Before I get to my interpretation of nationalism and its meaning, I think its best to situate nation on a grander scale and what it has meant to previous scholars. Get a feel for its pros and cons.
To do that I would like to start with Benedict Anderson's Introduction to Imagined Communities:Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism.
Anderson spends most of the introduction navigating between different thoughts about what he calls the "anomly" of nationalism ( Anderson 4). He offers the suggestions that "nation-ness as wells as nationalism, are cultural artefacts of a particular kind. To understand them properly we need to consider carefull how they have come into historical being, in what ways their meanings have changed over time, and why, today they command such profound emotional legitimacy" (Anderson 4). Anderson also says that "the creation of these artefacts towards the end of the eighteenth century was the spontaneous distillation of a complex crossing of historical forces; but once created they became 'modular,' capable of being transplanted with varying degrees of self-consciousness to a variety of social terrains" (Anderson 4). These are two great and fundamentally useful ideas in understanding how nationalism works. First, culture and nation are bound together through a historical aspect thus they become historical "artefacts." Second, the idea that nationalism began to spread at the end of the eighteenth century--a time when colonial expansion was beginning to take root through super powers like Spain, Britain, and Portugal.
Keeping Anderson's theorhetical insights in mind (that we must understand nationalism as a historical artefact) I think it appropriate to take a look at a crucial section from Aimé Césaire's Discourse on Colonialism.
Césaire holds colonialism historically accountable for its destruction of important and vital civilizations, not the creation of civilizations. He says that before colonialism "non-European societies" were "...anti-capitalist...democratic...cooperative...fraternal" meaning they existed under a civilized and peaceful agenda (63). They were "nations" with a strong notion of what it meant to be a working civilized community. Césaire condemns colonialism, but makes the valid point that it is a "good thing to place different civilizations in contact with each other...a civilization that withdraws into itself atrophies" (61). (KEEP THAT IN THE FRONT OF YOUR MIND I WILL COME BACK TO THAT CONCEPT BECAUSE IT PLAYS A KEY PART IN DEFINING NATIONALISM). Colonialism was a bad thing because of Euro-centrism, meaning that Britain and its fellow colonial powers thought of themselves as superior and civilised therefore they took it upon themselves to deconstruct all ready existing nations. Euro-centrism=negative form of nationalism that destroys all other nations. They deconstructed these nations by appropriating and twisting their culture and art, which as Anderson puts it, are intrinsically bound up with a nations historical past. In essence colonial powers hijacked the non-European's national historical artefacts.
Césaire outlines the historical impact of colonialism, and how one form of nationalism was used to destroy another. But he didn't offer an answer how to restore the former deconstructed nation. Frans Fanon in On National Culture highlights the essential role of the intellectual when it comes to reclaiming past notions of nation. Fanon is best recognised as championing the "New Negro" movement as well as the African Liberation movement and both are very important in understanding Fanon's position because they aim at creating a connection to the past nations of Africa. Once again, like both Anderson and Césaire, Fanon makes the key link that "culture is first and foremost national" (Fanon 204). Thus culture and nation are synonymous. According to Fanon intellectuals have a duty to inspire national thought and to do that "the colonized man [must write] for his people [by using] the past with the intention of opening the future" (210). What seems to be repetitious from all of these three so far is that history provides the key to understanding nationalism as well as thoughts of nation. However, to Fanon it is the current struggle of the colonized that serves as an allegorical and symbolic representation of regaining nationhood after global colonization has taken place.
Since I mentioned the concept of allegory, its necessary to take a look at one final theorist in the hopes that I can shed some light on this rather thickle and slippery term. In his essay "Third-World Literature in the Era of Multinational Capitalism." Similarly like Césaire, Anderson, and Fanon Jameson once gain makes the point that culture and nation are bound together--any Marxist should know that ideology(like that dictated by a Capitalist society) always plays a part in defining how a society works. You can't have one without the other. Fanon outlined the way colonized intellectuals should regain national consciousness, yet Jameson analyzed a very specific narrative produced by what he calls "Third-Word" countries--countries where he believes that the personal space has not yet been invaded by global Marxist capitalism. This resistance is what Jameson coins the "national allegory" (69). A national allegory is "the story of the private individual [which] is always an allegory of the embattled situation of the public third-world culture and society" (69). These stories serve as symbolic representations of rebellion, but Jameson argues that symbolic messages are not enough. In order to awaken the "collective identity it must be evaluated from a historical point" (78).
