Page 38 - Encyclopedia Of World History Vol IV

nationalism 1339

nations in the modern sense. Perhaps something more argued (1982), that nationalism provided the rhetoric in
akin to the nation came into existence when these com- which intellectuals and political leaders voiced their
munities were faced with a common enemy. It may be, opposition to metropolitan centers of power well before
for example, that a sense of French national identity it became a presence in the consciousness of the people
emerged during the One Hundred Years War, and— in whose name nationalist struggles were fought. But the
even earlier—that Vietnamese, Burmese, and Korean rhetoric was—and remains—an effective one.
national identities came into play as a response to the The sources of nationalism are to be found in the
ongoing struggles with China. A different candidate for enormous structural changes that were taking place in
premodern nationhood were those small communities, Western Europe in the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries.
such as ancient Israel and the Greek city-states (exclud- However, it was quickly appropriated in the non-Western
ing the slaves), where there was not a large gap between world. This does not mean that European models were
rulers and citizens, and social life involved a number of simply translated, though African and Asian leaders and
common activities and rituals (military service, religion). intellectuals were undoubtedly influenced by what they
In these cases, shared experience would have forged a learned from Europe. Perhaps most important was the
common cultural identity. But this is a long way from the experience of European imperialism. Borders were
vast nation-states of the modern world. drawn according to the exigencies of colonial rule, and
resistance to that rule itself formed the national identities
The Spread of Nationalism in whose name resistance was carried out. While post-
Whether or not there were premodern nationalisms, it colonial nations were able to draw on local traditions
was at best an intermittent occurrence. In the modern and history, national identities often faced difficulties
world, it has seemed inescapable. And it is easy to see when the unity gained though struggle was overtaken by
why. Once the link between culture and state power had other competing loyalties.
been established, political rule acquired a cultural dimen-
sion. This was recognized after the Revolutionary and Does Nationalism
Napoleonic wars, and the nineteenth century was the Have a Future?
period of “official nationalism” (the term is taken from For the past two or three hundred years, the nation-state
Seton-Watson 1997). States strove to legitimize them- has provided the organizing principle within which
selves in cultural terms. Public displays, rituals, and cer- much economic, political, and cultural activity has taken
emonials were deployed, and even invented, as part of place. There is some reason to suppose that this is no
this nation-building exercise. By contrast, old polyglot longer the case. Production, and not merely exchange,
empires on the Austro-Hungarian or Ottoman models increasingly takes place on an international scale.
faced increasing difficulties as their states responded to Improvements in transport and, massively, in communi-
the challenge of the modern world. The relative success cation, have placed even ordinary people in contact with
of the United Kingdom in forging an overarching people across state borders.The imperative of economic
national identity shows that these difficulties were not growth has led most states to subordinate some of their
insuperable. As states expanded their territory and power to supranational agencies and global market
increased their presence in everyday life, minority cul- forces. National cultures have fragmented along lines
tures were faced with a choice, either to accommodate to that bear little relation to political boundaries. As Hob-
the dominant culture or to resist. The former choice sbawm (1993, 163) remarked, nationalism “is no longer
meant assimilation or marginalization; the latter was the a major vector of historical development.” But we should
path of national resistance, as the minority culture be very wary of predicting the demise of nationalism.The
sought a political embodiment. It may be, as Breuilly explanatory story sketched in above leaves a good deal