Personally, I don't think this is true of nationalism at all. I think most people have been nationalists throughout history, even if they didn't use the word.
In my view, if you can answer "Yes" to the following two questions, you're a nationalist:
1) Do you think the nation-state should be the basic unit of international politics, rather than a World Government, or supranational organizations, or empires, or some other system? Do you think nations should have fundamental sovereignty?
(People sometimes quibble about sovereignty, pointing out its inevitable limitations. Everything has limitations. I don't think this is a serious objection.)
2) Would you prefer that national cultures should persist? That the French should continue to speak French and make celebrities of bad philosophers, that the Irish should continue to play hurling and apologize every six seconds, and so on?
(Tiresome objections that "you can't preserve a culture in aspic" are often advanced here. The question is not: "Would you prefer that national cultures should never change or evolve?". The question is whether you would prefer them to substantially persist through those changes.)
I think most people would answer in the affirmative to these two questions, and that most people are therefore nationalists.
I think most people would answer in the affirmative to these two questions, and that most people are therefore nationalists.
Only communists are really truly non nationalist, because they care only about economic status. Those people in America talking about stolen land are nationalist, in that they think the native cultures had the right to the land and were destroyed by the attempt to homogenize cultures. However it makes some amount of sense to oppose nationalism in America, out of concern that it might become racial (although there is not really a reason it must) it however, makes no sense in Ireland's case. Ireland's entire claim to existence is predicated on nationalism in that the Irish people have a right to govern themselves in accordance with their ancient culture in their island homeland. Without nationalism it would matter little whether Ireland is governed by herself or by the King of England; whether the stories of Fionn or Beowulf or the American West are taught in school. The only reason to try to save Irish is because culture is actually important and ties people together in a very real way.
ReplyDeleteWell, of course, I agree completely. Even the term "post-colonialism" recognizes the basic truth that a territory belongs to a particular people in some way. And, in agreement with your last point, I don't really see why anyone would prize the Irish language except for nationalistic reasons. There are thousands of languages, many of them endangered. Thanks for the comment!
DeleteInteresting in the Irish case is how we have adopted all the basic tenets of the former oppressor. We are as anti-Catholic, secularising, feminist and pro-abortion as the English. In my experience of Dublin the 'Donnybrook class' were always this way. The pattern is that the withdrawing colonial power will always leave behind a compliant class that eventually seizes power and completes its work for it. Donnybrook is finishing the job that Cromwell started, down to and including the extermination of the native stock and its disenfranchisement in favour of imported populations.
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