Modern nationalism is a European invention of the nineteenth century, designed to unify markets, armies, and narratives within fixed borders. In colonial contexts, nationalism played a liberating role: it was built against empire, in the struggle for independence, offering sophisticated versions of cultural nationalism without biological racism, frequently internationalist in character. In the Antropocênica, however, traditional nationalism reveals its limits. Climate change does not recognise passports; the carbon emissions of one country affect the rainfall of another. Nationalism can become a dangerous identity refuge: the fortress Europe, "our people first", environmental denialism as a patriotic banner. On the other hand, diasporic communities frequently live a deterritorialised nationalism — the "homeland" is not merely a delimited territory; it is a language, a memory, a way of being in the world. Against xenophobic and extractivist nationalism, a critical and relational patriotism is proposed: to love one's place without hating others, to defend the land without forgetting that the Earth is a single body. The Antropocênica needs fewer flags and more alliances among those who resist the destruction of their worlds.
Odair Barros-Varela