Caspar David Friedrich, Wanderer above the Sea of Fog
The history of nationalism is a complex subject which has spawned many theoreticians perhaps the most influential of whom nowadays are Benedict Anderson, Gellner or Hobsbaum, all of whom, particularly the latter, coming from a Marxist perspective, are quite critical of it as a phenomenon. They see in it the germinal springs of the type of chauvinistic patriotism which laid waste to Europe in WWI and gave rise to the inter-war rise of fascism. I recall a passage in Mein Kampf where Hitler laid out his grievances against Czech aspirations for greater autonomy within the confines of the Austro-Hungarian Empire without of course mentioning that the German speaking minority monopolised its higher offices.
Nationalism has a habit of collapsing in upon itself when it fails to identify the like aspirations for autonomy, and well grounded pride of traditional culture which other 'nations' possess as being equally legitimate - if you can't see the bonds which connect us as human beings over and above those which connect us to putative co-members of a common nation then nationalism ceases to become a positive celebration of common heritage and morphs instead into a type of mental virus.
That being said, I strongly disagree with the attempts of a certain strain of ivory tower academia to discredit or 'infantilise' the motor agencies of 19th C nationalism - as implied for instance in Anderson's concept of "imagined communities" - in order to de-legitimise the struggles of many "nationalities" during this era. You cannot wave away with rhetoric that entire sense of "togetherness" which propelled Bismarck to "unify Germany", the Greeks to throw off Ottoman rule, the Italians to rise up against Austro-Hungarian encroachment, the Hungarians to demand a separate parliament from the Hapsburgs, or the down-graded and struggling nationalities (Czechs, Poles, Slovaks etc.) within that Empire to ask for legitimate rights such as greater regional autonomy or language recognition.
When you look more closely at nationalism as it evolved in the 19th C. you will see that it matured in tandem with many positive modern ideals such as the calls for more democratically accountable legislatures (often monopolised by single ethnic groups or the aristocracy of an alien monarchy) and was for the most part "secessionist" embodying the struggle to disconnect themselves from an over-arching, largely unaccountable, "foreign" bureaucracy, insensitive and unresponsive to pressing local grievances.
Academics today are writing reflexively in response to the dangers of aggressive territorialising nationalisms (Nazi Germany, Putin's 'Greater Russia' perhaps, even the historical Portugese, Spanish, Dutch, French and British Empires which all expanded exponentially to embrace the world's peoples whether they liked it or not) and therefore, in light of what we know can transpire when the "virus" gets out of control. The classic modern example being Milosevic's highly charged Serbian nationalism which brought about the final break up of Yugoslavia and the horrors visited upon Kosovo - it is, in many respects a commendable act of "deconstruction", placing national "foundation myths" under the microscope.
http://digitalcollections.tcd.ie/hom...elsBox2pt2_059
The Sinn Féin catechism (attributed to Darrell Figgis) is actually a clever piece of propaganda which ramps up the ante vis-a-vis nations and nationalism at a key juncture just prior to the crucial 1918 election. It's pretty difficult to transport yourself back into this period and inhabit the mind-set that must have prevailed for up until 1916 and the execution aftermath the vast bulk of the voting population were pushing for Home Rule within the Empire i.e. a devolved parliament with heavily circumscribed regional powers ceding control of trade tariffs, currency, foreign policy etc. to Westminster. (Bit like us and the EU today in fact).
A sense of dual allegiance to both the nation of Ireland and the concerns of Empire must have predominated in the minds of many. Ireland wouldn't have been the only country in this position. Take the ramshackle patchwork quilt of nationalities that Griffith had earlier turned the spotlight on to argue for a dual monarchy; Austria-Hungary. Here you had some dozen or so distinct ethnic groups; Serbs, Croats Slavs, Czechs, Poles etc. all struggling within the confines of a centralised bureaucracy dominated by a German speaking minority. Tension between all these groups was an ever-present throughout the 19th c as they struggled to receive greater respect particularly with regard to language recognition and voting rights within the Reichsrat yet they abandoned socialism en masse (a gelling agent at that time and the largest pan-Austrian party) and fought for the slain Archduke and Empire during the Great War.
Back in 1848 when the revolutions broke out all over Europe, Marx, while he was sympathetic with claims for Polish independence discounted Czech nationalist claims as they were too small in the end to defend themselves from aggressive neighbours. This type of thinking was actually quite commonplace so much so that leaders of the respective nationalities within Austria-Hungary were content to nestle within its protective embrace albeit still lobbying fiercely for greater regional autonomy. What the SF Catechism does so effectively is blow apart the lingering residues of this sense of dual allegiance by presenting the matter in polarising terms - you are either with us "the nation" or them "England" (and Empire). Simple today, the stark division called for would have been novel for a political party then.
