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1. National and Patriotic Feeling NOTES 1. National and Patriotic Feeling 1. "The tendency of man to prefer the familiar to the unfamiliar is universal. Even those who search for new experiences and delight on the exotic seek reassurance in the familiar and the habitual. As the world is presently organized, the familiar and the habitual are principally equated with the national, sometimes directly, sometimes through the further identification of family and community with nation .... The familiar language, the familiar food, the familiar humour, the familiar interpersonal responses-including, as Kipling wrote, the familiar lies-all are affectionately related to nation" (Grodzins, 1956:22). 2. The formation of nations was not identical in all societies. In some cases, the socioeconomic reasons were determining; in others, the wish to liberate the country from the foreign ruler played the dominant role; at times, the formation of new nations and nation-states was one of the consequences of the breakup of the great empires, and so on (cf. Smith, 1991:43-70). 3. Horowitz (1985:55) attempts to solve many puzzles of ethnicity and nationality, including multiple nationalities, by regarding "ethnic affiliations as being lo­ cated along a continuum of ways in which people organize and categorize themselves. At one end there is voluntary membership; at the other, membership given at birth. We like to think of birth and choice as mutually exclusive principles of membership, but all institutions are infused with components of both." The fact is that, in any society, it is very hard to strike and maintain a balance between these two principles. The more so because different groups within society, and at different times, tip the balance either in favor of the birth or the choice principle. 4. Nationalists, as a rule, point out the importance of the common ethnic descent and shared culture. Following this line of reasoning, Kellas (1991:51-2) makes a distinction between ethnic nationalism (the nationalism of ethnic groups who define their nation in exclusive terms, mainly on the basis of common descent) and social nationalism (the nationalism of a nation that defines itself by social ties and culture rather than by common descent). 5. Thisfundarnental tension between primordial and civil sentiments Geertz (1963:10) articulated as follows: "It is this crystallization of a direct conflict between primordial and civil sentiments-this 'longing not to belong to any other group'-that gives to the problem variously called tribalism, parochial­ ism, communalism, and so on, a more ominous and deeply threatening quality 197 198 NOTES than most of the other, also very serious and intractable, problems the states face." And Hutchinson (1994:194), for his part, states that "the intrinsic tension between ethnic identifications, which are necessarily exclusive and hierarchal, and the commitment to citizenship-equality has created problems of stability both for communist and liberal-democratic states in modem Europe which are not ethnically homogenous. It is chastening to note that even in New World societies (Canada, the USA, Australia) with a relatively weak historical sense and without mythic claims to 'primordial' homelands, foundation myths are associated with a specific ethnic core population and with patterns of power and exclusion, and cannot be easily manipulated." Is there any way to overcome this basic conflict between ethnic and national identification, between primordial and civil sentiments? Foon (1986) contends that these two sorts of sentiments are not automatically exclusive of each other. According to this author, this critical perspective stresses five neglected possi­ bilities: (1) nonethnic consent in the national identity, (2) nonpolitical intent in the expression of ethnic identity, (3) ethnic identity that does not involve sentiments of group superiority, (4) the priority of national over ethnic identification if and only when they clash on primary allegiance issue, and (5) the partially situational nature of identification. 6. Stagner (1936:14) dubs the same occurrence cultural schizophrenia. "For exam­ ple, Jews in America want to be seen as loyal Americans, not as foreigners, but they also want to preserve group identity and a distinctive culture .... Vietnam­ ese immigrants want to be fully accepted as Americans but they ask to be educated in their own language and to retain their own customs with regard to food and living patterns." 7. According to the dominant principle underlying nationalism, Francis distin­ guishes two types of nationalism: demotic and ethnic nationalism. The former is congruent with Smith's territorial principle, and the latter with Smith's genealogical (ethnic) principle (Smith, 1991:123). Like Smith, Francis (1976:108) considers inherently unstable all state organizations resting on these two prin­ ciples, which virtually means that the majority of extant states are inherently unstable. "As long as the nation-state itself is not replaced by a novel type of political power structure that would be more in keeping with the requirements of industrial society, the most promising device for minimizing perpetual unrest, violent oppression, or secessionistic and separatistic movements may be seen in the recognition of all major ethnic units found within the state population as corporations after the manner of nationalities coupled with a rather generous federalism. Yet even the multi-ethnic nation-state, representing a political fed­ eration of nationalities, cannot achieve more than a labile equilibrium." 2. What Is Nationalism? 1. Nationalism as a term was mentioned for the first time in 1409 at Leipzig University. It was not before the end of the eighteenth century that it began to NOTES 199 be used in the sense of national egoism. (d. Hyslop, B., 1934, French Nationalism in 1789 According to the General Cahiers, and Kemilainen, A., 1964, Problems Concerning the Word, Concept and Classification). 2. Many scholars who have dealt with nationalism share the idea that nationalism is but a modern form of the human tendency to congregate and to submit to a social entity that is dominant, that is most important, at a given epoch. Thus Hertz (1944:292) points out that nationalism is "certainly but one expression of human instinct and not a bit more natural and more 'latent' than tribalism, clannishness .... Yet it is nationalism, far more than any other expression of human gregariousness, which has come to the fore in modern times." Geertz (1963:106-7) stresses that "the grouping under a common rubric" such as tribalism, parochialism, communalism, nationalism, etc., is not simply adventitious. "These phenomena are in some way similar." Shafer (1980) made the same point: "Group and community sentiments are as old as humankind; nationalism is a late modern, powerful, and pervasive variant." Hayes (1968:12), for his part, contends that "modern nationalism signifies a more or less purposeful effort to revive primitive tribalism on an enlarged and more artificial scale." Yet Gellner (1983:138) argues that nationalism is "a distinctive species of patriotism, and one which becomes pervasive and dominant only under certain social conditions, which in fact prevail in the modern world, and nowhere else." Cobban (1969:106-7) states that while "loyalty to the community in which for the time being are enshrined the highest aspirations is a perennial quality, the object of that loyalty varied widely from age to age. There is little to suggest that the combination of cultural and political unity in the idea of the nation state is the last, or that is the highest, of those mortal gods to which men have sometimes paid undue adoration." According to Kedourie (1960:72), "patriotism, affection for one's own coun­ try, or one's group, loyalty to its institution, and zeal for its defense, is a sentiment known among all kinds of men; so is xenophobia, which is dislike of the stranger, the outsider, and reluctance to admit him into one's own group. Neither senti­ ment depends on a particular anthropology and neither asserts a particular doctrine of the state or of the individual's relation to it. Nationalism does both; it is a comprehensive doctrine which leads to a distinctive style of politics .... If confusion exists, it is because nationalist doctrine has annexed these univer­ sally held sentiments to the service of a specific anthropology and metaphysic." Pfaff (1993:196) observes that ethnic and communal conflict, and racial, religious, or linguistic rivalry and struggle exist for reasons having nothing originally to do with nation states, and concludes: "Nationalism is an expression of the primordial attachments of an individual to a group, possessing both positive and destructive powers, and this is a phenomenon which existed long before the group to which such passionate loyalty was attached became the modern nation-state." Garvin (1993:64-5), pointing to the continuities between modern national­ isms and older traditions of collective identitty, stresses that these older tradi- 200 NOTES tions have a "life of their own and can dictate the form of the succeeding nationalist identity in many important ways, or even take it over .... Modem nationalisms ... 'sit on top' of older traditions or collective belief systems .... " And Walzer (1995:331-2) concludes, along the same lines, that tribalism, that is, "the committment of individuals and groups to their own history, culture and identity, is a permanent feature of human social life," and its destruction "lies
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