When we claim ethnic or racial pride, what are we doing but trying to piggyback on the achievements of those who went before us? It’s not enough to be who we are now, to be good human beings in the present. The power of nationalism is that it calls to the part of us that doesn’t want to accept being ordinary. It tells people that they are descended from greatness, that they have been genetically endowed with something special, something passed down to them over the generations.