However, having a strong sense of national identity does not preclude respect for other cultures, minority voices, religions or ethnic groups - in fact, a defining feature of Irish identity in MY book is to actually embrace all of these diversities, and, while the suggestion may perhaps be scoffed at, I see the very spirit of that aspiration in the Easter Proclamation itself. I'm a great admirer of the American Revolution too; Paine's role in framing the debate, Washington's giant task in stepping down and Jefferson's Jacobinical tinge which kept the flame of the early Republic alight - you don't need to be an American to admire these things, and no, there is no perfect democracy, let alone a perfectly settled multi-cultural one.
I like Paine's dictum best, which, at root, kind of cures all patriotic excess; "My country is the world, all mankind are my brethren, and my religion is to do good". Best not to mention its this type of thinking that had him burned in effigy in the land of his birth, his works proscribed, alienated him from Washington, got him thrown into a French dungeon - and finally buried in a pauper's grave, penniless and seemingly, unloved. That's the type of fate that awaits anyone who doesn't "play ball" in a jingofied atmosphere I guess - but nationalism as it emerged and coalesced with the calls for liberty and democracy (i.e Romanticism in early 19th C.) remains for myself one of the world's great wonders
A general love for humanity? Perhaps, ideally so even, but only workable if reciprocated in kind. I guess there has to be mutual respect for differing cultural traditions and the trajectory they've taken for balance to be maintained in the international sphere. The force that keeps the peace - international law; is underpinned by this acknowledgement. I can have a "love" of India's history but I expect likewise and assume that my own country's history and traditions will be respected in turn.
This is the optimum outcome; mutual acknowledgement - Paine, who was a visionary, ahead even of our own time, saw the eventual collapse of national distinctions, the withering of religions and the elimination of all autocratic governance; represented in the main, in his day, by monarchy. This is what I would like to see also; but to be realist you have to accept change can only be incremental. Most of all he deplored tyranny; the tyranny of one nation over another - Britain over the American colonists, and the colonists in turn over the native Americans.
An Englishman who became an internationalist, he respected that need for autonomy and self-governance borne out of a people's commonly held past - all claims of alien sovereigns to wield power in their domain should be resisted; none being more fit to govern than they themselves. And so he clambered out of his own jingoistic straightjacket and viewed the matter from the broader 'human' perspective; the boundaries that normally alienate us from "the other" in his case dissolved.
The other problem is that there are facets of our own culture which we deplore; Paine despised the English monarchy but loved the English people - he saw it as a tool for their enslavement, promoting aristocracy and denying a representative parliament. The English though rallied to the Crown when revolutionary France declared war - more often than not they were proud of the traditions of their sovereign and wished to retain it, even unto this day.
I guess the problem is that nationalism is a loaded word with a long history and my main gripe with the scholarship of the present is that in identifying a universally acknowledged problem, in short - "expansionist chauvinistic nationalism" - as exemplified by Fascist Europe or Milosevic's Serbia or present-day "irredentist nationalism" (
) they are committing sins of omission in denying or downplaying the circumstances under which nationalism came to thrive and dominate early 19th c. European politics in particular.
List_of_irredentist_claims_or_disputesNationalists in this era were for the most part trying to wrest full control of their own affairs, quite legitimately, from encroaching alien powers as per the examples provided - in tandem with which they gave impetus and provided the well-spring of reforming energy for democratic and liberal change in parliaments across the continent; this was the era of Romanticism proper and hopes inspired for this new world to be sculpted afresh energised all the poets.
It is difficult in turn to develop an 'internationalist' state of mind; thinking of the global common good as it were, until and unless the localised milieu in which one is born has not resolved its own "national question" as this tends to percolate throughout and poison in its path all else. A new world can't be built until the enslavement of nations is addressed (this may be said to be a general 19th c. theme, and in the main it was well justified) - Marx famously by-passed this question and assumed the motor force for change would emerge from an internationalist class dialectic which eschewed nationalist distinctions - so the horror of the socialists (which I would have shared) when the working class abandoned internationalist solidarity en masse and threw themselves into the carnage of the trenches in service of King and Kaiser.
The 'positive spirit of nationalism' rests in these early days of reclamation when the accepted hierarchies of an aristocratic order were dismantled and a great levelling spirit inspired by French revolutionary ideals disseminated; disregarded national vernaculars were resurrected, common speech, music, traditions and folklore of the peasantry were venerated and set on a par or displaced imposed pan-European classical forms - a vital force, in other words which aided and propelled democratisations.
As in the work of -
That it can become insular, a 'mental virus' and collapse in upon itself, is the ever-present danger and the frequent folly of such occurrence leads us all to be wary. I share the scepticism of many (who wouldn't?) but a blanket dissing isn't warranted; the heritage being too rich to deserve it.
Love will conquer all in the end I suspect - too powerful a force and our greatest motor which just lays unforgivably dormant in the mind's recess for longer spells than are bearable. Its the love of self, family, locality, "nation" which blossoms out and embraces the whole I guess is the idea.
Deep waters indeed.
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