Jingoism
{{short description|Patriotism in the form of aggressive foreign policy}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2020}}
File:The American War-Dog by Oscar Cesare 1916.jpg, with the dog named "Jingo"]]
Jingoism is nationalism in the form of aggressive and proactive foreign policy, such as a country's advocacy for the use of threats or actual force, as opposed to peaceful relations, in efforts to safeguard what it perceives as its national interests.{{cite book|editor=Catherine Soanes|title=Compact Oxford English Dictionary for University and College Students|location=Oxford|publisher= University Press|date= 2006|page= 546}} Colloquially, jingoism is excessive bias in judging one's own country as superior to others – an extreme type of nationalism (cf. chauvinism and ultranationalism).
Etymology
The chorus of a song by the songwriter G. W. Hunt, popularized by the singer G. H. MacDermott – which was commonly sung in British pubs and music halls around the time of the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–78 – gave birth to the term.{{cite web|url=http://www.cyberussr.com/hcunn/q-jingo.html |title="By Jingo": Macdermott's War Song (1878) |publisher=Cyberussr.com |access-date=2012-03-12}}{{cite web |url=http://www.davidkidd.net/20Plevna.html |title=By Jingo |publisher=Davidkidd.net |access-date=2012-03-12 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070917232549/http://www.davidkidd.net/20Plevna.html |archive-date=17 September 2007 |url-status=dead }}{{Cite book |last= Pears |first=Edwin |author-link= Edwin Pears|year=1916 |title=Forty Years in Constantinople, The Recollections of Sir Edwin Pears 1873–1915 |publisher=Herbert Jenkins Limited |place=London |edition= 1 |page=[https://archive.org/stream/fortyyearsincons00pearuoft#page/26/mode/2up 27] |url=https://archive.org/stream/fortyyearsincons00pearuoft |access-date=10 June 2016 |via= Internet Archive}} The lyrics included this chorus:
{{quote|
We've got the ships, we've got the men, we've got the money too
We've fought the Bear before, and while we're Britons true
The Russians shall not have Constantinople!}}
The capture of Constantinople was a long-standing Russian strategic aim, since it would have given the Russian Navy, based in the Black Sea, unfettered access to the Mediterranean Sea through the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles (known as the "Turkish Straits"); conversely, the British were determined to block the Russians, in order to protect their own access to India. At the time when the above song was composed and sung, the Russians were nearing their goal, through the Treaty of San Stefano; eventually, the British were able to push the Russians back by means of diplomatic pressure and the threat of war.
The phrase "by Jingo" was a minced oath, scarcely documented in writing, used in place of "by Jesus". The term may derive from Basque Jinkoa: "God".Online Etymology Dictionary [https://www.etymonline.com/word/jingo]
Use of the specific term "jingoism" stems from its coinage by prominent British radical George Holyoake, as a political label, in a letter to the Daily News on 13 March 1878.{{cite book |last=McCarthy |first= Justin |author-link= Justin_McCarthy_(1830–1912) |title= A History of Our Own Times: From the Accession of Queen Victoria to the General Elections of 1880 |publisher= Chatto & Windus |place= London |year= 1881 |volume = IV |page=473 |url=https://archive.org/stream/in.ernet.dli.2015.210311/2015.210311.A-History#page/n485/mode/2up |access-date= 14 March 2018 |via= Internet Archive}}{{cite book |last= Holyoake |first= George Jacob |author-link=George Holyoake |title= Sixty Years of An Agitator's Life |year=1892 |publisher= T. Fisher Unwin|place= London |url=https://archive.org/stream/sixtyyearsanagi08holygoog |volume= II|pages= [https://archive.org/stream/sixtyyearsanagi08holygoog#page/n234/mode/2up 216]–218|access-date= 14 March 2018|via= Internet Archive}}{{cite book |first=Martin |last=Ceadel |title=Semi-detached Idealists: The British Peace Movement and International Relations, 1854–1945 |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2000 |page=105 |isbn=0-19-924117-1 }}
Examples
In the 1880s, Henry Hyndman, leader of the Social Democratic Federation, turned against internationalism, and promoted a version of Socialism mixed with nationalism and antisemitism,{{cite journal |last1=Virdee |first1=Satnam |title=Socialist antisemitism and its discontents in England, 1884–98 |journal=Patterns of Prejudice |date=8 August 2017 |volume=51 |issue=3–4 |pages=356–373 |doi=10.1080/0031322X.2017.1335029|doi-access=free }}{{open access}} (page 363) even to the point of attacking fellow Socialist Eleanor Marx in antisemitic terms, noting that she had "inherited in her nose and mouth the Jewish type from Karl Marx himself". When taking part in the breakaway group which founded the Socialist League, Eleanor Marx wrote polemics in which she characterized Hyndman and his followers as "The Jingo Party".Eleanor Marx letter to Wilhelm Liebknecht, 1 January 1885, quoted in {{cite book|first=Rachel |last=Holmes|title=Eleanor Marx - A Life|publisher= Bloomsbury |location=London|date= 2014|page= 223}}
British artillery major-general Thomas Bland Strange, one of the founders of the Canadian Army and one of the divisional commanders during the 1885 North-West Rebellion, was an eccentric and temperamental soldier who gained the nickname "Jingo Strange" and titled his 1893 autobiography Gunner Jingo's Jubilee.{{cite book|last=Strange|first= Thomas Bland|title= Gunner Jingo's Jubilee|location= London|date= 1893}}{{cite book|last= Macleod|first= R.C.|chapter=Thomas Bland Strange|title=Dictionary of Canadian Biography|edition= new edition with an introduction by R.C. Macleod|location= Edmonton|date= 1988}}
Probably the first uses of the term in the U.S. press occurred in connection with the proposed annexation of Hawaii in 1893, after a coup led by foreign residents, mostly Americans, and assisted by the U.S. minister in Hawaii, overthrew the constitutional monarchy and declared a republic. Republican president Benjamin Harrison and Republicans in the U.S. Senate were frequently accused of jingoism in the Democratic press for supporting annexation.Kansas City Times, 14 February 1893, p. 4 editorial: "Jingoism pure and simple."
