New Europe College Regional Program Yearbook 2001-2002

N.E.C. Yearbook 2001-2002
Gellner’s theory assumes too readily that the political and cultural
nation are one – an example such as Switzerland would be “a real
anomaly”. 112 However, he did later try to take account of politics. 113
As John Breuilly has argued, in studying national identities, the major
focus should be on the relationship between nationalism and political
modernization. Liah Greenfeld has also demonstrated that, initially,
nationalism developed as democracy: “the location of sovereignty within
the people and the recognition of the fundamental equality among its
various strata, which constitute the essence of the modern national idea,
are at the same time the basic tenets of democracy”. 114 As Greenfeld
argued, in the sixteenth century England the Latin words republica and
patria were used as equivalents of “nation” and, at the same time, those
who committed themselves to the ideal of nation called themselves
patriots, not nationalists. Lately, however, nationalism has spread in
different conditions, and the idea of the natio has moved from the idea of
sovereignty to the uniqueness of a people. The original equivalence
between nationalism and democratic principles was lost, the process
called the nationalization of patriotism. 115
The discussion of necessity/inutility of national identity for political
practice already has an impressive tradition as in the debate between
communitarians, who maintain that national identities continue to matter
for political purposes, and liberals who argue that, in a neutral liberal
state, the political participation of citizens should be based on the respect
of fundamental rights.
The communitarian conception is logically bound to the primordialist
and ethno-symbolist approach. For Anthony Smith, national identity has
a particular power vis-à-vis other forms of identity because
it provides the sole vision and rationality of political solidarity, one
command, popular assents and elicitation of popular enthusiasm. All other
visions, all other rationales appear vain and shallow by comparison. They
offer no sense of election, no unique history, no special destiny. 116
Communitarians advocate that politics of civic virtue can only be
sustained by a “vision of the common good” that must be rooted in a love
of the country, a love of what makes each country unique: its language,
ethnic backgrounds, its history. 117
Clearly, in the national confusion of Moldova, where uniqueness and
special destiny is not given by language, but by the confusion regarding
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