Nationalism: Ancient or Modern Concept - Essay Example

Nationalism: Ancient or Modern Concept? 2009 Nationalism may be defined as a process of formation and growth of nations through sentiments of language and symbolism that develops attachment, an ideology and finally a political and/or social movement (Smith, 2001). Nationalism may result in an organized, ideological movement or a sense of belonging although there might be considerable overlap between the two. While one school of thought feels that nationalism is primordial and has existed for centuries, the other links it with capitalism and industrial economies. A more recent stream of literature find nationalism growing, rather than diminishing, with globalization and heightened communication through electronic means. Despite immigration of large numbers of people across nations, there is a tendency of nationalism becoming more vociferous and aggressive. Whether this is a natural and psychological element of human behavior or it is linked with the socio-political developments across countries is the moot point. If nationalism is an ancient phenomenon, it could be considered ‘organic’ and if it is found to be a modern concept, it would undoubtedly ‘voluntary’, as noted by Smith (2001) while discussing the debate. In this paper, I will discuss the different views regarding nationalism in the context of increasing divisiveness between communities and nations. According to Anthony D Smith, nationalism is primordial and finds its roots in the ethnic characteristic of peoples, the myths and the shared memories. Smith argues for an ethno-symbolic reading of modern nations that have their roots in the “myth, symbol, memory, value and tradition” (p4). Smith notes that nationalism is not necessarily the same as ethnic communities as the latter does not necessarily occupy the homeland even though there are links with it and need not have a common economy and polity, necessarily attributes to nationalism. But, according to Smith, there are two essential similarities to the two concepts. Smith defines nationalism as “a named human community, occupying a homeland, and having common myths and a shared history, a common public culture, a single economy and common rights and duties of all members” while he defines an ethnic community as “a named human community connected to a homeland, possessing common myths of ancestry, shared memories, one or more elements of shared culture, and a measure of solidarity, at least among the elites” (emphasis mine). Although an ethnic community need not have a public culture or common rights and duties, nationalism derives its ideological base from shared memories and cultures, which are essentially ethnographic qualities of a community. Smith (2001) notes that nationalism may be suppressed by depoliticizing the nation and by overpowering national cultures by global, ‘cultural imperialism”. However, the potent “ethno-histories” continue to exist despite the emergence of new capitalist classes, which is evident from the sporadic protests against the new bureaucracies and regional political entities in many parts of the world. Smith’s argument of ethno-origin of nationalism is echoed by Hutchinson (2001). Recognizing the existence of “political nationalism” which is related to “autonomous state institutions”, Hutchinson (2001) essentially describes cultural nationalism as a weapon of solidarity for the oppressed community. Hobsbawm (1990) argues that the nationalist symbols that are harped as the ethnographic signs are often invented to depict a historical rootedness. For example, the Scottish kilt, which is supposed to signify the Scottish tradition, is not a traditional symbol but a product of industrial revolution, having been invented in the 18th century to provide greater mobility to the Highland workers. Ernest Gellner (1983) differs from Smith in the definition of nationalism and thought that it is a product of modernity and economic development. Gellner emphasizes that “nations, like states, are a contingency and not a universal necessity” (p6) and nationalism may be defined as “primarily a principle which holds that the political and national unit should be congruent (p1, quoted in Leoussi, n.d). Neither nations nor states exist at all time. Nor are these concepts simultaneous although they are intricately linked to each other. Yet, Gellner (1983) notes that members of a nation can be considered as such if, not only do they share a culture in terms of ideas and signs, but also recognize that they share the culture so. But, Gellner (1983) does not intend to define culture in ethnographic terms. Hobsbawm (1990) too does not consider the nation to be an unchanging social phenomenon. For them, nationalism is modern rather than ancient and is related to the nation-state. Further, the signs of nationalism – primarily spoken or written language – could not have progressed prior to the advent of printing, which itself is a product of industrial capitalism, and mass education. For Gellner, nationalism is a logical progression as the society transforms from a primordial, agricultural, religious one to an industrial capitalist one. As modernization breaks down the primordial social groups, the mobile labor force needs some other form of association, which gives rise to the concept of nationalism. With mass education needed urgently to develop semi-skilled work force, people, who have lost their traditional roles that they had in the pre-industrial society, appear in the labor market as a mass rather than individuals. The vertical social structure is transformed into a horizontal one that is based on egalitarianism. In such a system, nationalism plays a role in creating different interest groups in the society and as a protest against the uprooting of the traditional roles in the pre-industrial society. This is opposed to the view of ideas leading to the notion of nationalism. Instead, following the Durkheim school of thought on functionalism and modernism, Gellner (1994) argues that nationalism brings about new forms of loyalty and identification of the nation-state as a response to modernization and industrial capitalism (Leoussi, n.d). Since state has the legitimate claim on some sort of violence, the “marriage of state and nation”, according to Gellner (1994) is an essential characteristic of nationalism. However, the state-endorsed homogeneity of the nations through common signs like public holidays, rituals or monuments as well as through public education gives rise to new forms of groupings, often organized by the intelligentsia, and hence completely new national movements within the periphery of the state. Through the imposition of “high culture”, the “nation states extend their boundaries to the limits of their culture, and impose their culture within the boundaries of their power”. The high culture, which is related to industrial capitalism, is defined as the “mass, rational, scientific-technological culture which is communicated by a standardized script in the “national” language” (Leoussi, n.d). Gellner (1994) demonstrates the difference between high and low culture with the example of Islam. While high Islam, proponents of which are the ulemas or the intellectuals, comprises Puritanism, scripturalism and breakdown of hierarchy, low Islam followed by local communities comprise the folk practices that are devoid of a formal structure. While earlier these two notions co-existed, the peasant communities were uprooted as a result of industrial capitalism and urbanization. Subsequently, the peasants lost their attachment to the traditional values and began to be dictated by the high culture proposed by the ulemas and supported by the youths who have recently been urbanized. The Islamic revolution in Iran, according to Gellner (1994), is a case in point. The revolution was a reaction to industrial capitalism and an attempt to bring about social cohesion through the imposition of the “high culture” on the mass of people not from outside but from within the periphery of the nation-state. In the case of Iran, industrialization and westernization brought about by the social elite alienated the masses who found allegiance in the puritanical culture that they could identify with. Borrowing Weber’s “Protestant spirit” that bounds people, Gellner proposes that nationalism allows members of a community to share ideas and signs. However, since the goal of the nation-state is industrial capitalism, it eventually replaces collective values as in pre-industrial capitalism with individualism, which is the essence of consumerism and hence of capitalism. In contrast, the concept of nationalism arises as a reaction to the nation-state in a modern society. For example, the rise of Islamic nationalism is a modern phenomenon while the high ulema-proposed culture and the folk culture co-existed for centuries in the pre-industrial times. Only as conflict of interest and the sense of isolation emerged with industrial capitalism in these nation-states did the phenomenon of nationalism arise (Leoussi, n.d). Benedict Anderson (1983) considered nationalism in terms of “imagined political community – and imagines as both inherently limited and sovereign”. Anderson (1983) feels that the concept of nationalism is imagined because the members of a nation, however small it is, do not know all the other members as long as they are larger than the primordial, face-to-face village communities. The culture and style of the nation, therefore, is only imagined. The nation, according to Anderson, is also limited because even the largest community is finite and no nation equates itself with the entire mankind. Anderson also equates nationalism with the modern sovereign as the idea came into existence only with Enlightenment and Industrial Revolution, when the hierarchical system, considered to be divinely-ordained broke down. In contrast, the imagined community, despite the inherent conflicts of interest among the members, is based on horizontal comradeship. The argument has progressed beyond modernism to the concept of post-nationalism that is related to postmodernism. Delanty and O’Mohony argue that nationalism has a tendency to destroy social cohesion. According to them, the framework of the modernism theory failed to understand the significance of the historical process and the potential of culture in the creative process. Even the Marxist theories, based on restrictive assumptions, did not adequately address the issue. Assuming the essentials of the “withering of the state”, the Marxists, according to Delanty and O’Mohony, ignored the possibility of nationalism withholding the state from disintegrating. The question of nationalism has become prominent since 1989, with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the communist states in East Europe, the emergence of nationalism in a large tract of land, with some nations even without a state, like the Serbs, and more radically since the emergence of Islamic nationalism across many states. Thus, nationalist is definitely a modern phenomenon rather than the ancient and the adoption of traditional signs and symbols is more to kindle the flames of nationalism in order to form a resistance to the modern, industrial state. In my opinion, nationalism is rather a reaction to the alienation of a mass of people, who are mobilized by a small group, often through the help of ethnic signs and traditional symbols, rather than the traditional culture itself. Hence, without industrial growth and modernity, the phenomenon of nationalism would not have happened. Works Cited Smith, Anthony D, Nationalism: Theory, Ideology, History, Wiley-Blackwell, 2001 Gellner, Ernest, Nations and Nationalism, Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1983 Gellner, Ernest, Encounters with Nationalism, London: Oxford University Press, 1994 Leoussi, Athena S, Encyclopedia of Nationalism, http://easyweb.easynet.co.uk/conversi/Gellner.pdf Anderson, Benedict, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, 1983, revised edition, London and New York: Verso, 1991 Hobsbawm, Eric, Nations and Nationalism Since 1780, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990 Hutchinson, John, Understanding Nationalism, Polity, 2001 Delanty, Gerard and Mahony, Patrick, Nationalism and Social Theory, Sage, 2002 Read More