Nationalism and its illness: Political Violence.
There has been a strong correlation between nationalism and political violence throughout the years. What is important is the extent to which nation-based conflicts regarding religion, language and ethnicity differences are causing statewide conflicts. However, by examining these causes such as nationalism, we should not underestimate other factors such as inequality and class conflicts which can play significant roles in forming state violence. Thus, it is better first to discover the true sense of state violence, its predicted and observed causes and then illustrate the phenomenon by giving some major examples from the real world such as the Irish and Lebanon interstate conflicts. So it is very crucial to ask the question: "How do conflicts derived from nationalistic ideologies arise from complex combinations of ethnic strength, class, inequality, political opportunity, mobilization processes or international interventions?" The last question to answer will be the future of nationalism, will there be an end to the imagined idea of nationalism in this smalling global world or are we going to witness strengthening of the power of nation-states?.
To look at this issue from the black and white perspective seems to be not logical. Globalization can both cause the weakening and strengthening of the state by those fundamental changes. On the one hand, the state can be seen as the vehicle for the global spread of economic and technological progress, but on the other, it can be presented as the source of violence and repression and maybe a fundamental barrier to the unification of the world. (Smith 1992,256) When we look at political violence, we can figure out that in political violence there exists a rational aim in committing the crime. It is most of the times defined as the use of actual physical violence or serious threats of violence to achieve political goals (Danziger, 2001, 258).
