National identity

National identity is a person's identity or sense of belonging to one or more states or one or more nations. It is the sense of "a nation as a cohesive whole, as represented by distinctive traditions, culture, and language". National identity may refer to the subjective feeling one shares with a group of people about a nation, regardless of one's legal citizenship status. National identity is viewed in psychological terms as "an awareness of difference", a "feeling and recognition of 'we' and 'they'". National identity also includes the general population and diaspora of multi-ethnic states and societies that have a shared sense of common identity identical to that of a nation while being made up of several component ethnic groups. Hyphenated ethnicities are an example of the confluence of multiple ethnic and national identities within a single person or entity. As a collective phenomenon, national identity can arise as a direct result of the presence of elements from the "common points" in people's daily lives: national symbols, language, the nation's history, national consciousness, and cultural artifacts. Under international law, the term national identity, concerning states, is interchangeable with the term state's identity or sovereign identity of the state. A State's identity by definition is related to the Constitutional name of the state used as a legal identification in international relations and an essential element of the state's international juridical personality. The sovereign identity of the nation also represents a common denominator for identification of the national culture or cultural identity and under International Law any external interference with the cultural identity or cultural beliefs and traditions appears to be inadmissible. Any deprivation or external modification of the cultural national identity seems to violate basic collective human rights. The expression of one's national identity seen in a positive light is patriotism which is characterized by national pride and the positive emotion of love for one's country.