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In the 20th century, nationalism has become inseparably linked with violence. From the killing fields of World War I, to the atrocities of the holocaust in the World War II, to ethnic cleansing in former Yugoslavia, nationalism has served as a driving force in what appears to be senseless fratricides and irrational hatreds between peoples searching for what they deem to be their rightful place in the world. This has led various commentators, such as the English scholar John Dunn, to assail this powerful political doctrine as one of the worst scourges of our times:“Nationalism is the starkest political shame of the twentieth century”, he argues,“the deepest, most intractable and yet most unanticipated blot on the political history of the world since the year 1900.” 1 There are, however, examples of benign nationalist struggles that have not led to violent conflicts or oppression of one population group over another. Here the …