Ethnonationalism and its Discontents (Part I)
Jerry Muller’s essay in Foreign Affairs on the enduring power of the rather redundantly named ethnic nationalism (or “ethnonationalism” as he calls it) makes a number of important observations about the phenomenon, but tends to confuse things by the end of his piece, mixing “ethnonationalism” with the problems of religious communalism and cultural diversity and by endorsing arguments for partition that, if taken literally, would unleash at least a century of chaos and misery across Latin America, Africa, and South Asia. Noting the distaste in which many Americans, or more accurately Americanists, hold the idea of such nationalism and the fashionable understanding of ethnic identity as a social and cultural construct, Muller makes a valuable contribution in emphasizing the political significance of ethnonationalism in the modern world and points the way forward for understanding how we can reconcile the existence of resurgent ethnonationalism with the closing of the modern age and the weakening of the nation-state.
It cannot be stated often enough that a constructed identity, even though it is at least partly constructed, nonetheless becomes very real and meaningful to its adherents. Muller draws attention to this point in his conclusion. Once something is constructed, it exists. In debunking essentialist myths of the Urvolk or arguments for the continuity of unvarying national characteristics across millennia, modern academics believe they have revealed constructed identities to be absurdly subjective, but in fact they have simply described how people create the cultures and nations to which they and their posterity belong. If movements of national “awakening” are not exactly the “rebirths” nationalists claim them to be, neither are they inventions out of thin air—nationalist movements always drawing on historical precedents and pre-existing cultural material.
This construction doesn’t free people from their prior obligations and identities, at least not without a major struggle, nor can any people actually dissociate itself from its past. This is the great fiction of any national exceptionalism that sees a new nation as somehow “unfettered” by history or beginning anew. Even though they aspired to a classical ideal of Hellenism in their liberal contempt for the middle ages, the early Greek nationalists could never fully deny the legacy of Byzantium that defined them as a people. For the purposes of stressing national continuity, every modern European nationalist has had to pay some homage to his pre-modern, Christian ancestors who identified themselves by their religion or their civic identity.
Where what Muller calls “civic nationalism” tries to “transcend” ethnic differences, or devalue them to the point of irrelevance, “ethnonationalism” assumes that these are significant and, if not absolutely permanent, unlikely to disappear in the future. It is, of course, an open secret that such nationalism has advanced alongside democratization in most of the places it has taken root, and where it has flourished outside of democratic politics, it has arisen in direct competition against liberal and democratic regimes that were promoting their own nationalisms. The history of European nationalism is conventionally dated to the French Revolution, which led to the eruption of an aggressive liberal nationalism that married universalist, liberating pretensions with a desire for national preeminence. It was particularly under the assault of the armies of the Revolution and Napoleon and in reaction to the preaching of liberal universalism that local patriots in central Europe began to emphasize both ethnic and cultural difference in defiance of the hitherto culturally dominant French. International and universal ideologies, especially when advanced by a foreign army, have had a tendency to provoke a resistance that comes to define itself in nationalist terms.
In this way, ethnonationalism has been intensifying as globalization has advanced. The legitimate fear over losing national sovereignty as a result of globalist policies drives the strengthening of ethnonationalism, especially within multi-ethnic states where the potential for fragmentation from within without the framework of the nation-state is much greater. For example, in Bolivia, Aymara tribal-ethnic identity has been combined with a powerful socialist and protectionist reaction against neoliberal trade policies, which has in turn provoked open talk of the secession of the predominantly white eastern provinces. Throughout Latin America, there is a growing movement for empowering the indigenous majorities, which outside observers routinely misread simply as a passing “populist” backlash (not paying attention to which kind of people this populism is supposed to appeal. “Ethnonationalism” has likewise gained still more from the global proliferation of democratic procedures, which place a premium on “identity politics,” a phrase often misleadingly limited to minority grievances when, in fact, it refers to all mass democratic politics. Tribally and ethnically divided states necessarily become more divided along these lines once democratic elections politicize these differences: as you might expect in this world, cultural and ethnic difference takes on much greater salience when the status and power of a community is at stake. As the recent strife between Luos and Kikuyus in Kenya has reminded us, ethnic and tribal identities are going to become only more relevant the more modern, democratic and globalized countries around the world become.
“Ethnonationalism” is not a throwback, but is rather the shape of things to come.
