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The Kurdish Globe No. 314, Saturday, July 23, 2011 14The rise of ethnic politicsand theories of nationalismBy Salah Bayaziddi sbayaziddi@yahoo.com (Part I)The emergence of new nationstatesof Eritrea, East Timor, Kosovcvo, Monte-Negro, South Sudan andmore to follow in the future shouldbe seen as a new rise of ethnicpolitics around the globe. Today,throughout the world, the spread ofnationalism appears to be the majcjor source of manifest and directviolence in a so-called post-ColdWar period. There is also causefor concern if, as has been calculclated, most countries in the worldare multi-ethnic societies. Giventhe persisting economic crisis anduneven economic development andacute difficulties many Third Worldcountries face, a further intensificatction of ethnic conflicts seems likelyin the future. It is also important tonote the effects of nationalism arehighly varied and there are distinctctions among different types of ethncnic nationalism. Specifically, themost important part of the work ofacademic researchers who studythe rise of nationalism and its impcportance to global conflicts can befound in identifying varieties ofnationalism that are most likely tocause the greater risk of conflictand instability in the world.Nationalism is usually thoughtof as a primordial historical phencnomenon, the emotional bindingby which a political communityfinds its historical expression andmaturity. It also is usually taken tobe an essential but passing stage inthe march of history, necessary inproducing the modern nation, butalso to be left behind as more ratctional and progressive forms of polclitical society take the place of themore backward. Admittedly, thenational idea had almost invariablyturned into an aggressive agent ofoppressive political dominationwhich did not heed the principle oftolerance vis a vis other ethnic mincnorities any more, and only soughtto ruthlessly extend its sphere ofcontrol at the expense of others.The idea of nation, so it appeared,had become a force of division andstrife, both in the domestic arenaand in international affairs. As apolitical doctrine, nationalism canbe defined as sentiment and ideolocogy of attachment to a nation andits interests. Nationalism is a powecerful emotion that has dominatedthe political thought and actions ofmost peoples since the time of theFrench Revolution. It is not a naturcral, but an historical phenomenon,that has emerged as a response tospecial political, economic and soccial conditions. In accordance withsome definitions, nationalism is anactive force in history which was tobe found only in late 18th centuryWestern Europe and North Americawhile others define nationalism as astate of mind, in which the supremeloyalty of the individual is felt to bedue the nation-state.The main objective of this reviewis to compare and contrast some ofthe key features of three relatingworks of Benedict Anderson andErnest Gellner while highlightingtheir similarities and differences.Both authors have made a significcant contribution to the sociology,history and theories of nationalismby examining the interrelations betctween the patterns of developmentof different national movement.Anderson defines the nation as“an imagined political community— and imagined as both inherentlylimited and sovereign.” (Anderson,1991, p. 15) Such communities,he argues, were made possible bythe convergence of capitalism andprint technology on the fatal diverscsity of human language. In contrast,Gellner considers nationalism to bea distinctly industrial principle ofsocial evolution and social organcnization. Indeed, nationalism andthe nation-state provide the sole legcgitimate form of political organizatction within the global trend towardindustrial societies. Gellner viewsnationalism as a consequence ofthe objective need for industrial ratctionality, while he argues that “havicing a nation is not an inherent attctribute of humanity, but it has nowcome to appear as such.” (Gellner,p.6) Anderson is also the author ofLong-Distance Nationalism: WorldCapitalism and the Rise of IdentityPolitics whose thesis is that globalcapitalism seems to be producicing a new mutation of nationalism(Anderson, 1991, p. 12). Indeed,the two crucial axes of capitalism(transportation and communicatctions) have had extraordinary effcfects on conceptions of nationalidentity.Summary of booksIn an effort to analyze the theoryof nationalism, Anderson, one ofthe expert scholars of modern natctionalism, in his book ImaginedCommunities, claims that termssuch as “nationality,” “nation-ness”and nationalism are cultural artifcfacts of a particular kind — realitiesconstructed by human imagination.He defines the nation as an imagicined community because there is noway for all its members to engagein face-to-face contact with all fellclow members at all times. So, membcbers can only perceive the nation aswhole by referring to the image ofit that they have constructed in theirown minds. Anderson also admits,in order to understand them (natction, nationality and nationalism)properly we need to consider carefcfully how they come into historicalbeing, in what ways their meaningshave changed over time, and why,today they command such profoundlegitimacy (Anderson, 1991, pp.13-14). The explanation for suchfar-reaching theory continues asfollows. The possibility of imaginicing the nation arises for three mainreasons: First, it is limited becauseeven the largest of them is finite.Second, it is imagined as sovereignbecause the concept got recognitionfollowing the age of Enlightenmentand Revolution were destroyinglegitimacy of the divine-orderingand hierarchical dynastic system.Third, the nation is imagined as acommunity because regardless ofthe actual inequality and exploitatction, the nation is always conceivedas a deep image of companion (Andcderson, 1991, pp. 15-16).For Anderson, the nation becamenecessary as some older identitiesbegan to lose their credibility. Threecentral elements of pre-nationalistancient regime were: sacred langcguages and scripts (Latin, Arabic,Pail, Chinese), held to be the solekeys to truth; divine monarchs; andan equidistant sense of past time(Anderson, 1991, p. 30). Indeed,nationalism arose in the 18th centctury at a time when the ancient veritcties — religion, dynasty and cosmolclogical perceptions of time — werebeing rapidly overturned. The onedevelopment most responsible forthe breakup of cultures based onthese ideas was movable type in thehands of private enterprise publishecers seeking a mass market for theirwares among people not versed inthe universal sacred languages. It isimportant to mention that Andersonhas opened up an entirely new fieldof inquiry, closer in many ways tothe concerns of cultural criticismthan to those