nationalism

[Jim Devine <jdevine@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Yoshie quotes the late Jim Blaut as saying: >The nature of colonialism is
such that producing classes suffer along with whatever young or incipient
bourgeoisie may exist. Therefore the national liberation movements in
colonies and semi-colonies are profoundly different from the national
movements of  earlier oppressed nations such as those in non-colonial
portions of the Tsarist empire. It is not innately a bourgeois struggle
against feudal forces for the creation of a classical bourgeois state. It
is a multi-class struggle directed primarily against imperialism.<

According to Hobsbawm's excellent little book on Western European
nationalism, nationalism has always been a multi-class struggle.
Nationalism is _always_ a force which "holds the nation together" allowing
different groups to transcend class antagonism. (That's not a quote from
EH, BTW.) Of course, some nationalists are more powerful than others in
deciding the actions of their movements. These are capitalists and those
who organize political machines...

BTW, is it true that Edward Bellamy (author of LOOKING BACKWARD) coined the
world "nationalism" (and "nationalization" of industry)? There's an example
of someone who wanted to transcend class antagonism to set up a kind of
paternalistic (and patriarchal) socialism.

Jim Devine jdevine@xxxxxxx &  http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine