Tagore’s Cultural Nationalism

In 1917, a Nobel Prize winning poet published a book called Nationalism. Using his engaging and creative style, this writer explored the type of public mood that was found in three different societies. The type of communities that were steeped in colonial attitudes, patriotic sentiments and liberation struggles.  

What he found in these communities, and later criticized, has since made him very respected in some circles. It has also made him a hated figure in more conservative ones.

For he not only criticized those that had a romantic and ahistorical fixation with the past. He also challenged the type of rigid traditionalism that would serve the most brutal of punishments on any of its critics. 

In favor of a more tempered approach, Rabindranath Tagore’s conception of “a patriot” is important because it is accommodating. It is a worldview that prioritizes tolerance over prejudice; reasoned and informed discourse over the tyranny of a misunderstood past; and social empathy over the automatic and unquestioned acceptance of “how things are done”. 

By advocating for what some have since called “dissenting nationalism”, this book does not call for a return to the good old days. Neither does it call for the glorification/imitation of western culture.  

Instead, Tagore’s idea of “love of country” is one that celebrates as well as seeks to realize a country’s highest ideals. The type of principles that are codified in a country’s legal code just as much as they are in its cultural domain. And it is when we try to live up to these ideals of tolerance, respect, equality and collective wellbeing that we not only become responsible citizens. 

We also become good patriots. 

And although Tagore has been overshadowed by his more famous peers, his contributions have withstood the test of time. Which is why this book is as relevant in today’s Ethiopia as it was in the colonial era of the 1900s. 

For our current brand of nationalism tends to prescribe rather than accommodate.

Where the very immobility of our social norms is considered as a sign of their perfection. And questioning them, showing interest in how others live or what they value, even if these “others” are one of our own, is seen as a betrayal. 

And the principles of freedom of expression, tolerance and equality? Well, they are fine so long as they don’t challenge our current cultural condition.

Leaving us with a type of cultural nationalism that not only overlooks the diversity of thought that comes from living in an ancient and diverse country. But the type that also ignores the impossibility of glorifying yet simultaneously stereotyping 120 million people.