I would like to talk a little bit about the article Nationalism and
Global Citizenship by April Carter. Firstly, I agree with the point she makes
that some of the current conceptions of global citizenship are strongly rooted
in early Western though, such as the political and moral standards associated
with being a ‘decent citizen’.
As I read on, I found it interesting that April had differentiated
between nationalism and global citizenship because I now see where she is
coming from in setting both notions on opposite sides of the spectrum but at the
same time, I suggest that perhaps the notion of nationalism is an indefinable
and useless term. Maybe instead the spectrum should incorporate different levels
of global citizenship, some of which do include certain aspects of nationalism.
In the article, it was mentioned that ideas of nationalism seem to
create a term for a nation that may not actually be a “nation”. So for example,
trying to claim that a nation is a place where there is a homogenous language
structure is useless because there is no single place where this exists. I
believe it’s useless to try and coin what nationalism is and I think it would
make much more sense to say that the global world is a nation in itself where
all citizens are global citizens - perhaps with some contributing more than
others in regards to justice and morality. For example, the cosmopolitan
understanding of global citizenship is based around taking responsibility for
all conflict in the world and could be at the highest moral level of the spectrum.
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