Session 16 Nationalism and Racism

► Catalan Nationalism in Comparative

Perspective

► IESBarcelona
► FALL 2007 PROGRAM

► Instructor: Andrew Davis

► e-mail: ad374@iesbarcelona.org
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 Imagined
Communities
by Benedict Anderson, 1983
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 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

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 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 was happening in Europe in 18th
c?
 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 6
 Cultural Systems
► Priorto the advent of nationality, the
primary cultural systems were:

Religious communities Dynastic realms

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
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 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
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 The Origins of National
Consciousness
► Print-capitalism
► Printingbegins 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

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Old Languages, New Models
► Between 1820 & 1920 national print-
languages 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

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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
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 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.” Anderson14
 The Nexus of Patriotism and
Racism
► Onthe 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.
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 Patriotism & Racism
► Many today find ► Nations inspire
nationalism to self-sacrificing
be pathological, love, shown in
with affinities to poetry, prose,
racism, hatred music, arts.
of the Other,
but…

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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”
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 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
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 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

1) 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
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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
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 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. 23
 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.
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 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? 26
‘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…
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 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. Hetero-
referential – 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. 29
 Therefore…
► There is not merely a single invariant
racism but a number of racisms,
forming a broad, open spectrum of
situations.

► Thismeans that any racism is a stage

in a development with many future
possible forms within the spectrum of
possible racisms.
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When is nationalism racism?
► Ghandiwas 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?
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 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).
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 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
► Isracism 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).
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 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.

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