We spoke with journalist and human rights activist Petrit Saracini about nationalism, hate speech, and about who can engage in the fight against nationalism and how.

“Creating enemies is the key mobilizing point that nationalism has and is using. The hidden goal behind the mobilization of citizens is to minimize the disappointment or failure of the ruling elites. These elites find reasons or justifications for their failure in others, in the enemy or in the different one”, says Saracini.

“Nationalism is not rationalism, but irrationalism in its action. It does not relate to the truth or to information, but to emotions. If one wishes to fight against this evil, then one should detect precisely these emotional reasons that impact the spreading of nationalism and direct the actions there. If you eliminate the causes of nationalism, you will also eliminate nationalism itself”, he considers.

“Nationalism ends with hatred. Hatred is not benign. It requires action. Action that will be directed towards the different one, towards the enemy. This action will produce conflict, it will produce a clash, it will produce victims. These are the consequences and this has to be clear to the people, nationalism is not something that brings anyone victory, but often brings suffering and defeats”, says Saracini.

Text and editing: Маја Ivanovska
Camera: Dehran Muratov