Chapter 9 - Nationalism and "Us-ism"

 

Last week, just at the bottom of the lecture - I slipped in the word "Balkanization." I did not make that word up but I believe it is an important trend in the world today. The Balkans - the area around the former Yugoslavia, easily broke into small ethnic enclaves and became separate countries. that is a trend that has continued since the end of World War II.

At that time, when the UN was founded - there were 52 countries in the world - today there are around 200 - and the planet has not grown.

Much of the growth in the number of countries is the dismantling of empires that had dominated world politics for hundreds of years. The continues establishment of new countries - at a rate of more that one a year since 1945, and at an increasing rate since the dissolution of the Soviet Empire, maybe the biggest change in the international system.

Globalization and all that it means has not stopped "peoples" or "nations" around the world from striving, fighting, killing and dyeing for some idea of nationalism. It could be argued it has accelerated the carnage..

Humans love to divide ourselves up into little groups who are some how
"more human" or "better" than some other group who lives...over there, "like those people prefer"...

A friend of mine tells a great story - he was hired to teach in Alaska, in a little village (250 people) on a large river in southwest Alaska. The only way to get there, if the river is not frozen (if it is frozen it becomes a state highway) is to fly into the tiny village airport (single air strip, no tower). When he was flying over the village, he noticed a village on the far bank of the river. When he asked the people in "his" village about that other village on the other side of the river they all agreed that those people were crazy - not like the normal people he was now with. Se, even in the middle of nowhere - some group thinks they are better than some one else from - "over there."

Different topography, different geography makes people feel different and that almost always makes us feel superior to them - who ever we identify as "them."

You can find many examples of countries "breaking up" - like the so-called velvet divorce of Czechoslovakia into the Check Republic and Slovakia, or the less than velvet exit of Eritrea from Ethiopia. My personal favorite ethnic/so-called national movement is in the land of my distant relatives - Quebec.

Yes, only in Canada (and the US, too) can a group of white people talk, act and think so different than the rest of the white people that they think they need their own country - or at least autonomous region. Have you been there - there's no bilingualism in Quebec (wacky French Canadian only, please) - only in the rest of Canada.

Anyway, here's a little challenge for you - get a good world map and put your finger randomly somewhere on land and you probably will find a place where some ethnic/religious/or whatever group wants its own country or autonomous region or some such device to separate them from the humans around them. (Presumably because they are different, and thus better, than the humans around them.)

I think the better working definition for nationalism involves a group with some shared past or identity built on shared history. But in you text, that explanation comes very late in the chapter.

Your text authors put forth a standard discussion about the Psychological Group Identity concept and the emotional force of nationalism but I'm not sure they drive the point home sufficiently.

If it is about people's feelings...well than any politician worth her or his salt can manipulate those feelings. If it is just emotion, democracy is doomed in every culture, everywhere.

It is not a mathematical equation but a "slippery slope" from nationalism, to patriotism, to racism, to xenophobia. Or maybe there are elements of each in each of the above "feelings."

Sure we can act like the four above terms mean slightly different things but the are all focused on the feelings of "we are us (good guys) ... and they are them, different, dangerous and "all alike, you know?"

On pages 270 & 271 - in just two paragraphs, the authors of our text remind us of the fact that "Postcolonial national sentiments" continue into this century. That is a great understatement.

Never underestimate the impact that colonialism has had - and continues to have - on the lives of people around the world. This is especially true if we are talking about how people "feel" about themselves, their group and the other humans around them.

Please don't pretend that colonialism has stopped, or is a thing of the past and we are now - the entire world - in some mythical "post colonial" world. Colonialism continues in a real sense from the US, the former European Empires, including the Russians and other powers as well. More importantly the scars of colonialism are deep and many in the world have been bleeding for decades or generations from the wounds made and felt to fester by imperial powers past and present (including, but by no way limited to, the US).

These injustices, these societal misdeeds, the figurative and literal rape that was and is colonialism, is not all forgotten just because now the world is more "globalized," or because it is a new century!

Also I take issue with the authors of your text who seem to say that nationalism started out of the industrial revolution and of course picked up great steam as the world industrialized user the old colonial international system. I think it started much before that.

I think "them" verses "Us" started long before our current species, Homo Sapien Sapien, came to dominate the planet by leaving Africa some 90-100,000 years ago. I think our ancient precursors also divided them selves up by where they lived, what language they spoke or how afraid (or not) they were of the moon, etc ... (I'm assuming you get my point here).

I know the Scots were already a people who the Romans treated as one people and built a wall to keep them out of the Roman Empire! (Hadrian's wall, in England)

The Franks, the Normans, the Basques, all are in many real ways ancient peoples who have had some sort of shred culture or history and have identified themselves as such for centuries. there are hundred if not thousands of groups around the world who can claim to be some sort of "nations" or "people" (not to mention the more than 1000 indigenous peoples, around the world, who have been genocided or nearly wiped out in the last three hundred years).

Comparing the US and Russian idea of national identity is a great project and the authors do a fine job in this. In fact if you are interested in this type of analysis, you should consider taking Political Science 2. Next semester (Fall 2010), I'm teaching it at 6:50 on Tuesday nights. One book, learn all about other countries and try to develop a solid working definition of democracy. It could be fun. It's my favorite class to teach on campus.

Those maps on pages 280 and 281 are great examples of the divisions around the world. It seems every country or region has many groups, movements, nations, peoples, or whomever trying to break away, seek autonomy or be left alone by the so-called national government.

Almost every state on the planet is a multi-ethnic state. Equally almost every state has some problem with some local group wanting a change in its status. Also remember - every state has problems with immigration, emigration or migration.

we today pay the cost left unpaid by our ancestors, our forefathers and those who came before us. we can give great speeches about how great the leaders or people of the past may have been but we pay the cost for the inaction and actions.