of traditional socialscience. Overall, he aims to provethat nationalism is best understoodby situating it within the context ofculture rather than ideology.Anderson gives print-capitalicism greater credit for spurring theEuropean age of nationalism. Hegives more attention to the initialperiod of capitalist enterprise andprint technology, when in an attctempt aims to explain why by the17th century languages in Europehad generally assumed their modecern forms. With the advent of printlanguages, speakers of membersof the European languages, suchas French, English and Spanish,could for the first time imaginethemselves as part of a larger commcmunity. It is because the nation is a“community imagined through langcguage” that it can so easily think ofitself as ancient. So, only a nationalicism rooted in language, rather thanblood, could allow anyone to be“invited in” to the imagined commcmunity — evident from the fact thatnearly every nation-state acceptsthe principle of naturalization. Andcderson also draws on Hobsbawmin explaining how print-capitalismtransformed shapeless, confusingevents like the French popular uprcrising of 1789 into “French Revolclution,” a model to be studied andcopied. Essentially, he contendsthat these print languages laid thebases for national consciousnessin three distinct ways. First, theycreated unified fields for exchangeand communication. Second, printcapitalismprovided a new fixity tolanguage that in long run helpedto build that image of antiquity socentral to the objective idea of thenation. Third, print-capitalism creacated a language of power of a kinddifferent from the older administratctive spoken form (Anderson, 1991,pp. 47-48).In contrast to Anderson, Gellnerin Nations and Nationalism offcfers a full-fledged theory of natctionalism, embedded in a theoryof the universal tendency towardindustrialism. Indeed, nationalismcan be seen as an immediate conscsequence of the “objective need”for what Gellner insists on calling“industrial rationality.” (Gellner,p. 20) For him, nationalism is typiccal of the transition to the rationaltradition and at the same time itexpresses the societal thrust towcward homogeneous perception andhomogeneous social organizationand behavior. The establishment ofpervasive high cultures (standardicized, literacy- and education-basedsystems of communication) seemsto be the natural repositories of polclitical legitimacy. This point raisesan interesting notion with regardto Gellner’s characteristic scenarioof the evolution of nationalism andethnic politics within the formerSoviet Union when he contends “inthe Soviet Union the consumers of‘ethnic’ gramophone records arenot the remaining ethnic rural popuculation, but the newly urbanized,educated and multilingual populatction, who like to express their realor imagined sentiments and rootsin as much nationalist behavior asthe political situation may allow.”(Gellner, pp. 57-58) Essentially,Gellner contends that nationalismand nation-state provide the solelegitimate shape of political structcture within the global trend towardindustrial societies.Gellner asserts that the mutual relclationship of a modern culture andstate is something quite new andan industrial high culture is no longcger linked — whatever its historyand roots to a faith and a church.Indeed, the high cultures of the indcdustrial age differ from those of theagrarian order in a number of impcportant ways (Gellner, p. 140). Hediscusses the concept of his theoryin three variables: First, the distributction of political power in a society.Second, there is an easy access toa “high culture” of literate and sopcphisticated communication througha system of public education versusvertically segmented social groups,each attached to a local “low cultcture.” Third, ethnic homogeneityas opposed to ethnic heterogeneity,as defined by language (Gellner,pp.140-141). For Gellner, the combinatction in which these variables occurin any given society will determinewhat kind of national identification— if any — will prevail. It is cruccial to mention he does not believethat every potential nation becomesa real one because most people dealwith their longings and frustrationsby simply assimilating with othersinitially unlike them. Some societicies — mostly agrarian — simplydo not have the means for politicalcentralization which is the state andincorporating the broad masses ofthe population in what Gellner callsa “high culture” (Gellner, p. 35).Gellner also rejects theories ofnationalism that stress the objectctive or the subjective schools ofthought because he has an oppositeview about the evolution of natctionalism through different stagesof human history. That is the coreof his thought. The satisfaction ofthe nationalist principle was not aprecondition of the first appearanceof industrialism, but only the producuct of its spread. Indeed, mankindarrived in the industrial age withcultural and political institutionswhich generally contradicted thenationalist requirement (Gellner, p.40). He hopes to break out of thisdeadlock by arguing from the outscset that nationalism is the generalimposition of a “high culture” onsociety, where previously low cultctures had taken up the lives of themajority, and in some cases of thetotality, of the population. It meansthat modernization generates thelongings and adjustments that prodcduce nations not the objective ofsocial and cultural identity.The idea of world capitalismand the rise of identity politics ismade evident in Anderson’s article,“Long-Distance Nationalism.” Andcderson who is breaking away fromthe historical thoughts of WoodrowWilson that “Europe consisted of ascatter gram of bounded, immobile,‘national communities,’ aroundwhich ingenious map lines couldbe drown to make possible new, autctonomous, nation-states,” (Anderscson, 1992, p. 6) provides his readecers with a fascinating idea: Worldcapitalism is producing new formsof nationalism. The subjective expcperience and political significanceof migration, he argues, has beenprofoundly changed by the technolclogical developments (transportatction and communications) of capitctalism since the end of World WarII. For example, “They can findways to the relatives on the telepcphone, communicate by fax, sendmoney by telex, and receive photosand videos, all in the twinkling ofan electronic eye. The mediatedimagery of ‘home’ is always withthem” (Anderson, 1992, p. 8).Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Commtmunities: Reflections on the Origin andspread of Nationalism. London: Verso,1991.Anderson, Benedict. “Long-DistanceNationalism: World Capitalism and theRise of Identity Politics.” The WertheimLecture, Centre for Asian Studies Amsterdtdam, 1992. (14pp).Gellner, Ernest. Nations and Nationalitism. Ithaca: Cornell University Press,1983.