The bane of Nationalism

[BeBMan]

Originally posted by Dr Strangelove I think that the idea of nationality rose with the supremacy of the monarchs in most western european nations, Germany and Italy being exceptions. Consider the fact that during the English Civil War there was very little pressure for the dissolution of the United Kingdom. Likewise the resistence to the French Revolution fought to regain the country, not to seperate from it. Early nationalism was intermixed with fealty to the king and the church. Liberal nationalism was born during the struggles between the English parliament and the English king in the late 17th and early 18th centuries, then spread to British North America, France and then on to the rest of the european continent. The revolutionaries of the 18th and 19th centuries had to believe that they already were nationalities before overthrowing their monarchs in order to found liberal democratic states, or otherwise they simply would have seceeded. During their national revolutions power was transferred from already existing national royal dictatorships to national dempcratic institutions. Exceptions to this rule include Belgium, Norway, Greece and other ehtnic groups which found themselves under foreign rule against which they rebelled.

I disagree about the "existing national royal dictatorships" bit. IMO the national ID formed during the struggle against monarchy, like in France. I'm not that familar with the Anglo-American view, but my impression was that the American ID formed in a similar way during the struggle against the British monarchy. The UK may be a special case with its tradition of parlamentarism that dates back to the middle ages.

But AFAIK in most continental monarchies the national element was rather secondary in pre-revolutionary Europe. Take Prussia, which ruled over large parts of Poland and saw these as integral parts of the Prussian realm. Similar for Russia (which had lots of other ethnic groups as well) or the Habsburger realms. Also colonial empires weren't limited to a purely national view either. All these rulers hardly defined themselves as rulers of a nation state in our sense, but rulers of territories with loyal subjects of the crown (from whatever nationality).

The legitimacy for their rule came either in the form of the divine right, natural law or later (and additionally) from the view that the monarch is there to work for the common good of the realm and his subjects. This is best illustrated by Fredericks II. "I'm the first servant of my state" statement, but you find similar ideas also elsewhere, for example in Catherine the Great's "Instruction". That's one of the core elements of what we call enlightened monarchies. In reality they often weren't that selfless of course, but in several cases these so-called enlightened rulers did indeed serious steps to modernize their countries.

The French monarchy seemed to be rather against these new ideas, but still they became increasingly important in France during the enlightenment (also since many of the influential thinkers were French). So when old patterns of legitimization (like divine right) became less important with the enlightenment, and people got the impression that the monarch indeed doesn't serve the new ideals like common good anymore the entire monarchy, not only the current rulers, get in trouble. That's exactly what happened during the crisis that lead for example to the French revolution. It wasn't just a economical or financial crisis in France, it was a crisis of the whole aristocratic system while the bourgeoisie became more important economically and so was demanding more political participation as well. So on the one hand you have the old regime with decreasing legitimacy, unable to handle a crisis and unable or unwilling to do major reforms, on the other an economical and increasingly political force which insists on such reforms.

That was the beginning of the struggle (which started quite some time before the revolution actually broke out in 1789), it wasn't much about nation at the start, it was about political participation. I agree with you that early on there was often still loyalty towards the king. The French didn't want to abolish monarchy completely in the beginning either, that was just the last step.

The nation state became the tool in which the broader political participation would be realized, and nationalism became a force to mobilize the people to fight for that, first against their own aristocratic elites if they resisted the change, but also against enemies from outside if needed, since in the case of France these outside enemies were seen as exactly the forces of the old, reform-unable aristocratic system (during the coalition wars).

Later revolutions had certain differences - I agree that then there often was already a certain nationalist movement or at least some sort of national consciousness present. But we have to be aware that these later 19th century revolutionaries in Europe were often already strongly influenced by the French revolutionary ideas, later by the wars against Napoleon and of course by the following restauration which disappointed hopes for reforms throughout continental Europe.

[Dr Strangelove]

The role of Joan of Arc in French history illustrates the existance of nationalism way before the idea of popular government was contemplated. Joan came from a region which had never been under royal control. In fact Arc was located in an area originally excluded from France when Charlemagnes empire had been divided after his death. She rallied support for resistence against the English by acting as a role model for common people and also by invoking the favor of God.

It's more difficult to examine the nationalistic undercurrents which existed in other European nations prior to the age of revolutions largely because I'm not that familiar with their history. Certainly the Dutch considered themselves to be a nation instead of a royal domain since afterall they originally did not have a monarchy. The fact that the Portugese managed to preserve their independence despite Spanish designs would also argue for the existence of a national spirit there at least partly seperate from royal fealty. The Swiss also demonstrated the ability to fight for a common cause despite the rather loose nature of their government.

