June 1995 Organizing International ’ Relations: Fifty Years after the United Nations Charter me & = Blackwell Publishers / UNESCOPolitically correct anti-nationalism Salvador Cardtis and Joan Estruch Introduction The history of the social sciences provides us with many examples of the use of terms which have the appearance of being neutral, objective instruments of analysis, but which are in fact used, deliberately or not, as ideological weapons intended to discredit the opponent at the same time as they disguise one’s own standpoint. At the present moment, discussions on the issue of nationalism very’ often seen in the framework of the political contexts which give them their practical signification: the founding of the modern states of Germany and Italy in the last century, the break-up of the Austro-Hungarian Empire at the end of World War T and the achievement of independence by the former colonies after World War II, for example, But although both the analyses and the concepts depend on the political circumstances in which they arise and are provide a perfect cxample of this careless, inexact and, in short, sloppy use of a concept which, because of the way it is ideologically exploited, eventually loses its value as an analytic useful concept in under- standing the reality it is intended to designate. ‘Analyses of national- ism coming from the social sciences have indeed been generally very closely University, Beta Salvador Cards and Joan Estruch are Professors of Sociology at the Auton: versity of Barcelona, and investigators at the Centre of Research in Sociology of Religion of the si Spain. They have jinly published sew lly | eral works and antices. Salvador Cards, Was vie director ofthe Avul newspaper between 1989 and 1991, Joan Estuch has recently published a study on the Opus Dei and its paradoxes (1994). used, many people writing on the nationalist issue and on the process of self-deter- mination nevertheless claim to be ideologically and pol- itically neutral, when the ideas they express in fact make them out-and-out cities of nationalism, (08193 Catatonia, 1. Nationalism and prejudice linked to political circum- stances, which have given the national factor a central role in the great events of history. In the course of the twentieth century these have included the end of two World Wars, the de- colonization processes in the Third World and, more recently, with the collapse of the Soviet empire, the resurgence of territorial strife in the areas formerly under its domain, Similarly, there are concepts such as self- determination which cannot be looked at from a Strictly juridical point of view, but must be On the simplest level, even the terminology used to refer to nationalist issues hints at this anticnationalist bias. While one widespread mage associates nationalist movements with the slow but unstoppable movement of the tides," very often in speaking of nations words like tribe have been used and national feelings have been compared with religious phenomena in their supposedly most irrational aspect. None of this, of course, takes into account the fact that, as Max Weber pointed out, ‘A thing is "SG 1095 © UNESCO Pd yc Pt, 1 Cnty Rd nd ONG, UK an 8 Ma Se, Cm MA RE, USA,never “irrational” in itself, but only from a particular “rational” point of view'.? Disregarding the ‘particular point of view" of the speaker is what allows the authors of, many analyses of nationalism to appear to leave their own political prejudices to one side, or even claim to have immunity from them. Thus, to quote just a few examples from relatively recent and in this sense quite explicit studies, ‘we could turn to Eric Hobsbawm’s historic work Nations and Nationalism since 1780. In the intro- duction, after saying that ‘no serious historian of nations and nationatism can be a committed political nationalist’, Hobsbawm goes on to ‘make the following declaration of non-national- ist faith: ‘Fortunately, in setting out to write the present book I have not needed to leave my non-historieal convictions behind’? In the same way, but from a sociological standpoint, Anthony Smith, in the introduction to his summary National Identity ~ it is very often in introductions that authors’ intentions are most clearly revealed ~ makes no attempt to conceal the fact that the interest of his work lies in its contribution to the future disappear- ance of nationalism: “The final chapter looks at the possibilities of a new “post-national” world, 1a world without nationalism and perhaps with- ‘out nations’, though he admits that ‘this will probably be’a slow and uncertain process’.* ‘More recently, in this journal, John Keane, in*Nations, nationalism and citizens of Europe’, ‘made no bones about his belief that the doctrine of selfdetermination was one with anti-demo- cratic consequences, that a stand had to be taken in favour of a ‘post-national’ Europe and that it was important to avoid the danger of nationalism, which he railed against on the grounds that ‘nationalism is a closed system’, which is ‘fanatical’, ‘xenophobic’, ‘an oversim- plification’, ‘macho’, ‘arrogant’, ete.’ The argu- ment of the central pages of Keane’s article can be summed up in the words of Mario Vargas [Llosa when he says, ‘Nationalism is an ideology that raises borders, excludes the other and looks down on what is the other's’, because, to sum up, ‘one is a nationalist against the others’. ‘Are we to believe from these examples and from a host of others that could be given that these analyses are really made leaving to one side their authors’ political prejudices? Are we to believe that only those who are favourably (© UNESCO Ws Salvador Cardiis and Joan Esiruch inelined towards the national rights of certain peoples are prejudiced, while those who are in the comfortable position of belonging to a nation formally recognized by other states are not prejudiced in considering the claims of the for- ‘mer a threat to the future of democracy? ‘One is a nationalist against the others’, ‘writes Vargas Llosa. Nationalism, says the for- mer national secretary of the French Socialist party, Gilles Martinet, in a recent book, Le réveil des nationalismes francais, is ‘an affront to reason’, precisely because ‘it feeds on hatred, contempt and the fear of others’. On the other hhand, opposing nationalism there is - continues the same author, in a deliciously moving con- fession ~ patriotism, which is what one tends to call Tamour des siens'.” In short, the issue lies in knowing who has a right to describe himself as a ‘patriot’ and who is condemned to being a miserable ‘nationalist’, Epistemological criti ‘The lack of objectivity in the supposedly nationalist, post-nationalist ~ or openly anti- nationalist ~ theories predominating in work ‘on nationalism in the social sciences could be debated from a strictly epistemological stand: point. For one thing, there is nothing new to be said about the central role played by nation= state frameworks in establishing the conditions ‘of scientific production. Thus, to speak of French, German or North-American sociology js not an oversimplifiation, but a reference to ‘geographical and political contexts that have been a decisive factor in the approaches and ‘viewpoints of those countries’ scientific output. In the same way, itis very difficult to imagine that these political frames of reference carry no ‘weight in the analysis of national issues itself. We could, for example, speak from personal ‘experience of the difficulty of obtaining funds for academically ambitious university research into nationalism in Catalonia and, in general, in the Paisos Catalans, simply because this is not one of the priorities of the scientific policy dictated by the Spanish Government. Another ‘example of these difficulties is the fact that an outstandingly innovative and original analytical work in international studies on this subject Critica de la nacié pura, by the anthropologist