Nationalism: Good or Bad?

It is important to redefine the meaning of Nationalism to those who never understood the real meaning of Pakistan. These are the ones who are more attached to the flag and the land but they don’t really understand the ideology. One only has to study the poetry of Iqbal to understand what the forefathers had in mind for a separate homeland (It was even before the word Pakistan was coined).

Iqbal draws parables with Muslim rule in Spain and Constantinople, he doesn’t call the muslims of Hind to make a separate homeland for themselves (in fact you wouldn’t find this particular message in his poetry, the two-nation theory he promoted for the first time in 1930 was something separate from his poetry), rather he calls them to carve out an identity, to become an Ummah (although his poetry was in farsi/urdu because we were the main audience). Also, one has to understand the context in which these ideas were presented, the Khilafah had just been broken in 1922 following the First World War. Muslims of India fought for saving the Khilafah, the amount of sacrifices Muslims of the subcontinent made for this are to this day acknowledged by the Turks. Perhaps, Turkey is the only country where you would be appreciated for being a Pakistani. The Muslims at that time were bruised by this major loss, so when they thought about a separate homeland, they actually had the Khilafat model in mind. Of course, it could not have been implemented throughout the Ummah because the same forces that broke down the Ottoman Khilafah wouldn’t let that happen. Pakistan was supposed to be a mini version of that Khilafah.

Khilafahs are ideological states, they are not based on geographical location, languages, ethnicities, or cultures, rather they are a melting pot of different cultures, ethnicities, and languages. Pakistan shares the same traits. Our unity doesn’t come from our geographical location, language, or culture e.g. in the case of Iran (the name changed but other things remained the same for the most part of it) and China.. these countries’ borders, languages, and cultures have remained the same throughout most of their history with minor changes over time. In case of Pakistan, we do not have anything in common, we are different ethnicities, different languages, different cultures. And not all of us share a common history. The only thing we have in common is Islam. Although, it is a different discussion how we have moved away from the essence of the ideology, the ideology itself was not misguided.

So if nationalism means believing in a country with a flag, defined geographical boundaries, and only a particular set of people living in it with a particular set of languages and cultures, then I would say no I do not support that. But if it means an Islamic ideological state made for muslims as an attempt to imitate the Khilafah, then for sure I support it. When I say I am Pakistani, I do not mean that I come from an area which falls within the borders of Pakistan, or that I have a green Pakistani passport. When someone asks me where I am from I tell them I come from Swat, which is an area in the North of Pakistan, near the Afghan border. But when I say I am a Pakistani it really means that I am a believer in the ideology of Pakistan. It could’ve been any other name than ‘Pakistan’, or as I explained above, according to my understanding saying I am a Pakistani is synonymous to saying I am a Muslim, although I agree that if that is the case then I might as well just call myself Muslim as that is the preferred word to use.