Post #3
Nationalism can present itself in many forms — cheering on your country in the World Cup, feeding into national propaganda, drinking domestic beer, etc.
Personally, I will never feel patriotism for my country more strongly than when I reflect on those who made the ultimate sacrifice so that we may continue to prosper as a cohesive unit.
Though my mother was born and raised in Germany, she married my U.S. soldier-of-a-dad who was stationed in Germany and made her United States pilgrimage before the age of 27, raising my brother and I in an Americanized household. So, in completely unintentional bouts of ethnocentrism, I sometimes forget that every nation may feel so prideful.
Brittanica defines nationalism as: ideology based on the premise that the individual’s loyalty and devotion to the nation-state surpass other individual or group interests. There is much debate on the virtue of nationalism, and in fact, an American ethnocentrism is the crux of global debate on nationalism. Yet according to Fareed Zakaria, this problem — the use of the Western World as a reference point and/or lens — is on its way out, and the self-interest of other countries is on its way in.
Nationalism is widely characterized by a shared language and culture; for example, before the official unification of Germany in 1871, Germans had no identity. They relied on the history of German states and their language as a identifying factor. Much like Germany’s unification as a nation, or the revolutions for independence in America and France, every country’s beginnings can be traced back to a defining moment of sovereignty.
Ecuador is no exception to this. Plagued by economic depression and inequality, 18th century Spain’s troubles extended beyond its European borders; i.e. depression hit the Spanish (and Portuguese) colonies of Latin America. Simultaneously, ideals of the Enlightenment were infiltrating the colonies’ borders, setting the stage for a continental revolution. In short, the unifying factor of revolutionists — criollos — was their place of birth; all were of pure Spanish descent, but took their first breaths on South American soil. The mutual enemy? Peninsulares — individuals born in Spain — a privilege leading criollos to seek independence from the crown. Ecuador gained this independence on the 24th of May, 1822.
A concise summary of Ecuador history can be seen here:
With this newfound freedom, comes a redefined sense of nationalism, which at times, is broken down into a “sub-nationalism” Zakaria so fears. For example, indigenous groups of Ecuador don’t necessarily see eye-to-eye with the modern ethics of their own government.
Just last year, some individuals from an indigenous Amazonian group, the Shuar, were displaced by the Ecuadorian government in an effort to make room for a Chinese mining project.
One member of the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of the Ecuadorian Amazon (CONFENIAE)told the media:
“We are being persecuted by the military and the police who are invading the territories of the Shuar communities; They have destroyed homes. So the Shuar people, women, men, and children have had to flee.”
This conflict continued, and violence even ensued when one group of Shuar people attempted to overtake the mining camp, resulting in a governmental mobilization of a reported 1,000 military and police into the area. Eventually, though the mining project wasn’t engendered out of malicious intent, it was realized that the negative consequences far outweighed the positive.
The fact that displacement of indigenous people — in a country with a constitution protecting all people of the country — occurred at all is baffling. In his introduction to Globalization, Manfred Steger points out that it is not unlike Chinese companies to expand their business to the global stage. What is disconcerting is the lack of apparent success from the Shuar people in their own home, and the mining project’s 25 year lifespan.
Inequality in Ecuador is marked by its GINI coefficient of 45 (2016). Though this statistic at a mere glance is mid-range and unimpressive, when Ecuador’s GINI coefficient is viewed as a trend, it is steadily decreasing, indicating strides towards closing the gap. Interestingly, this is opposite of the U.S. GINI coefficient trend, which seems to be steadily increasing, nearly equalling Ecuador in present day.
The high inequality in Ecuador from the 1990s to early 2000s was due to a few factors. The spike in inequality in the 1990s can be attributed to natural disaster and deep economic crisis, whereas the income equality fall of the 2000s can partly be associated with the new leftist government. The fall in inequality can be mainly ascribed to recovery from economic crisis and new social transfer policies from the leftist government.
According to United Nations University, in order for Ecuadorian labor inequality to consistently drop, two things must happen:
- “…diversification into more skill-intensive activities to absorb a more educated labour force”
- 2. “Structural transformation in the agricultural sector.”
Sources:
Steger, Manfred. 2017. Globalization a very short introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Zakaria, Fareed. 2008. The post-American world. New York: W.W. Norton.
