What did Ultranationalism really do to marginalized groups? — Horrifying facts you may not have known
Ultranationalism is a result of the toxic pursuit of national interest. It can be defined as the extreme radical loyalty and devotion towards a nation, promoting the development of a superiority complex within individuals in a nation towards other opposing nations. This creates the “Us vs. Them” mentality where the ‘us’ is seen as superior to the ‘them’, who at most times aren’t even seen as human. This mindset has presented major problems towards marginalized communities where holding on to their beliefs and values became increasingly harder to do, the effects of which can still be seen in modern day society. Ultranationalism has posed a threat towards marginalized peoples as the toxic pursuit of national interest has lead to cultural genocide, embracement of Social Darwinism, and the mass extermination within a collective.
The Indigenous Peoples of Canada
The extreme pursuit of nationalism has lead to colonization of other nations by Europeans, in return leading to the cultural genocide of marginalized Indigenous peoples. The three G’s, gold, glory and God, which Europeans used to defend their need to expand and colonize other nations, encouraged ultranationalistic ideologies within nations. Colonization done for the benefit of one’s nation brought upon an increase in wealth and fame in a country, feeding the superiority complex, the sense that an individual is above others, within that nation’s population. The third G, God, was used to justify acts carried out by colonizers which resulted in the eradication of Indigenous cultures and values. European settlers created a Residential Schooling system in Canada, a way to assimilate Indigenous people into the now larger and stronger European settler society. By calling themselves slaves doing “God’s dirty work”, the European settlers rationalized their acts of terror made against Indigenous children. These included forcefully taking children from their parents at young ages, requiring children to bathe themselves with bleach in attempt to whiten their darker skin, removing anything cultural from the children’s lives, including cutting their hair and forbidding the use of their native tongue, as well as multiple acts of physical and mental torture carried out under the means of ‘discipline’, including health experiments and the electric chair. Sexual abuse was no stranger in Residential Schools and was found to be defended in the name of God, where ‘religious Christian authorities’ would rape children and comfort them later saying things like the pain from what had just happened was a gift from God in order to make them stronger. Superiority complex’s developed through ultranationalism and the need to control ‘less’ beings pushed the assimilation of Indigenous communities in Canada through the Residential Schooling system, succeeding in carrying out a cultural genocide, the effects of which can be seen in society today. Indigenous communities now suffer from loss of cultural values, which would have been taught to children growing up with their parents, and loss of land through the forced takeover carried out by European settlers. Recently, the Ring Road in Calgary, Alberta, had finished undergoing construction and opened. At the ribbon cutting ceremony, a young Indigenous man came forward and protested against the industrialization taking place on Indigenous land. He stated that in his lifetime, he had seen homes on the land which had now been turned into a part of Stoney Trail. Naming a road after the Indigenous community doesn’t make up for the loss of land and homes, and in extension their way of living with the land. This man cut off his braids, a symbol of pride grown out and worn in Indigenous communities, and threw them onto the road, leaving a piece of himself with his native land, in protest. Even now, we see the sacrifices being made by the Indigenous community due to historic ultranationalist ideologies that have just created a system where marginalized communities like the Indigenous do not benefit.
Horrors of Social Darwinism and Eugenics
The need to justify actions taken in pursuit of ultranationalism pushed individuals to look at science for answers, developing the theory of Social Darwinism. Individuals found evidence to support their claims in work that was nowhere related to the actions being carried out against other races. In 1859, British naturalist Charles Darwin concocted a theory explaining evolution and the process of natural selection in species of plants and animals. Darwin’s work suggested that species compete for limited resources in an environment where only well suited organisms survive to reproduce and pass on advantageous traits to offsprings, a process known as natural selection. He suggested that evolution occurred through the process of natural selection, publishing his findings and quickly becoming a sensation in the science world. However, individuals were quick to loosely connect Darwin’s theory of evolution and natural selection to their own societies, only enhancing and encouraging the ‘us vs. them’ mindset. Herbert Spencer, a British thinker, popularized the theory of Social Darwinism through referring to Darwin’s work in phrases of his own such as “the struggle for existence”, similar to competition seen interspecies, and “the survival of the fittest”, directly relating humans to the process of natural selection. Elitists, who were at the top of the economic and social hierarchy in society, were considered the fittest of them all. With no surprise, these individuals were primarily powerful Europeans. No one in the elitist class would be seen to have darker skin or work in labour. As “competition rewards the strong”, those at the bottom of the economic and social hierarchy would be seen as “less fit”, typically those of darker skin or individuals not retaining any desired European feature, seen to be marginalized in society, giving reason to allow ‘stronger’ individuals to justify their wrongdoings against them. Social Darwinism was widely accepted in European society, typically by lighter skinned people. It was seen that the theory was entirely biased according to race. Killings of darker skinned people and marginalized communities were written off and argued under the idea that the laws of natural selection would have eventually killed them anyway. Social Darwinism also encouraged the idea of eugenics, which is the use of science to improve the human race. This includes breeding the “best of the best” with each other and preventing “society’s worst” from reproducing. Alfred Ploetz advocated for “racial hygiene” through eugenics in Germany, heavily influenced by the eugenic actions taken in England and the United States of America. American eugenicists pushed for limitations on marriages and immigration in order to control the mixing of races and maintain racial hygiene, increasingly presenting Aryan features in society. These features came from Northern Europeans believing to have descended from a mythical race, the Aryans, which the idea of being the fittest in society revolved around. Americans also lobbied for laws that would permit sterilizing those classified as “socially unfit”, typically meaning marginalized groups so the population would remain ‘uncontaminated’. Similar laws were later seen to be used in Germany. Even with scientists coming forward with evidence to contradict and prove that the theory of Social Darwinism was completely false, society had entered a stage where this us vs. them mindset, relating to marginalized races, had become embedded in the system and this scientific evidence had little to no impact. Ultranationalism pushed the theory of Social Darwinism, allowing for those classifying themselves as more fit to justify racial cleansing in the name of their nation.
