veral ways:

suggest how nationalism has shaped the identity of modern nations.

Nationalism implies the identification of the state or nation with the people, or at least the
desirability of determining the extent of the state according to ethnographic principles. This has led
to the creation of nation-states where the boundaries of the state align with the cultural, ethnic, or
linguistic identity of the people.

The British Empire had a profound impact on the national identities—English, Scottish, Welsh, and
Irish—within the United Kingdom. The empire structured the development of these national
identities in the first half of the 20th century. Even after the end of the formal empire in the 1960s,
its legacies continued to influence the search for post-imperial identities in every part of the United
Kingdom.

Rwanda provides a poignant example of how nationalism has shaped a nation’s identity, particularly
in the aftermath of the 1994 genocide. The country has been historically dominated by two ethnic
groups: a minority Tutsi and a majority Hutu. After the genocide, Rwanda embarked on an ambitious
social engineering project to define a new national identity, focusing on unity and reconciliation. This
led to the rise of ‘survivor nationalism’, where survivors become a metaphor for the Rwandan nation:
violently victimised but committed to resilience and a prosperous future. This acts as a focal point for
contemporary Rwanda’s understanding of the civil war as a one-sided issue of historic Tutsi grievance
and persecution