[BeBMan]

I agree insofar that there's no question that certain national sentiments played a role long before the 18th century. Another example from the middle ages would be the Hussite movement, which was primarily about religion, but had also conflict between Czech and German groups in Bohemia. But these earlier cases often aren't counted as nationalism in the modern sense because you find often other, more important "driving forces" than those national sentiments (which were without doubt present) there.

Take for example Jeanne D'Arc - of course the long war against England has fueled anti-English feelings. Similar things we can find in most conflicts even in ancient times. But she wanted nothing else then a feudal kingdom, a common form of rule in medieval times that rested more on personal bounds and legitimization through divine right, not primarily on the idea of a nation state with the people as souvereign.

Or take the Dutch - the root of the conflict with Spain had much more to do with religion (catholic vs. protestant) then with national differences. At the time of the Union of Utrecht the catholic part formed the Union of Arras which explicitly supported Spain.

Unfortunately I'm not that familiar with Swiss or Portuguese history so I can't say much to those points.

[fed1943]

Portugal is an old country; no "national" problems here.

Political parties, economic groups and so on, are totally out of any

national strugle (that doesn't exist).

So, here the word nationalism means an ideology extreme right

wing, like fascism.

Nobody here speaks or thinks about national concerns; we have

enough problems, no need to pretend one that does not exist.

Best regards,

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by fed1943
Portugal is an old country; no "national" problems here.

Political parties, economic groups and so on, are totally out of any

national strugle (that doesn't exist).

So, here the word nationalism means an ideology extreme right

wing, like fascism.

Nobody here speaks or thinks about national concerns; we have

enough problems, no need to pretend one that does not exist.

Best regards,

wasnt that way back in 1640.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by MJW
Everyone should not repsond to the Lord of the Marks attempt to make this into an ot flamewar...

love to you too.

[Fake Boris]

Originally posted by GePap


Why? Obviously you have missed the point completely. It is nationalists who claim that the nation is something "natural". All ideologies are inventions, Nationalism just being an unfortunate one.

And how exactly do I miss the point? I don't understand your beef about nationalism, since it appears that just about any large scale atrocity commited in history is due to one group thinking that the other is not part of them - thus overruling innate moral feelings of compassion, etc. Nationalism is just one of the many ideologies around which groups revolve.

[Elok]

I don't know history well enough to really participate, but there seems to be a failure to communicate here. GePap, can you define what exactly you mean by "nationalism" as it differs most prominently from Racism, Religious Identity, Tribalism, or what-have-you? And if there are any modern-day examples of Nationalist thinking, could you point them out and explain how they differ from similar things? Thus far the thread's been going in circles: "What about [X]?" "That's not nationalism, it's [Y]."

[Kataphraktoi]

Originally posted by VetLegion
Here is a historical example of the strength of nationalism: World War I. Communists expected the workers of all nations to rise as one class against those who are forcing them to fight. Instead, these same workers happily marched off to die for nation, not for class. Even communist parties became supporters of the war.

Im confused by the OPs hatred of nationalism. This is a good tool to promote national unity and allows the state to act in a more unified and descisive manner, instead of bumbling about like modern democracy and getting owned The world wars are a good example of the US not having the 'get together' to get into the war right away and end it in our favour. I get the impression that the OP dosnt like nationalism because it IS a tool, but why wouldnt you want to live in a stronger nation?

[lord of the mark]

[QUOTE] Originally posted by GePap

And this runs counter to the very notion of Nationalism, which assumes that these groups belong together based on existing cultural and lingusitic connections which a lot of times have not much to do with political forces shaping maps.

That may be what the nationalists say, but in practice they are generally quite aware of real world political-historical facts. For example German nationalist insisted that "Germany" is wherever German is spoken, yet few of them had any serious aspirations to annexing Switzerland. Serbs should have been eager to annex all of Croatia, yet many didnt want the Croats, cause they were too "western" (and no the ones who didnt want the Croats werent necessarily all that concerned about religion per se - Princip was a good Nietschean, IIUC)

Nationalism is a political ideology. It is inherently an abstract idea which then has concrete consequences when individuals attempt to shape the world based on its precepts.

But "nationalism" is typically held locally - IE most nationalists spend their ideological energies on defining the human and geographical boundaries of "their" nation. SOME would go so far as to acknowledge the rights of other nations on an equal basis, but not all, by any means. Certain GrossDeutsch nationalists, for example while believing that language trumped historica statehood when that was useful to bringing Germans in, did NOT feel the same way about Czech nationalism - in that case the historic fact that bohemia and Moravia belonged to the HRE trumped Czech self-determination. Ditto Magyar Nationalists, among the most bigoted, discriminatory nationalists around, did not acknowledge any rights to "non historic nations" like the Slovaks.

