, creative role in history and in societies. A nationalist is one that hates others. It is those people who do not see faults among their “own” people, but only see faults, fear and danger from the “others”.

What truly fascinated me in a political – philosophical thought is the German philosopher Habermas, who created the term constitutional patriotism. That is, love of every citizen of that state towards the country in which they live in, with all its attributes, with all its diversity. That is in short a sublimation of this truly rich with contents political and philosophical thought of Habermas. I think that precisely in this turbulent period, a period when really big decisions need to be made, we see this type of patriotism as an opportunity for people to activate themselves and to contribute to the development of the state, towards the development of the society in which they live in.

Indeed, patriotism can greatly help precisely in this period, in order to understand the needs of this society, in which we now need to prepare the future of the generations to come. To be in solidarity with the needs of the generations after us, so that what we are doing now is shameful. That is why I think that those who consider patriotism and nationalism as the same thing, need to take a deeper look into the essence of things, and they will see that nationalism is destructive, which eventually eats itself. That is something that does not give quality of living, but only destroys it. It is a pretty dark side of social existence. Nationalism does not allow the existence of individual expression. It is more a development of the psychology of the horde, which is always wrong. Which always incites violence or creates potentials for violence.

Text editing: Маја Ivanovska
Camera and photography: Аtanas Petrovski
Editing: Аrian Mehmeti

Translation: Natasa Cvetkovska