Comments
Mr. Larison:: Please consider Ferdinand & Isabella & Salamanca as being most responsible for modern-day nationalism(with much help from Bodin, Macheavelli & Montagne)...the forced consolidation of dialects into Castillan as being most indicative(led by a Marrano, by the way)....the Crusades, Marco Polo, the Pope at Avignon, the Plague, Henry the Navigator, the fall of Byzantines, and the expulsion of the Moors were a little too volcanic(de-racinating) for that humble little basin...we affectionatly call the “Mediterranean”. Thus, christianity, along with everything else...didn’t stand a chance....predictably, the Anglo-Dutch Moment was securely right around the corner....In addition, please entertain Nation//Empire as nothing more than the “necessity” to secure “credit”...by preventing the “repudiation” of debt…
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If history is ever written again by nonideologues, it will note that the European diaspora, from roughly 1500 to 1900, was unique (though not perfect) in its democratic, universalist impulses, and in its struggle against ethnocentrism (its own, that is, not others, unfortunately). When the diaspora stalled, in fact and in spirit, those impulses stalled with it. And the killing began…
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To Mr. Ravis::: would “americans” returning to Europe around 1917 be a possible example???
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No more brother wars. The game of global survivor has begun.
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Jim:
Universalism isn’t pacifism. WWI had nothing to do with ethnicity, or with the epochal movements of history.
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Ethnonationalism WITHIN the West is the shape of things to come, whether we like it or not. As our European and British brothers are starting to see, there is a growing racial/religious insurgency inside Western countries, fed by mass non-white immigration and anti-Western multiculturalist ideologies. We need to teach our people to take pride in our civilisation. And, to know how to operate a rifle.
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<<European and British brothers>>
Pan-European Ethnonationalism, eh?
Hey everybody, it’s Napoleon Bonaparte!
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“Multi-Culturalism”....which simply looks like Multi’s sans a culture....is the direct result of empire...wherever cited...it’s just the colonized returning to the “mother empire”....like dispossed, displaced chickens coming “home” to roost...you pay the cost to be the boss...in any and all cases...both parties have been “hollowed out"…
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Daniel,
Where do you see Israel within these categories? It is a literally constructed state with an ethno-nationalist intent. To this day, the ethnic aspect continues to be prioritized, yet Israel claims to be democratic - universalist? The truth seems otherwise - that Israels “Jewishness” is of more importance to the democratic or universalist condition.
Your opinion?
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Jim—the Turks don’t welcome immigration from peoples formerly of their Ottoman Empire, and the Japanese aren’t being replaced by the Chinese in their major cities. So the multicult is NOT a direct result of empire.
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@jaels:
Neither Turkey nor Japan are currently an empire.
The USofA IS.
BIG difference.
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To Jaels::: Just as an aside....nobody hates a Turk...more than an Arab or a Persian...nobody hates a Persian more than an Arab or a Turk...nobody hates an Arab more than a Persian or Turk....when you add the Sunni//Shia thing...it all goes off the charts....these Muslim “brothers” hate one another much more than they hate the “Jews”...rivals, not opponents....all in all, this is why the “official” representation of US policy in the Mid East...is unadulterated nonsense…
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This is a useful article and I thank the author. “Identity politics” is indeed the order of the day, both among the Reds and the Browns; indeed, as I have argued, the Reds have become Browns in emphasizing “racial” and “ethnic” identities.
1. Is ethnonationalism a tautology? Yes for Nationalists, no for cultural anthropologists. To explore meanings:
i. Ethnos is Greek for tribe, and the Greeks and cultural anthropologists have a specific meaning: common blood relation and connubial rights. Pre-political societies are divided into family (in a household), clan (in a village), a collection of clans, and a tribe. Because of the incest taboo, the clan cannot intra-marry, so a social unit is needed to to allow marriage but keep some kind of blood identity. Thus the tribe, which rarely is larger than 3000 members. With the coming of the polis, the tribe become unnecessary, connubial rights existing in a much larger group, and the tribe eventually disappears. The polis, indeed, can be defined as the smallest political unit not based on blood or restricted connubial relations.
ii. “Nationalism” is another name for retribalization, Richard Sennett’s invaluable concept. In fact, much ethnonationalism is has no basis, an attempt by the central state to justify its rule: e.g. Lincoln, Treitschke , Delcassé, Cecil, Rhodes, Cavour, Mazzini. As the central state weakens (high time!), this faux nationalism also weakens, and the citizenry breakup into smaller group identities, many of which are also without a basis.
