Duterte espouses healthy nationalism that will lead Filipinos down the right path

There’s healthy nationalism and there’s out of control nationalism. I agree with the previous posters that it does no good to place people and situations in neat little labelled boxes called “nationalism” and “openness”. In reality, nations can be both nationalist and open!

When people cite extreme examples of “nationalism” such as Nazism or even Trumpism they expose the danger in painting ideas with broad strokes. What happened in Germany wasn’t really nationalism because what Hitler did was create divisions within his own nation, creating not a united German nation but a divided nation within a nation. He made persons who were Germans from birth into an out-group based simply on ethnicity (jewishness). It’s therefore more accurate to call Nazism as Ethno-Centrism dressed up as a nationalist movement. Frequently the two are confused and thought of as being the same thing, precisely because Hitler popularized the fusion of these separate ideologies. That does not mean to say that a nationalist movement must necessarily lead to or require ethno-centrism and racism. A true nationalist movement would unite the country against outside forces and not divide the nation within itself. Say what you will about Duterte but he is not a divisive leader and is far from the destructive nationalism of Hitler and his ilk. He has always sought to unite the different peoples of the Philippines and has sought peace within the country as a means to strengthen the nation as a whole.

Had Duterte been a “nationalist” in the same vein as Hitler (or to a lesser extend, Trump), he would have targeted the usual easy scapegoats, the ethnic Chinese and Spanish Filipinos, the muslim insurgents or the dreaded and much maligned NPA. But in fact he sought peace and cooperation within and amongst these many groups, finding common ground and desiring a kind of unity of purpose that despite our differences and ideologies can guide us towards the same singular goal of national improvement.

I firmly believe that nationalism and openness are compatible and strongly disagree that the Duterte administration is leading us to disastrous nationalism (which in truth is actually ethno-centrism, as previously discussed). This mislabelling of ethno-centrism as nationalism is rather criminal as it seeks to demonize an ideology based on guilt by association. The Philippines remains an open society and continues to enjoy harmonious relationship between race and nationality.

The President espouses ideals that in his mind support the national interest, that is about all you can draw as parallel with Nazism or Hitler. Hitler used the politics of division and racial superiority to achieve a kind of twisted nationalism. Duterte uses the politics of commonality to achieve a unified national sentiment. The two couldn’t be more different. Robert Haighton claims his country [the Netherlands] is heterogenous and multi-cultural. So is the Philippines. It always has been and continues to be under Duterte.


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