Different Kinds of Nationalism - Essay Example

How meaningful is it to distinguish between different kinds of nationalism Introduction Nationalism has been a contentious issue over time as analysts cannot agree on its definition and its role in society. Most analysts, however, contend that nationalism is a specifically modern phenomenon, which became salient in the eighteenth1 or nineteenth century.2 Ernest Gellner3 was able to convincingly demonstrate that nationalism marked a profound break in human history instead of corresponding to a universal and ancient human need. He stated that the industrial revolution in the West necessitated a radical change in the relationship between polity and culture, and that this in turn produced nationalism. Mass literacy and a high degree of social mobility, could only be achieved by access to state-sponsored universal education system- that is national- are the basic requirement for the industrial and predominantly urban society. This can only be successful if conducted in the local vernacular of the country. This thus raised a need for cultural homogenisation and its offshoot- the political doctrine of nationalism, 'which holds that the political and the national unit should be congruent'.4 Nationalism can be characterised as 'the organisation of human groups into large, centrally educated, culturally homogenous units'.5 Gellner put it thus: modernisation brings about nationalism and nationalism establishes nations, and not vice versa. Types of Nationalism Nationalism may manifest itself as part of state ideology or as a non-state movement and may be expressed along civic, ethnic, cultural, religious or ideological lines. These self-definitions of the nation have been used to classify types of nationalism. These categories are not mutually exclusive and many nationalist movements combine some or all of these elements to varying degrees. Nationalist movements have also beeen classified by other criteria, such as scale and location. With all the disagreements about the true nature of nationalism, most analysts today view it as a hindrance to the development of a liberal democracy.6 Some like Beiner, Habermas and Hobsbawm say that this hindrance has to be superseded altogether; others like Dahrendorf, Kymlicka and Tamir see how democracy and nationalism can be reconciled. Civic and Ethnic Nationalism The liberal defenders of nationalism owe mostly, the original Enlightenment ideal of the nation as an agency of democratic power that was able to challenge the old suppressive order of the 'ancien rgime' (Rousseau). This made French and American nationalisms to be traditionally regarded as the epitome of civic nationalism. They were based on the political ideas of revolutionaries who fought for the 'sovereignty of the people'. The membership of the community was thus defined primarily in political terms; civic virtues were more important for the new republic than ethnicity, common culture, or even common language. This voluntaristic notion of national identity is usually contrasted with ethnic nationalism, which is exclusionary, since the belonging to a nation is in this case defined by birth, blood and ethnicity. While the former conception of a nation is ideally conceived of as a voluntary association, the latter is seen as a community of fate.7 Ethnic nationalism emerged in the late nineteenth century and is said to be pertinent to the people of Central and Eastern Europe.8 While civic nationalism is usually associated with liberalism, exclusionary ethnic nationalism has often been conducive to authoritarian regimes. It is the latter that is feared by many critics of nationalism. Most scholars in post-communism era thought it not an option for Central and Eastern Europe to adopt liberal nationalism as fashioned by Tamir.9 While the West was seen as coming to terms with the dangers of nationalism (either by overcoming nationalism, or adapting it to the requirements of a liberal democracy), it was expected that the post-communist world of Central and Eastern Europe would succumb to the nationalistic ideologies of ancient ethnic hatred. The war in Yugoslavia confirmed the apparent resurgence of nationalism in general after the end of communist power seemed to confirm the proclaimed existence of 'two types of nationalism'. John Plamenatz argued that the Slavic nations of Eastern Europe were doomed to adhere to Eastern nationalism, which is mostly (if not invariably) illiberal.10 Since the nations of Central and Eastern Europe were modernised considerably later than the Western nations, their peoples suffered from 'a feeling of inferiority or inadequacy'. They had to catch up by imitating their more successful West European rivals. Nationalism born out of frustration leads, according to Plamenatz, to extremism, as shown by the ascendance of Nazism in Germany and fascism in Italy after the First World War. The underlying nature of German and Italian nationalism is, however, Western (i.e. free of frustration), because it was already culturally strong and rather liberal in the nineteenth century. According to Plamenatz, the Germans and Italians, forced to adopt an alien civilization, were historically marked as Eastern, meaning virtually non-European. Their relationship with the West was an ambivalent one that was characterised by feelings of admiration mixed with envy and resentment. There was thus 'Eastern' nationalism that is 'both imitative and hostile to the models it imitates, and is apt to be illiberal'.11 In other words, while the West (Germany included) finally found a sane nationalism, Eastern Europe was doomed to remain 'wild' for much longer. Answering the question on whether there should exist difference between kinds of nationalism; Greenfeld12acknowledged that the distinction between Western and Eastern types of nationalism does not make much sense geographically, because 'if we assigned individual societies to any of these