The notion that there were nationalists who believed that "all nations should be defined as those who share cultural trait X, and any land with a majority of nation Y should belong to one state" is largely a strawman. Moderate nationalists acknowledged historical complexities cause they were, well, moderate (like kleindeutsch nationlists, or German Liberals in Austria) while extremist nationalists tended to acknowledge historical complecxities cause that favored them in some instances in getting the lands they wanted ( eg panslavs elieved all slavs should live in russia, but ALSO that Russia should retain Finland, central asia, etc which were NOT slavic)

The ideology youre painting really existed as a political force only among the commissions of the Paris Peace Conference in 1919. And even there plenty of exceptions were acknowledged.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by GePap


Then why define it as a single nation as opposed to multiple ones? Especially if the groups are lingusitically and racially different?

On practical grounds.

Take Czech and Slovak, forex. Related sure. And western dialects of Slovak were mutually intellgible, IIUC, with Czech. But eastern dialects werent. Efforts to make the west Slovak dialects "standard" for the sake of integration with the Czechs, led to losses to the hated Magyars, and so that was given up by Slovak intellectuals.

Now Slovaks were clearly different in late 19th c AH - not only language differences, but religion (slovaks were very catholic, Czechs largely anticlerical) and political (Slovaks very Hapsburg loyal, Czechs less so). But when push came to shove in 1918, the Slovaks realized they didnt have the clout to pull off independence from Hungary without Czech help, and the Czechs felt they needed Slovakia to have a state large enough to be viable. So they pulled off the CS idea (but as Masaryk said, "there were Czechs, and there were Slovaks, but the only Czechoslovaks were the Jews") . After wrestling with this for 70 years, they finally agreed to the velvet divorce. But by that point they didnt need each other much, as Hungarian and German revanchism were dead, and the EU provided a larger economic market.

A somewhat similar history is presented by the South Slavs.

Hell, now that invasions by Austrians and French no longer threaten Italy, North Italians are pursuing alternative identities. But theyre rightwingers, so they dont count

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by GePap


These local loyalties are far more limited in scope and size than the nationalists would have believe. Why should 'German' identity trump Bavarian identity? Why should 'French' identity trump Burgundian identity? 'Italian' identity Piedmontese identity? Yes, people live in communities that define themselves in social and cultural ways, but the bounderies drawn by Nationalists are as fake as any drawn by multiethnic empires. Clearly in Europe it took lost of suffering and mass population displacements to make those bounderies "make sense.

It took mass population movements to make the privileging of Italian over Piedmontese identity make sense? No, the mass population movements generally happened as a result of groups that were clearly distinct being within the same state - eg Poland, czechoslovakia, etc.

And when those states were formed everyone was quite aware that they didnt fit a "one nation - one state" model all that well. Read "Paris 1919". The Curzon line would have made Poland much more homogeneous - they ended up with gazillions of ukrainians and lithuanians (and jews who were not nearly as amenable to "polonization" as the jews of Congress Poland) not due to their annexaction of polish majority areas, but due to their annexation of "historically" polish areas, that had modest polish minorities.

[Cort Haus]

Originally posted by GePap
That is not nationalism. If people are of different religious, linguistic, and racial groups, then obviously they are not part of your Nation.

Originally posted by LordShiva
"Nations" don't need to be racially, religiously or linguistically pure.

I agree with LS, and am surprised that his example of a national liberation movement leading to nationhood has been waved away in favour of a deep analysis of European nationalism, as if that is where the definition must lie.

India proves that nationalism can be multi-ethnic and progressive, which contradicts the assertion of the OP. In fact, all the national liberation movements around the world which existed to shake off the old colonial masters are examples of anti-imperialist nationalism.

In the first world, we've already established that Britain is not ethnically homogenous, yet British nationalism has undoubtedly existed. It seems to me that while ethnocentrism is core to some nationalisms, it's not an essential component.

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by GePap



That is not nationalism. If people are of different religious, linguistic, and racial groups, then obviously they are not part of your Nation.

Ok, so you don't regard countries like Canada or the US as Nations? What do you call nationalism in such countries? Patriotism? Isn't it possible that much of the nationalism you dislike elsewhere is really just the same sort of patriotism? A kind of civic minded pride in ones country?

[Sandman]

Your average 'patriotic' American is certainly a model for 'civic minded pride'.