Cn - Session 16 Nationalism And Racism

Session 16 Nationalism and Racism ► Catalan

Nationalism in Comparative Perspective ► IES

Barcelona ► FALL 2007 PROGRAM

► ►

Instructor: Andrew Davis e-mail: [email protected] 1

Imagined Communities

by Benedict Anderson, 1983 2

Nation, Nationality, and Nationalism  are innovative, recent concepts, artifacts created in late 18th century due to historical circumstance, but easily transplanted to the rest of the world  Nationalism Dichotomy: while they lack clean definitions and defy analysis, they arouse deep attachments

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Anderson’s definition of nation ► An

imagined political community that is both limited and sovereign ► Imagined because members cannot all know each other ► Limited because no nation encompasses all of mankind, nor even aspires to ► Sovereign because nations came into being during Enlightenment and strive for freedom within their own territories. ► Community because a nation is conceived of as a horizontal comradeship of equals 4

Why does Nationalism cause bloodshed? ► Why

is it that these limited imaginings of fraternity, which have existed for only two centuries, have inspired millions of people to be willing kill and die for them? ► The answers lie in the cultural roots of nationalism.

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Cultural Roots ► What

c?

was happening in Europe in 18th

 Religious modes of thought were declining  Enlightenment and rationalist secularism were prevailing  The idea of a nation gave a new sense of continuity to the cycle of life and death  Nations imagine themselves as an expression of a glorious past headed toward a limitless future

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Cultural Systems ► Prior

to the advent of nationality, the primary cultural systems were: Dynastic realms

Religious communities

or

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Religious community: ► linked

by a sacred language/text which was “superior” to vernaculars ► potentially encompass all humanity via conversion ► suggested a unique hierarchy, unique access to truth ► ultimately eroded by world exploration/discovery of other “great” religions and vernacularization 8

Dynastic realm: ► Kingdoms

focused on control by Crown, not borders ► Ruled over heterogeneous populations ► Population as subjects, not citizens, part of a divine hierarchy ► Principle of automatic legitimacy withered away and dynasties gradually took on nationalist features 9

The Origins of National Consciousness ► Print-capitalism ► Printing

begins in 15th c, aimed at Latin readers, but this market was saturated after 150 years, and focus shifted to vernaculars ► Even earlier, use of administrative vernaculars began spreading in Europe ► Print gave language a new fixity, helped create standards and build an image of antiquity 10

Europe’s sense of self and other ► 16th

c Europe discovered other civilizations, and that it was only one among many civilizations, and not necessarily the Chosen or the best ► Languages belonged no longer to God, but to their speakers, and dictionaries and grammars treat all languages as equals 11

Old Languages, New Models ► Between

1820 & 1920 national printlanguages were of central ideological and political importance in Europe ► The concept of “nation”, once invented, became widely available for pirating, and was imported to a diverse array of situations and ideologies 12

Bourgeoisie and Literacy expand ► 19th

c Europe major expansion of state bureaucracies and middle classes ► Cohesion of bourgeoisie facilitated by literacy ► Vernacular languages of state assumed greater power, first displacing Latin and then minority languages 13

Equality of compatriots ► “The

new middle-class intelligentsia of nationalism had to invite the masses into history” Nairn ► “If ‘Hungarians’ deserved a national state, then that meant Hungarians, all of them; it meant a state in which the ultimate locus of sovereignty had to be the collectivity of Hungarian-speakers and readers; and, in due course, the liquidation of serfdom, the promotion of popular education, the expansion of suffrage, and so on.” Anderson

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The Nexus of Patriotism and Racism ► On

the one hand, you create deep passion and allegiance towards the nation.

► On

the other, those who stand to lose will often form other ways of defining ‘difference’ in order to stay on top and maintain an hierarchical structure. 15

Patriotism & Racism ► Many

today find nationalism to be pathological, with affinities to racism, hatred of the Other, but…

► Nations

inspire self-sacrificing love, shown in poetry, prose, music, arts.

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The political love of nationalism ► This

love is expressed in terms of kinship or home, ties that are “natural” and unchosen, like skin-color and parentage ► We talk about the ‘national interest’ ► Because these ties are unchosen, “they have about them a halo of disinterestedness” 17

Love & death ► The

fated link to a nation, because it is disinterested, has a purity that sanctions the idea of an ultimate sacrifice ► The 20th century is unprecedented in the number of people who lay down their lives for their nations ► Death serves to symbolize eternal continuity for a nation 18

Just for comparison… ► Dying

 

for something like

The American Medical Association Amnesty International

► These

would not have the same cachet because they are bodies we can join or leave.

