DEADENDS OF THE NATIONALISM.

Disputes over whose ancestors are "the greatest ones" often end up with lots of
blood-spilling
Slaughter at the Mediterranean Sea where the Israeli servicemen opened fire at t
he "Freedom fleet" — carrying the humanitarian freight to the Gaza strip — makes
us think about the origins of ideology built at the ideas of the national great
ness and ancestry, exceptionality and the extraordinary deeds. We’re not talking
exclusively of Israel — there are plenty of such doctrines all over the world.
Where is the ethnos mythologization about to bring us?
Slaughter at the Mediterranean Sea where the Israeli servicemen opened fire at t
he "Freedom fleet" — carrying the humanitarian freight to the Gaza strip — makes
us think about the origins of ideology built at the ideas of the national great
ness and ancestry, exceptionality and the extraordinary deeds. We’re not talking
exclusively of Israel — there are plenty of such doctrines all over the world.
In this sense it’d be quite curious to appeal to the research of Schlomo Sand —
Israeli culture expert and historian, who — grounding on the examples of Israeli
state — is trying to figure out who, how and why may have formed the national c
onsciousness. He is studying how the materialism is giving birth to the ideology
that inspires the masses with the conception of some great ancient society that
they belong to by the right of birth. He’s trying to research the mechanisms th
at are used to create the "national" memory and conscience and fill them with co
ntent that lies rather far from actual history and objective reality.
Here’s one of the basic principles of Schlomo Sand: Israeli state appeared due t
o the nationalistic ideology that was based on myths. That doesn’t mean that thi
s state couldn’t have emerged in any other way but this predefines the complex o
f problems that this country have to deal with today and the ones that it puts o
n the agenda of the rest of the world.
We won’t reproduce the content of the Israeli scientist’s book here — it is avai
lable in the Internet — we’d rather look around and pay attention to the ideas t
hat fill today’s ideological vacuum of the intellectuals and common citizens. "N
ational myth-making" with the global ambitions and quite predictable consequence
s can be met mostly everywhere today. "Crisis of identity" which the national my
th-makers (who, quite often, seem to believe in the ideas they preach themselves
) tend to mention, actually exists in the contemporary world. Pay attention to t
he comment of Oles Buzina regarding the reasons and the timing of the "ancient U
krainians" appearing.
We may use the series of Andrey Polevoy articles about the Ukrainian history tex
tbooks as the example of means, used by the state in order to implant the mythol
ogy into the mass conscience. Although it is dilettantism that makes the very id
ea ineffective in this case, one still may sow the seeds of ignorance and chaos
in the minds of citizens this way. And, of course, it would be much easier to st
ir the ancient Ukrainians — whose ancestors have founded Troy — up against the s
tateless Muskovites or any other enemies of the national interests, rather than
do the same trick with the non-politicized Ukrainians.
Though, less picturesque implementation doesn’t necessary mean the less destruct
ive "efficiency". This may be especially applied to the case when the authoritie
s — due to some reasons — pander to the local "intellectuals" familiarized with
the national self-assertion complex in the "darwinized" European theoretic 19th
century-like way.
If you enter the phrase "origin of Tajiks" in any search system you’ll discover
that today the continuity of this nation to the very "Aryan race" is quite calle
d-for. However, the information that it was mostly religious, regional or clanni
sh self-identification that was common in the medieval times in Middle Asia can
be met much more seldom than the stories about "Aryan ancestors". Mind that it w
as mostly settled Iranian-speaking population that was dubbed "Tajiks" in order
to differentiate them from the Turkic- and Arab-speaking people. Certainly, if w
e consider the Aryans to be the ancient Indo-Europeans, we may also speak of at
least the linguistic relationship between them and the contemporary Tajiks. But
still there’s a certain time gap between the third millennium B. C. and the 8th
century A. D. — when the name "Tajiks" appeared in the chronicles. Nevertheless,
millions of Tajiks who are united into the ethnic community — first of all than
ks to the "nationality" record in their Soviet passports — have something to be
proud of and something that helps to distinguish the Tajik national interests fr
om the, let’s say, Uzbek national interests.
Significant feature here is that no one limits himself with just appropriating t
he great ancestors (greatness is measured by its world-wide fame; the very gener
ations of ancestors themselves do not satisfy the needs of national mythology).
Great deeds and famous characteristic features are also assumed. One of the cont
emporary Russian nationalists states, for example, that "Russian ethnos was esta
blished long ago and it created its own state and the greatest culture in the wo
rld". From one hand, that seems to be true. But from the other one, peasants mad
e up 95% of Russian ethnos up until the 20th century and they’ve hardly ever car
ed about the forms of taxation or the border fortification. Governing stratum, a
t the same time, had an international ethnic origin — Slavs neighbored people be
longing to other nations, confessions and cultures. So equalizing the Russian na
tion and the Russian state as the historical phenomena wouldn’t be the quite rig
ht thing to do. However, if you’d still do it, anyone — willing to put forth the
claims and trying to get square with the pre-revolutionary and Soviet empires —
will get the chance to bring these accusations against of the contemporary Russ
ians.
