SECTION 2
THE THEORY OF NATIONALISM
NATION AND NATIONALISM
Nationalism is a set of systems- political, social, and economic- characterized by the promotion of
the interests of one nation anchored on the aim to achieve and maintain self-governance or total
sovereignty. It holds that a particular nation should govern itself and should be free from external
interference. Another important facet of nationalism is that is oriented towards developing and
maintaining a national identity based on shared characteristics such as culture, language, race,
and religion. It seeks to preserve and reshape a nations culture. The concept of nationalism is
essentially modern. While people have historically been attached to their families, community,
and native land, the concept of nationalism only gained recognition in the late 18 th century. The
conceptualization of nationalism in a distinctively modern sense was tied to the political
awakening of the lower classes. Nationalist movements have been invariably populist in outlook
and sought to induct lower classes into political life.
The five basic elements of nationalism are:
1. Culture
2. History
3. Language
4. Religion
5. Territory
Nationalism is best understood by first looking into the term nation. Benedict Anderson, a
prominent historian and political scientist who explored the origins of nationalism, defined the
nation as fabrication, a bond between two people who did not actually exist prior to its own
recognition. For him, the nation “is an imagined community- and imagined as both inherently
limited and sovereign” (2006). Anderson argues that the nation is imagined as a community
because regardless of the actual inequalities that prevail, the nation is always conceived as a
deep, horizontal comradeship. It is imagined because it exists in the figment of the peoples
collective imagination. According to Anderson, nation-ness is a cultural artifact that is felt as
having existed since time immemorial but is objectively modern as it first emerged toward the
end of the 18th century.
Following the conceptualization by Anderson, the Philippine nation is imagined community
because one who identifies himself or herself as a Filipino will never meet all the other Filipinos
around the world, yet he or she is convinced that they exist and he or she is related to them.
Anderson also presents the concept of homogenous empty time, borrowed from the ideas of
Walter Benjamin, which replaced the idea of simultaneity-along- time which referred to the
medieval conception of time as situating events in the past, present, and future simultaneously.
Homogenous empty time suggests that a nation can be imagined as a unit, moving through time.
Rizal’s Work and Nationalism
Anderson points out that Rizal’s Noli Me Tangere conjured an imagined community as if the
readers and the author were familiar to and intimate with each other, with the characters and
readers being situated in the same context of time and space. The novel provided the means of
representing the nation as an imagined community that operated on empty time enabling the
reader to be omniscient to see a delimited society and the actuations of key people in it.
Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo emerged as the founding texts of Philippine nationalism.
These novels exposed the ills of the Spanish colonial government and the evils prevailing in the
Philippine society by presenting a narrative that contextualizes the country in terms of politics,
economy, and culture.
Rizal was able to go against the colonizers and show how literature can be used to arouse people
to be catalysts of social change. In both his novels, Rizal was able to portray the Filipino in
different dimensions, from those who had colonial mentality, to those who willingly fought for the
country at all costs.
Through his novels, Rizal emphasized the values of nationalism and loving one’s country. The
scathing national narrative Rizal presented became the inspiration for strengthening the anti-
colonial movement.