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More on death… ► War

monuments, holidays commemorating battles, holocausts, genocides, and even fraternal (civil) wars serve to bond a nation to a history ► Tombs for the Unknown Soldier are particularly powerful, for they also reinforce the image of equality

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Similarities between nationalism and racism Like nations, races are imagined – no biological foundations 2) Just as with nations, all those within a race can’t know each other 3) Both nation-state and race have a boundary 4) They dependent on closure 1)

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Origins of Racism ► Racism

does not have anything to do with the existence of biological races ► It emerges at times of nation-building as means of maintaining hierarchy ► It emerges at time of economic crisis, blame the ‘other’ ► Therefore, it has a psychological origin (identity) ► It is a historical or cultural product 22

Origins of Racism ► Benedict

Anderson argues that nationalism thinks in terms of historical destinies, while racism is portrayed in terms of dynastic legitimacy. ► The link between racism and nationalism takes place as threatened dynastic and aristocratic groups (upper classes) react to popular vernacular nationalism. The link emerges as an attempt to weld dynastic legitimacy and national community.

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Differences between nationalism and racism 1)

The nation occupies an exclusive territory

3)

Racism allows a distinction within nations, the continuity of human hierarchy even after enlightenment principles of equality have been implemented. 24

Nationalism and racism work together ► Enoch

Powell ‘A West Indian or an Asian does not by being born in England become an Englishman. In law he becomes a UK citizen by birth, in fact he is still a West Indian or an Asian still’

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Conceptions of Racism What historical examples help form our conceptualization of what racism is? ► Nazi

anti-Semitism ► African Americans in the USA ► Imperialist racism of colonial conquests – can you think of a good example of this last example?

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‘The White Man’s Burden’ ►

►

First appeared in McClure's Magazine (1899). Text reads ‘Pears soap is a potent factor in brightening the dark corners of the earth as civilisation advances while among the cultured of all nations it holds the highest place… 27

Analysts create distinctions in ‘forms’ of racism ► 1)

Theoretical (doctrinal) vs. spontaneous racism (prejudice)

► 2)

Internal racism (directed against a ‘minority’ in a national space)

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Analysts create distinctions in ‘forms’ of racism II ► 3)

Auto-referential – bearers of prejudice designate themselves as representatives of a superior race (Nazis) vs. Heteroreferential – victims of racism are assigned to an inferior or evil race (Jews in Nazi Germany) ► 4) Extermination racism (exclusive racism) and oppression/exploitation racism (inclusive racism). One seeks to purify the social body as a whole, the other to hierarchize and partition society.

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Therefore… ► There

is not merely a single invariant racism but a number of racisms, forming a broad, open spectrum of situations.

► This

means that any racism is a stage in a development with many future possible forms within the spectrum of possible racisms. 30

When is nationalism racism? ► Ghandi

was not De Gaulle, De Gaulle was not Hitler. What about Roosevelt and Japanese internment camps?

► We

have no right whatever to equate the nationalism of the dominant with that of the dominated, the nationalism of liberation with the nationalism of conquest. Can we? 31

Where’s the limit? II ► Yet

this does not mean we can simply ignore liberation nationalism. There is a common element in the nationalism of the Algerian FLN and that of the French colonial army. ► Always the threat that nationalisms of liberation become nationalisms of domination (such as socialist revolutions turning into state dictatorships). 32

Racism and Nationalism ► We

tend to contrast a ‘normal’ ideology and politics (nationalism) with an ‘excessive’ ideology and behavior (racism). Good vs. bad nationalism… ► Where do we draw the line?

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Racism and Nationalism ► Is

racism inherently born from nationalism? Is it true that ‘the seeds of racism could be seen as lying at the heart of politics from the birth of nationalism onwards, or even indeed from the point where nations begin to exist?’

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Racism and Nationalism ► For

some, Hitlerian racism is the culmination of nationalism: derives from Bismarck, German Romanticism, and the defeat of 1918. Pure, dominant Aryan race, indistinguishable from German state. ► This helps to explain why: originally many Germans supported its goals (at least, to a greater or lesser extent), why other ‘nations’ appeased Germany (they recognized it in themselves, question of degree). 35

Racism and Nationalism ► Others

argue, including Anderson, that nationalism, like most things in life, is a balance. ► We should not ignore either that nationalism has spouted enormous self-sacrifice and good, as well as to be wary of its most extreme forms, often coming in the form of racism. 36