more on nationalism

[Jim Devine <jdevine@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I wrote:
> 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.<

This time I will criticize this, specifically the word "primarily." To see
nationalism as currently involving nothing but "a multi-class struggle [a
cross-class coalition] directed primarily against imperialism" is to leave
out a lot, while opening us up to Workers' World Party nonsense about "the
international class struggle" between nations. (BTW, is the WWP still around?)

We should also remember the "down side" of nationalism. Remember how
Chinese nationalism and Vietnamese nationalism clashed after the US war
against Vietnam (or how Cambodian and Vietnamese nationalisms clashed).
Remember how Iranian nationalism overthrew the imperialist-backed Shah, to
replace him with clerical despotism. Remember how well Croatian nationalism
has turned out, among other things allowing the imperialists to divide and
conquer Yugoslavia. And how even the Sandinista version of Nicaraguan
nationalism (one of the best nationalisms in recent memory) clashed with
the interests of the Misquitus.

Nationalism is a two-edged sword. It _can_ unify a dominated nation against
imperialism, but it can also unify the nation against minority ethnic &
religious groups, other nations, striking workers, etc. It can be used by
the national bourgeoisie for its own partisan purposes, trying to obscure
the internal class antagonisms. Nationalism, like patriotism, can easily be
the last refuge of a scoundrel.

Socialism and internationalism, not nationalism, are the way to go.

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