Theodore Roosevelt was frequently accused of jingoism. In an article on 23 October 1895 in The New York Times, Roosevelt stated, "There is much talk about 'jingoism'. If by 'jingoism' they mean a policy in pursuance of which Americans will with resolution and common sense insist upon our rights being respected by foreign powers, then we are 'jingoes'."{{cite web|url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1895/10/24/106070065.pdf |title=For An Honest Election |work=The New York Times |date=23 October 1895 |access-date=2012-09-30}} The reference is found halfway down the article. Donald Trump's speeches are also often described as jingoist.[https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/07/trumps-love-it-or-leave-it-jingoism-was-predictable.html Trump’s ‘Love It Or Leave It’ Jingoism Was Predictable All Along][https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jul/05/donald-trumps-july-4th-jamboree-symbolic-jingoistic-and-untraditional 'Great country!' Trump flaunts US military might at jingoistic jamboree][https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/general-news/critics-notebook-trump-delivers-his-state-union-address-a-divided-union-1080439/ Critic’s Notebook: Trump Delivers Lengthy, Jingoistic State of the Union Address to Divided Nation]
In Homage to Catalonia, George Orwell decries the tactics of political journalists and wishes for introduction of aeroplanes into war in order to finally see "a jingo with a bullet hole in him."{{cite book |last=Orwell |first=George |date=1938 |title=Homage to Catalonia |url=https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.458449 }}
The policy of appeasement toward Hitler led to satirical references to the disappearance of such jingoistic attitudes when facing German aggression. A cartoon by E. H. Shepard titled "The Old-Fashioned Customer" appeared on 28 March 1938 issue of Punch. Set in a record shop, John Bull asks the record seller (Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain): "I wonder if you've got a song I remember about not wanting to fight, but if we do... something, something, something ... we've got the money too?". On the wall is a portrait of Lord Salisbury.{{Cite book|first=John|last=Charmley|title=Chamberlain and the Lost Peace|publisher=Ivan R. Dee|year=1999|page=61|isbn=9781461720928|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XQV1AQAAQBAJ}}
The rhetoric of North Korea has been described as jingoist.{{Cite web |last= |first= |date=2018-09-09 |title=North Korea scales down jingoism on 70th birthday |url=https://www.dw.com/en/north-korea-scales-down-jingoism-on-70th-birthday/g-45418595 |access-date=2022-08-23 |website=DW |language=en-GB}}{{Cite web |date=2022-06-16 |title=The strategic incoherence of copying North Korea |url=https://www.ocregister.com/2022/06/16/the-strategic-incoherence-of-copying-north-korea |access-date=2022-08-23 |website=Orange County Register |language=en-US}}{{Cite web |last=Lee |first=Chung Min |date=2020-05-13 |title=A Peninsula of Paradoxes: South Korean Public Opinion on Unification and Outside Powers |url=https://carnegieendowment.org/posts/2020/05/a-peninsula-of-paradoxes-south-korean-public-opinion-on-unification-and-outside-powers?lang=en |access-date=2022-08-23 |website=Carnegie Endowment for International Peace |language=en}}
See also
References
{{reflist}}
External links
- {{Wikiquote-inline}}
- {{Wiktionary-inline}}
- {{Cite EB1911 |wstitle=Jingo }}
- [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSkjw9ZuvRw MacDermott song]
- [http://www.cyberussr.com/hcunn/q-jingo.html MacDermott song lyrics]
- [http://www.firstworldwar.com/audio/1914.htm The song, We Didn't Want To Fight] - Sung by Stanley Kirkby
{{Nationalism}}