Each of these three theorist offered their insight into what stands for a nation and how one does conceive a nation. Each agrees that nation and culture are bound together through history. It is only by understanding one's history that one can understand just exactly what nationalism means.
With that said, what I have taken away from each of these scholars and writers is the fact that nationalism is a very dangerous concept. Dangerous in the fact that it can destroy nations, take the civilised, and make them uncivilised. I told you to keep that "it is good thing to place different civilizations in contact with each other...a civilization that withdraws into itself atrophies" in the front of your mind. This is an important part of understanding just exactly what nationalism is. If one nation is to think its self superior and excludes all others from any contact what is to be gained or furthered? If European superpowers had recognized its colonies as previous civilizations and nations how could they have bettered themselves in lieu of the colonized? Would we still have an Africa ravaged by war and dictators whose primary goal is to distinguish all outsiders at the expense of their own people? Would Cuba have easily offered itself into the hands of another ruthless dictator who squashed all forms of diversity that went against national thought? Would America have gotten involved in Vietnam?
So many questions but no answers as to why nationalism has created such a disruption between each nation of the world. To undo the colonial legacy it is dangerous to reuse the idea of nationalism, because its a form of exclusion and does not allow a space for people that are a product of cultural contact, or shall we say hybrids. IT does not allow for further contact to take place between cultures. With all that said and done nationalism is not always bad notion, because it acts as a catalyst to reconnect with one's history and one's pride. It's not bad because it can offer a solution to the future.
It is only bad when people use it as an excuse to say that my nation is better then all the rest. My culture makes your culture look inferior. My history is greater than yours, and has no place for you in it. One thing remains the same though, understanding this notion of nation is a very dangerous space to occupy. Do two wrongs make a right? Must we repeat what history has warned against over and over again? Must we always be caught up in this notion of nationalism, where one is always better than the other? Must we close our borders, put up barriers, and refuse to connect with other cultures and nations?
Will we eventually withdrawl into ourselves and atrophy? If we cannot overcome this notion of nationalism, I believe we will.
Hello, Sean,
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed your questioning of the dangers of thinking in terms of nationalism(s). There's definitely a threat of exclusion--"my country, not your country"--and potentially much worse with even the most idealistic and intentionally "good" conceptualizations of "nation."
Perhaps some of the problem comes from the fact that "nation" as a political/cultural/economic unit is an abstraction of a reality too complex to describe any other way. The US is a "nation" but it is made of 50 states, each with their own governments, cultures, stories, etc. How do we account for the wide variation of human activity that takes place with what we like to refer to as "one nation" (under God)?
Futhermore, we can only define our US Nation because there are other things that we can identify as "nations" that are not ours. We are not England. We are not Canada. We are the US and we're "patriotic" and such. We love fireworks, and pie, and Hollywood--you can see I'm lapsing into cliche here, but only to indicate that the concept of nation is quite obviously, at its core, unstable.
In the poco reconstruction of culture, however, the idea of nation is perhaps given gravity that it doesn't have in other contexts. In order to cast off the colonizer there has to be something, right? You're either a 1 or a 0, and since 0 is the colonizer, we have to make 1 seem like something coherent. In the hands of the colonizer, then, nation is a weapon of oppression. In the hands of the colonized, then, nation is a weapon of resistance.
It would be truly dangerous, however, for the newly conceived "nations" to collapse into their own totalizing schemes, to pay the price of cultural/political/ideological/philosophical/religious/artistic/intellectual plurality for the chance to flip a slippery binary.
Great response!
DeleteThanks Jordan! I also agree that the concept of nation is to abstract and complex to define in terms of reality! And I agree it is dangerous for the newly "concieved "nations" to collapse into their own totalizing schemes." I mean it excludes all other people that have been born after colonization, and also those that have suffered between navigating between two different cultures and societies. Cultural hybrids. Or in this case national hybrids. I mean isn't that the reason we see such violence in social movents from Egypt to Algeria? Reclaiming a national identity. I also noticed that what each three readings failed to adress was religions affect on the creation of identity. Hmm I wonder what questions and ideas would ensue because religion seems to be the backbone of every culture.
ReplyDeleteI love the last paragraphs where you show how productive and dangerous the idea of nationalism can be. You offer excellent summaries of the four theories. These will be useful to you someday when you are preparing for your PhD comprehensive exams!
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