Mass Annihilation in Nazi Germany
Ultranationalism opened doors to mass extermination executed upon marginalized peoples in a nation. Ultranationalism fueled the annihilation of the Jews, known as the Holocaust, that occurred during the second world war in Nazi Germany and the rest of German-occupied Europe. Adolf Hitler, leader of the Nazi Party of Germany, aimed to eliminate Europe’s Jewish population and any other group that opposed and threatened the Nazi Party. Hitler and the Nazis originally had no plan to create concentrations camps prior to their seizure of power and growth. Concentration camps rose in popularity amongst the Nazis in order to fulfill their desire to arrest and suppress thousands of Nazi opponents in Germany. The Reichstag fire in February of 1933 was the pretext for mass arrests. In March of that same year, Hitler became Chancellor of Germany and immediately established and implemented the use of camps. These included concentration camps, forced-labour camps, prisoner-of-war camps, transit camps and complete killing centres. Hitler was quick to marginalize the Jews in society and any other opposing groups in society, including all political parties other than the Nazis. He used the Reichstag fire to further fulfill his own goals by urging the President of Germany to issue decrees that would legalize the arrest of individuals seen as ‘threats’ and suspended every part of the constitution that protected personal freedoms. Policy changes like these were in favour of ultranationalism and were justified through the good of the nation. Through the use of propaganda, Hitler instilled a mindset revolving around ultranationalistic views such as the extreme love of Germany and the extreme hatred of any other country within members of German society. This led to Jews and German communist associates to be imprisoned on sight as the marginalized groups would be heavily outnumbered in society. British intelligence agents were able to infiltrate German radios and listen in on the systemic mass murders of marginalized people, namely the Jews, taking place across all of German-occupied Europe and Nazi Germany itself. American journalists described what happened to Jews in Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania as an “open hunt”. Newspapers carried the news of the massacre of Jews happening in occupied Europe and Nazi Germany throughout the whole world. Articles like “Over 1,000,000 dead since the war began”, “Nazi slaughterhouse…extermination drive”, and “Jews list their dead at a million” were reported by publishers like the London Times, the Montreal Daily Star, and the New York Journal American. The Allied powers stated that the use of the term concentration camps was obsolete as what was happening could only be defined by the use of extermination camps. Jews all across occupied Europe were being transported to Eastern Europe, to Poland, which had been made the Nazi slaughterhouse, in order to be deliberately executed. Extremely skilled individuals were left alive and were forced to provide labour for the war industry. Other able-bodied individuals would be worked to death in labour camps. Hundreds of thousands of innocent men, women, and children died at the hands of Nazi Germany. Ultranationalistic ideologies in Nazi Germany encouraged the superiority of Germany over all other nations, leading to the massacre of marginalized people all across Europe.
Ultranationalism has been responsible for many threats presented to marginalized groups across the globe. Historic ideologies have left their marks on modern day society, as can be seen through systemic racism present in political systems. As a result of the toxic pursuit of national interest, marginalized communities have faced cultural genocide, such as the assimilation of Indigenous in Canada, justified racial cleansing and eugenics through the theory of Social Darwinism, and mass elimination within collectives, such as the massacre of Jews during the second world war. Ultranationalism leads to the imbalance of power where marginalized groups are undermined in their own society.
