Re: nationalism

[Yoshie Furuhashi <furuhashi.1@xxxxxxx>]

Jim D. writes:

> 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...

No so fast!  You have to finish reading the quoted passage to the
_end_ of its last sentence.  Sure, all nationalisms are cross-class
affairs, but Jim B. was emphasizing the specificity of anti-colonial
& anti-neo-colonial nationalisms as multi-class struggles _directed
primarily against imperialism_.  In contrast, West European
nationalisms, in the main (though not always -- e.g., Irish
nationalism), have been multi-class struggles to create & maintain
capitalist empires (see Robert Brenner's _Merchants and Revolution_,
for instance).  A big difference, in my opinion!

Now, we live in a post-Soviet era, after the heydays of anti-colonial
& anti-neo-colonial struggles, so nationalisms have become even more
politically complex & ambiguous than before.

> 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.

Interesting if it's true, but it's not.  According to the OED, the
first entry goes to a theological meaning:

1. Theol. The doctrine that certain nations (as contrasted with
individuals) are the object of divine election.
1836 G. S. FABER Prim. Doctr. Election (1842) 189 The several
doctrinal systems, usually denominated Arminianism and Nationalism
and Calvinism.

Bellamy was born in 1850 & died in 1898.  And Bellamy's _Looking
Backward_ was first published in 1888, no?  So he can't claim credit
for coinage.  That said, his was Christian socialism of sorts,
heavily inflected with the idea of patriotism, so his meaning may
have been very close to the original meaning of nationalism.

Yoshie