It’s quite clear, that you may say whatever you like about the priority of the "
mental and spiritual principles" over the ethnic ones, but unless you are not pl
acing the priority of the all-human ideology (for the nationalists, religion wou
ld be always second to the "nation") it is the principle of "land and blood" tha
t will be the basis. And as the experience of the above-mentioned Israel shows u
s, it is often the "national interests" that happen to surround it — the ones ex
pressed in the terms of "living space" and the "fight against enemies".
Ancestry and the great predecessors as an argument in the neighborly conflict
However, you don’t have to apply to the experience of the Middle East in order t
o get the examples. At the Caucasus, for example, the equality sign is often put
between ancient Hurrits and contemporary Vainakhs, ancient Hatts and contempora
ry Adyghe people, ancient Alans and contemporary Ossetians (or Karachais — this
is the ground for dispute with the above-mentioned Vainakhs just as well). These
concepts have become the common place of the opinions and ideas not only for th
e intellectuals (who often hold the high-ranked posts) but also among the intell
igentsia, politicians, businessmen and the youth, of course. It goes without say
ing that the ancient nations that come through the centuries and millenniums — h
aving integrated into the whole with the contemporary nations (as the saying goe
s, there’s many a slip between the cup and the lip; especially if the cup is an
ephemeral one) — were not just ancient, they were great. They’ve created empires
, civilizations and cultures — in general, humanity owes them plenty of its deed
s (if not every single one of them). It is also understandable that often the at
tempts of the "upstart" neighbors to seize the certain governmental posts or the
mountainous pastures are viewed as the encroachments upon the living space of t
he great ancient nations (by the way, the listed nations are really the ancient
ones — though, they’ve managed to live side-by-side with each other for centurie
s, having been deprived of the burden of national exceptionality).
We shouldn’t think that the myths of national memory and conscience are less ask
ed-for among the Europeans. Romanians are well aware of the fact that they desce
nd from the ancient Romans and Daci, who heroically resisted the great Romans. S
erbs are being told that their ancestors founded Troy (Ukrainians can, surely, d
ispute that, but it is the Albanians who question such ancestry much more fierce
ly). Poles are doing fine with the recent historical offenses along with the myt
hs of their medieval history. Norwegians are sitting pretty: they are really the
direct descendants of the nation that the Vikings came from; they don’t forget
about it but still they don’t insist that the very human civilization was founde
d by their ancestors (priority for discovering America is enough for them). In g
eneral, however, it is the primacy of the "liberal-democratic values" that tends
to prevail in Europe. Former nationalism wouldn’t come "comme il faut" in a sit
uation like that: ancient Gauls and Teutons would have definitely disapproved th
e gay-parades.
But even the "liberal-democratic values" have their own myths. They’ve formed in
the country that was unable to "ethnisize" its national idea — in the United St
ates of America. Its own peculiar "national foundation" was born here — the one
based on the abstract terms of Lord, freedom, rights, specific legal norms, info
rmal governing mechanisms and the social stratification. The United States have
proclaimed their own nationalism: not the ethnic but nonetheless the mythologica
l and materialistic one. It was dubbed the "civil religion": interests of the be
st, the most unique nation in the world should prevail over everything else. Whe
n such ideologies encountered the secular cosmopolitism the ideas like the "gold
en billion" were born. According to the opinion of its authors, pleas between th
e "identities", grounding at the greatness and offenses of their ancestors, were
to promote its fulfillment in every possible way.
Is the reasonable approach to the history possible?
Thus, having brought the not-so-inspiring conclusion, we may state: materialism
is the origin of any ideologies that tend to mythologize the national conscience
(mind that Schlomo Sand himself is a materialist). It is exactly the materialis
m that creates the need to find one’s "roots" in the native land and nation, hav
ing postulated the whole world as the objective reality that every individual’s
perception was granted. Old and natural ethnic culture, destroyed by the globali
zation, is substituted with either national or cosmopolitan surrogate.
Some people state the religious teachings are also myths. Though it’s not quite
like that. They can really be used for the benefits of ideologies that are based
on myths but that would be the speculation. Leading religious doctrines, howeve
r, do the opposite — they approve the existence of man in the world where there’
s no need to apply to illusions. And thus, their very essence doesn’t contradict
the objective and reasonable approach to the history and the past, to the prese
nt and future, to the salvation and further development of the ethno-cultural di
stinctiveness and identity. And that is their main difference from the ideologie
s based on materialistic world view.
That’s why it were the religious beliefs that actually unified the nations for t
heir common benefit, while the speculations at these beliefs connected with the
"private interests" used to disunite people. Globalization threatens not only th
e identities but also the very possibility for the international communications
of unprecedented quality. And if we would not assign the paramount importance to
the ethnic origin or civil membership (it is obvious that the trans-national el
ites living for our account do not consider them to be that important), but rath
er the values and life principles — then we would probably justify the very mean
ing of existence of different nations and states.
By Marat Kunaev
http://www.win.ru/en/ideas/4549.phtml