Guard Dogs vs. Rabid Wolves: All Nationalism Isn't the Same

You've probably seen it. A Western pundit on Twitter, hand-wringing about "the dangerous rise of nationalism" after seeing footage of Indian students celebrating their country's space mission. An op-ed warning about "authoritarian nationalism" in Vietnam for not adopting Western-style democracy fast enough. An academic paper treating Hungarian fascism and Kenyan cultural preservation as basically the same phenomenon because they both involve flags.

But nationalism isn't always the western supremacist kind and confusing an indigenous movement for conservation with fascism is like mistaking a guard dog for a rabid wolf.

The Nationalism of the Already-Powerful

The first kind (western nationalism) comes from people who already run the world.

Picture this: You're the richest kid in school. You've got the best sneakers, the coolest phone, and your parents drive the fanciest car. Now imagine that kid constantly talking about how special and superior their family is, how their way of doing things is the only right way, and how everyone else should be grateful for their leadership.

That's Western nationalism. It's the nationalism of people who colonized half the planet and are now surprised that not everyone wants to be a pale imitation of Nebraska.

American exceptionalism works like this: First, they bomb your country. Then they rebuild it to look like a strip mall in Phoenix. Then they call this "spreading democracy." When you complain, they explain that you're not ready for freedom yet. The whole time, they act confused why you're not more grateful.

European nationalism is sneakier but follows the same pattern. They'll lecture you about "Western values" while systematically making their former colonies into resource extraction zones with wine bars.

This type of nationalism is particularly toxic: it doesn't just want your land or your labor. It wants your mind. It wants you to agree that your ancestors were backward, your culture is primitive, and your gods are imaginary. It wants you to measure your worth by how closely you can approximate a suburban lifestyle in Munich or Minneapolis.

The really twisted part is that they've convinced themselves this is generous. They genuinely believe they're doing you a favor by erasing everything that makes you different from them.

The Nationalism of the Desperate

The second kind of nationalism comes from people whose cultures are on life support.

Picture this instead: Your family has lived in the same house for ten generations. Someone breaks in, burns all your photo albums, throws out your grandmother's recipes, and forces you to speak only their language. They rename your children and teach them that their ancestors were savages. After a century of this, they finally leave - but they've set up systems to monitor you and hired your neighbors to enforce their rules.

That's the nationalism of formerly colonized countries like India. It's not about conquering anyone. It's about remembering who you were before someone tried to delete you.

The British didn't just steal India's wealth - they convinced Indians that everything Indian was worthless. They made Sanskrit sound stupid and native festivals seem unsophisticated. They turned an entire civilization into an embarrassing phase people needed to grow out of.

Your great-grandfather who could calculate eclipses without a computer wasn't an idiot. The philosophy that kept your society stable for thousands of years isn't primitive. The medical system that cured diseases before Europeans knew what germs were isn't worthless superstition.

This indigenous nationalism isn't about proving superiority - it is about proving the right to exist. Because when your entire way of life is being systematically dismantled, nationalism becomes a life raft, not a weapon.

The Resurrection Project

Indigenous nationalism isn't just about kicking out foreigners. It is about archaeological work on their own cultures.

Colonial education had taught people that traditional medicine was witchcraft, that indigenous agriculture was inefficient, that local art was primitive. Indigenous nationalist movements have to excavate these buried treasures and prove they have value.

They have to celebrate pre-colonial achievements that European historians erased. They have to revive languages that were banned in schools. They have to restoreb festivals that were outlawed as "pagan." They have to show that their ancestors had built sophisticated civilizations while Europeans were still figuring out basic hygiene.

This isn't merely romantic traditionalism. True freedom means choosing what to keep from the past and what to change, not having foreign solutions imposed at gunpoint. So the Indigenous nationalist movements start with cultural pride. hoping other things will follow.

Why the West Still Doesn't Get It

The problem with most Western analysis of non-Western nationalism is that it assumes all nationalism works the same way.

When Indians celebrate their space program, Western media sees German lebensraum. When Chinese leaders talk about the "century of humiliation," Western academics hear Hitler's grievances. When African countries prioritize local industries over foreign investment, Western economists see dangerous isolationism.

This blindness is not accidental. Recognizing the legitimacy of Indigenous nationalism would mean admitting that Western dominance isn't natural law. It would mean acknowledging that other cultures don't need Western guidance to thrive.

So instead, every assertion of non-Western identity gets labeled as dangerous authoritarianism. Every celebration of non-Western achievement gets called supremacist. Every rejection of Western models gets diagnosed as backwardness.

The real threat to Western hegemony isn't military - it's psychological. It's the possibility that other people might stop wanting to be Western.

The Two Stories

Western nationalism asks "Why aren't you more like us?". Indigenous nationalism asks "Why can't we be ourselves?"

One seeks to expand its control. The other seeks to maintain its freedom.

One comes from the position of having too much power. The other comes from having too little.

One tries to make the world smaller and more uniform. The other tries to keep the world diverse and interesting.

These aren't the same story. They don't deserve the same judgment.

The next time you see a headline about "rising nationalism" in Asia or Africa, ask yourself: Are these people trying to dominate others, or trying to avoid being dominated? The answer will tell you everything you need to know about who's really threatening world peace.