Hacker News Reader

Nationalism in the context of SNP (and as a concept in general) simply refers to the desire/belief that the state and nation should be synonymous. The problem is that not everyone's interpretation of national identity is the same, so the in the end all you get is populism used to push a belief. The answer to the question "What is Scotland, anyway?" is not as clear as politicians would like it to be.

View on HN

Ok but in real-world usage "nationalist = far right = nazis = bad". So I was clarifying that while that is not untrue, nobody is saying the Scottish independence movement or the SNP are that.

It might be regional or very US/UK specific. In many parts of the world nationalism is also associated with left wing separatist movements. For example, in Spain we have ETA[1], and in Turkey the PKK[2].

I've never specifically associated it with neither left nor right because in my country we have both right and left wing nationalist movements. Yes, far right nationalism is often fascism, nazism, jingoism, etc. but this isn't the only type of nationalism, and we don't use nationalism as a synonym for nazism/fascism, except when speaking specifically in the context of right wing nationalist groups.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ETA_(separatist_group) 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurdistan_Workers%27_Party

Reply on news.ycombinator.com