originally geographical categories on the basis of civilizational characteristics, we might have to characterise many Western European societies as "Eastern Europe," while most of the "West" or "Europe" would paradoxically move to another continent [the USA].'13 She concedes, however, that it is possible to distinguish between 'Western, less Western, and anti-Western nationalism in Europe and elsewhere'14. In this way, any society can be located on an imaginary map, which need not bear any resemblance whatsoever to the actual geographical location of that society. My argument, however, is that the terms Eastern and Western nationalism are nevertheless of little use, and indeed are misleading, because they can hardly be conceptualised outside of their geographical connotations. Moreover, I believe that forms of liberal and illiberal nationalisms co-exist within each European nation; analysts should take care not to 'condemn' a nation to be and remain illiberal in inclination because of its history. National identities are human creations, and thus can, and do, change. In Greenfeld's opinion 'Germany was ready for Holocaust from the moment German national identity existed'.15 But to view Socialism as a mere consequence of traditional German hatred of the West and Germans' desire to overcome their feelings of inferiority by offering their salvation to mankind is misleading. There obviously were other intrinsic factors involved and even the German literary and philosophical tradition consists of a couple of nationalistic writings. Many influential contemporaries of Herder16 regarded themselves as cosmopolitans. Thus, even a nation formed by a 'purely Eastern type of nationalism' did not necessarily have to end up with a totalitarian regime. The nations of Central Europe will not because of their 'imprisoning past'17 remain prone to an illiberal nationalism - as the various concepts of Eastern nationalism imply. Firstly, even Herder's theory of nationalism could be reconciled, at least partially, with the needs of liberal democracy. Herder, whose ideas, according to Greenfeld, anticipated Nazism, could be equally regarded as an antecedent of multiculturalism. To claim superiority for a particular nation goes very much against Herder's basic idea that 'at bottom all comparisons [between nations] are out of place. Every nation has its centre of happiness within itself.'18 Indeed, Tamir's polycentric liberal nationalism is explicitly derived from the ideas of romantic nationalist writers who defined nations in cultural rather than political terms.19 Secondly and more importantly, nations are 'imagined communities',20 and their histories are always, to a certain extent, created, rather than simply documented by disinterested observers. Ernest Renan rightly suggested that the formation of nations is not only characterised by the invocation of common memories and a shared past, but also by a shared amnesia, a collective forgetfulness.21 The 'true' character of a nation is constantly being reinvented; old symbols can and do attain new meanings. Even nationalists can be critical of their own particular culture; 'they can aspire to change it, develop it, or redefine it'.22 Having shown that the distinction between Eastern (i.e. illiberal) and Western (i.e. liberal) nationalism does not help in analysing the post-communist transition in Central Europe, I do not suggest that nationalism does not pose any problems for the development of liberal democracy. Nor can I deny that certain historical experiences of Central European nations may prove detrimental to their further advancement.23 It is however clear that the potential role of nationalism is more complex and ambivalent than any dualistic classification would suggest. Nationalism in Central Europe has been used for the legitimisation of both left-wing and right-wing dictatorships,24 but it has also repeatedly been employed as a tool of national liberation, thus furthering the case of liberal democracy.25 Indeed, it can be argued that all the revolutions of 1989 were to a certain extent nationalistic. The Czechs, Slovaks, Hungarians and Poles felt that the end of communist power also meant the end of foreign (i.e. Russian) domination and that their national identities were traditionally hostile to communist ideology. The end of communist power in Central Europe showed the ultimate failure of communist leaders to activate support for their ideology by resorting to nationalism. Their attempt to ally the national allegiances of citizens with loyalty to the socialist home-country had failed. From the argument put forward it can clearly be seen that it is not meaningful to distinguish between different kinds of nationalism. References 1 Anderson, Benedict (1991), 'Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism' London: Verso, 2 Gellner, Ernest (1983), 'Nations and Nationalism' Oxford: Blackwell 3 Smith, Anthony D.(1991), 'National Identity' Harmondsworth: Penguin 4 Eatwell, Roger (1997), 'European Political Cultures' London: Routledge 5 Greenfeld, Liah (1992), 'Nationalism: Five Roads to Modernity' Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press 6 Ignatieff, Michael (1993), 'Strange Attachments', The New Republic 7 Gellner Ernest (1987), ''Zeno of Cracow', in Culture, Identity and Politics' Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 8 Brown, J. F.(1994), 'Hopes and Shadows' Durham: Duke University Press 9 Tamir, Yael (1993), 'Liberal Nationalism' Princeton: Princeton University Press 10 Kundera, Milan (1984), 'The Tragedy of Central Europe', New Review of Books 11 Schwarz, Karl-Peter (1993), 'Tschechen und Slowaken: Der lange Weg zuer friedlichen Trennung Wien', Zrich: Europaverlag 12 Plamenatz, John (1973), 'Two Types of Nationalism', in Eugene Kamenka (ed.), Nationalism Canberra: Australian National University Press 13 Scruton, Roger (1990), 'The Philosopher on Dover Beach' Manchester: Carcanet Read More