iii. A third concept is the one Tory conservatives find most congenial: a people with a common history, which I shall call a Folk. That Folk’s history makes for common Folkways. A Folk may have similar physical appearance, but other very different Folk may have the same physical appearance. E.g. pre-1808 US “Blacks” and West Indian Blacks look alike, but are very different Folk. On the other hand, we “Scots Irish” (Border Britons) are a mixture of at least 10 different physical groups, and thus look very different one from the other, yet we have the same Folkways. It should be added that Folkways can be shared. John Lukacs has observed the “patriot” (Folk) is flattered when others admire and imitate his own Folkways; the Nationalist (i.e.,ethnonationalist) is upset.
2. WWI had nothing to do with ethnicity, or with the epochal movements of history.
Absolutely, 100%, and risibly wrong! Ethnonationalism caused both World Wars, the mess in the Balkans, the mess in the Near East, the mess in Ireland. Reason enough to oppose utterly “ethnonationalism”.
3. The author is quite right to see a dialectic between economic, communicative, and transport “globalization” on one hand, and neo-nationalism on the other. He could have also mentioned the decline of universal religions as a basis for unity in the face of secularization (a process that may be ending). The fact remains that the economy is global, the only market being the world market. In the New Venetian Age, poleis and Folker will be rich who can figure out what someone half way around the globe might like to buy. Nationalist tribes can’t do this and will live in destitution. Tertia via non est. Yet “cosmopolitans” usually end up to be people five miles wide and one inch deep. The key is for a polis to be both geo-mercantile and locally rooted. Tory conservatism is the ideology that can maintain this balance.
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<>
Would you seriously deny that White Americans lack any biological, cultural, and civilisational ties to our European and British brethren? You must be joking. White Americans have infinitely more in common with a factory worker in Germany than they do with mestizos, asians, and blacks currently residing in North America.
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Andrew Capp scribbled:
“Pan-European Ethnonationalism, eh?
Hey everybody, it’s Napoleon Bonaparte!”
Would you seriously deny that White Americans lack any biological, cultural, and civilisational ties to our European and British brethren? You must be joking. White Americans have infinitely more in common with a factory worker in Germany than they do with mestizos, asians, and blacks currently residing in North America.
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I know how to operate a rifle.
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<<Would you seriously deny that White Americans lack any biological, cultural, and civilisational ties to our European and British brethren?>>
Yes, I have 1st hand knowledge that White Americans have NOTHING in common, other than genetics, with their so-called “European and British brethren”; a grouping, by the way, that in opposition to all known logical sense - to combine all Europeans and British “brethren” is to broadcast one’s total ignorance.
On the first count, “biology” is much more than genetics. Second and third, the “culture” and “civilization” of America is so far from that of Europe, it is laughable that someone could connect the two. There IS a cultural and civilizational similitude between the USofA and Britain, but only on the lower rungs of the fringes; ie lower-lower classes and their general debauchery that is in place of “culture”.
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Dearest, Sweetest Ockham… congratulations Herr Geistlos, you nailed it...apologetics & projections are still man best friend...it’s a god damn shame your canky ass wasn’t around...circus day 1917, 1942....but, obviously, you successfully made the turn in 1946… after pastorializing your sacred chieftans...another Kansas City haberdasher sniffin’Hegel’s butt…
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So if partition is not the answer to such conflicts, what is?
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Ethnonationalism caused both World Wars, the mess in the Balkans, the mess in the Near East, the mess in Ireland. Reason enough to oppose utterly “ethnonationalism”.
No its a reason to embrace it. When the wagons circle Capp and Cundiff
and their utopian fellow travelers will find out just how wrong they were.
And they’d be happy to take as many fools with them as possible.
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Ethno-nationalism ...tribalism is simply the reliable front used by the many seekers of power and gain in history. It’s as reliable a smoke grenade as is religion because once the original aggressor has cleaned out the larder and consolidated their power, the stage is left to the tribalists who make a great cover story because they do their work with such energy and relish.
This is not to say tribal antipathy is innocent of initial aggression , it isn’t but rest assured, it’s typical role is holding the bag after the evil deed is done.
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