Between Patriotism and Nationalism. Seen from the Perspective of Central Europe Fr
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Between Patriotism and Nationalism. Seen from the Perspective of Central Europe Fr. Piotr Mazurkiewicz 1. Two different meanings of the term “state” The French like to repeat after Albert Camus: “Mal nommer les choses, c’est ajouter aux malheurs du monde”. [1] Stimulated by this saying, I would like to slightly clear the foreground of our discussion on nation-state and nationalism. First of all, it is about the meaning of the term “nation-state”, which sometimes is erroneously identified with the “state of one nation”. The experience of everyday life prompts us to say that the state is a natural creation, or, in other words, that man is naturally created for life in the state. Aristotle already expressed this by describing man as a zoon politikon, political animal, or – more accurately – created for life in the polis. We encounter terminological difficulties here: can the word polis be replaced in this formula by the term “state”? In fact, the Stagirite had in mind a relatively small and autarkic political community. Only such a community, in his opinion, could be sustainable, effective in governance and able to fulfil its mainly ethical tasks towards citizens. In English, polis is usually translated as “city-state”, though Cicero gave its meaning through the Latin civitas. The problem is not outdated as we have difficulty using the same term “state” in the context of various political entities such as the Principality of Monaco, Vatican City, the Roman Empire, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics or the United States of America, especially since the very names of the last two appear to suggest that the “state” is only a part of them. When will the dynamically changing European Union stop being called an international organisation and be called a state? In Western languages we generally use terms derived from the Latin status, such as: l’état, lo stato, der Staat, the state. Although the term status belongs to classical Latin, the current meaning of these words is relatively new and was formed only during the Renaissance debate held in the northern Italian republics.[2] The Latin status means, among other things, attitude, condition, position, meaning, location, circumstances, a state of affairs or lifestyle.[3] The person of the King was entitled to a special, higher status (status regis), royal dignity, which in itself was seen as a force organising public life and ensuring government efficiency. The good state (condition) of the king and his kingdom was also often prayed for. After all, the task of the king and his officials was to care for the optimum statum rei publicae. Finally, the term status appears to describe the various political forms described by Aristotle (status unius, status paucorum, status popularis). Niccolò Machiavelli in Il Principe[4] uses the word in this sense when he affirms that: Tutti gli stati, tutti è dominii che hanno avuto e hanno imperio sopra gli uomini, sono stati e sono o repubbliche o principati. Lo stato in Machiavelli also means territories under the prince’s authority, whose state he should maintain in its entirety, possibly joining new states. The prince should also control all the authorities and institutions existing in the regnum or civitas, and thus the apparatus of governance, which in time is also referred to as stato. Finally, lo stato is the state itself as an independent political community, and Machiavelli also applies this term to ancient Sparta or Rome. The author of The Prince therefore uses this concept in his work in both a traditional and a new meaning, somewhat invented by himself. In some languages, the old sense has survived in phrases such as, for example, “reason of state”, “state of possession” or “third state”. A new meaning was adopted in the language of political philosophy very quickly, and, in the mid-eighteenth century, the independent political formations worthy of it were commonly defined states.[5] Terminological changes were closely related to the transformation that political institutions underwent at that time. Absolutist tendencies resulted in a centralisation of power, and thus the abolition of local centres of authority derived from the feudal system of complex loyalty, under which, for example, the king of one kingdom could be, as a prince, a subject of the monarch of another kingdom. The concept of sovereignty operating under the theory of absolutism did not allow any division of power (Jean Bodin). Only one centre of power could exist on one territory.[6] This was accompanied by the formation of a bureaucratic apparatus – efficient, hierarchical, impersonal, based on formal neutrality, subordinated to instrumental rationality, but also having its own interests. With time, heads of states also became part of it, reduced to the role of hired officials on a state salary, whose task was to implement the will of the nation (the sovereign) expressed in the law. Separation - 1 - of the ruler from the state institutions took place, including the ruler’s property and the state treasury. A state army and police were formed. A new perception of the role of the ruler in the state put the question about the subjectivity of people living in a given territory: were they subjects of the king or citizens of the state? The issue of loyalty followed: should they obey the king or the crown? In the negative aspect, this is about treason: is it treason on the part of citizens if they act against the interests of the ruler or against the interests of the state? There is also the issue of the secularity of the state and law, which we used to associate with the John Locke concept of tolerance. Quentin Skinner, however, draws these ideas from the tradition of a secular absolutism, which is associated with Thomas Hobbes. Secular absolutism, according to him, not only was not able to tolerate competing centres of secular power, it did not tolerate religious power either.[7] In a way, this was also required by Machiavelli’s separation of politics and morality. Finally, the private and public spheres of life were separated. As a result of the whole process, nowadays in political science the term “state” has two different meanings: 1. Broad – we call “state” everything that meets the requirements of a threefold definition containing the necessary coincidence of three components: people, territory and power (Georg Jellinek). In this sense, this term only defines a form capable of accommodating various political creations, with different variations of territory, people and the power related to them. 2. Narrow – we link the definition of state (lo stato) with a form of political organisation that has developed in modern times. According to this approach, the earlier ways of organising collective life deserve at most the name “pre-state” (Gianfranco Poggi). According to the first usus, in translations of classical works such as Plato’s ########, Cicero’s De re publica or St Augustine’s De civitate Dei, in some European languages (not in English) we encounter the word “state”, which may suggest to the reader that the subject matter of the considerations contained in those works is not #####, res publica or civitas, but a modern state. Other terms, such as imperium or regnum, often disappear in translations. The second usus associates a certain degree of the structuring of society with the term “state”, finding its expression in the form of specific features and institutions whose presence is considered a sine qua non condition of the existence of the state.[8] These institutions are subjected to very dynamic metamorphoses, which can be interpreted that only the “latest generation” products deserve the name of state in the above sense, while those that do not keep up with the changes are denied the name of state. We use the term “state” in two different ways: broad and narrow. We certainly deal with the first when we use this term in relation to political pre-Renaissance forms, and with the second when we think of a modern state along with its extensive state apparatus. Undoubtedly, such a state is national when it is inhabited only by one nation. On the other hand, we also give a double meaning to the concept of nation. At one time, we understand the nation as a historical reality, while at another, as a political and ideological construct. In the first meaning, we tie it in some way with ethnicity, while in the second, this relationship is almost completely dissolved. This way, a paradox occurs: if we adopt the ethnic definition of a nation, then in fact nation states do not exist in the “pure” sense. There is no totally homogenous society. If we accept the political definition of a nation, then every state is a nation state. I propose to follow this second trail, i.e. to apply the term “nation- state” to the modern way of organising the political community, and therefore whenever we speak about a state in a narrower sense, adding the adjective “nation” does not change anything. This is common practice. After all, every political creation which fulfils the three-part definition, but which is not an international organisation, is currently called a (nation-) state, regardless of how many nations or ethnic groups inhabit it. Moreover, if the European Union is transformed from an international organisation into a federal state one day, it would have to become a federal nation-state, only if it does not become an empire, as Ulrich Beck points out (Germany has created an accidental Empire)[9]… 2. The post-Cold-War world The second issue that requires clarification concerns the accuracy of the belief that once – i.e. after the Second World War – international organisations were more significant actors in international relations than today.