"Those critics of the nation who have seen in it the root of xenophobia and racism, have often disparaged the imperial powers of Europe for their indecent contempt toward the "natives" of their territories. A picture has developed—by no means wholly wrong—of European despots, smugly convinced of their ancestral right of sovereignty, cruelly trampling on people whom they regarded as their genetic inferiors. But these very same critics are frequently enthusiastic supporters of the "national liberation struggles," whereby colonial peoples attempt to affirm themselves as nations, and to achieve independence in precisely that guise. Of course, the new nations are not the same kind of thing as the old ones, as I have argued. But they answer to the same need: the need for a bond of membership that will conform to the geographical and administrative realities, that will permit the dead and the unborn to stand beside us, and that will define our territory as home. Now you can't have it both ways. If nationhood is a boon to the peoples of New Guinea and Peru, it must also be a boon to those who formerly oppressed them."
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Novelists from EnglandPhilosophers from EnglandUniversity of Cambridge facultyLawyers from EnglandComposers from England
Original Language: English
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'The First Person Plural', in Ronald Beiner (ed.), Theorizing Nationalism (1999), p. 292
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Roger_Scruton
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Roger Scruton
Roger Scruton (27 February 1944 – 12 January 2020) was a British philosopher, who worked as an academic, editor, publisher, barrister, journalist, broadcaster, countryside campaigner, novelist, and composer.
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