Political Myths & Nationalism. Xxxxx argues that nationalism itself can be regarded as a political myth,116 whose birth is connected with the transformation from traditionalism to industrialism117 and political and material interests generated by modernization.118 Breuilly119 and Mann,120 too, refer to the growing devaluation of religion and its replacement in response to the making of the modern state. Similarly, Anderson links the emergence of the nation-state (the result of nationalism) with the spontaneous intersection of various historical and cultural forces, the disintegration of the religious community, and the dynastic realm in particular. According to him, the decline of these systems since the 17th century provided the historical and geographical space in which nations could emerge.121 Xxxxxxxxx goes back to the 16th century to explain the original modern idea of the English nation. According to her, it occurred in relation to the Protestant Reformation, which stimulated the translation and reading of the Bible into English.122 As Xxxxxx suggests, this religious transformation reinforced the consciousness of belonging to the English nation.123 Xxxxxxxxx also says, “…though Protestantism cannot be said to have given birth to the English nation, it did play the crucial role of a midwife without whom the child might not have been born.”124 Xxxxxxxx agrees that in the context of Enlightenment-era rational secularism, nationalism provided a secular alternative to the previously sacral role of explaining and answering for the weight of human suffering.125 So, nationalism has replaced religion as a ‘secular glue’ that bonded society together.126 In this context, Xxxxx argues, myths are connected with the emergence of the modern world as things people look on for salvation. 116 Xxxxxxx X. Xxxxx, “The myth of the ‘modern nation’ and the myths of nations,” Ethnic and Racial Studies, 11:1, (1988): 1.
