Are Nations Real?

Benedict Anderson, Imagined

Communities: Reflections on the
Origin and Spread of Nationalism
 20 Century Marxist Nationalism
th

• Since WW II every successful revolution has

defined itself in national term:
• The PRC, the Socialist Republic of Vietnam
• Eric Hobsbawm; Marxist movements and
states have tended to become nationalist in
substance and form.
• Yugoslavia
 Is nationalism a story of the past?
• “The end of the era of nationalism” is not in
sight.
• Tendency not confined to the socialist world
only.
• Sub-nationalism.
No Grand Thinker of Nationalism
Benedict Anderson
Nationalism: A False Fabrication?
Nationalism: An idea of (Religious)
Emancipation
Nation-State: Comradeship
Cultural Roots of Nationalism
 The Religious Community
• Religious communities are connected through
the sacred text language.
 Anthony Smith
Nationalism in the 20th century
The Development of the National Ideal
• Of all the visions and faiths that compete for m en’s
loyalties in the modern world, the most widespread and
persistent is the national ideal. Other faiths have
achieved more spectacular temporary success or a
more perm anent footing in one country. Other visions
have roused men to more terrible and heroic acts. But
none has been so successful in penetrating to every
part of the globe, and in its ability to attract to its
ideals men and women of every sort, in all walks of life
and in every country.
• No other ideal has been able to reappear in so many
different guises, or to suffer temporary eclipse only to
re-emerge stronger and more permanently.
• No other vision has set its stamp so thoroughly on the m
ap of the world, and on our sense of identity. We are
identified first and foremost with our ‘nation’.
• Our lives are regulated, for the most part, by the
national state in which we are born. War and peace,
trade and travel, education and welfare, are determined
for each one of us by the nation-state in which we
reside.
• What is this national ideal that can command
such loyalty in so many countries, and how
has it developed? For it was not something
original or natural to man, like his physique or
family.
 Nation: French Revolution
• The first clear statement of this ideal occurs during
the French Revolution.
• Here we read that the only sovereign is the
nation, that man’s first loyalty is to the nation,
and that the nation alone can make laws for its
citizens.
• There too we hear for the first time the call to
arms for the defence of the fatherland [patrie), and
the idea that a ‘citizen’ of France has certain rights
and duties towards his nation.
 Cont…
• Although the French Revolution was not the first
to unfurl a flag or compose an anthem , it was the
first moment that self-governing citizens did both
for the ‘national’ cause, and not to celebrate a
dynasty.
• And it was the first time that citizens sought to
impose a single culture and language on all the
regions of their country, to break down all the
barriers between those regions, to become one
nation devoted to a single ideal.
 National Ideal
• At the root of the ‘national ideal’ is a certain vision
of the world and a certain type of culture.
• According to this vision, mankind is ‘really’ and
‘naturally’ divided into distinct communities of
history and culture, called nations.
• Each nation is distinct and unique. Each has its
peculiar contribution to make to the whole, the
family of nations.
• Each nation defines the identity of its members,
because its specific culture moulds the individual.
History Is the Key Behind the National Ideal

• The key to that culture is history, the sense of

special patterns of events peculiar to
successive generations of a particular group.
• A historical culture is one that binds present
and future generations, like links in a chain, to
all those who preceded them, and one that
therefore has shaped the character and habits
of the nation at all times.
 Nation-Nationalism-NationState
• The national ideal leads inevitably to ‘nationalism’, a
programme of action to achieve and sustain the
national ideal.
• The solidarity that a nationalist desires is based on
the possession of the land: not any land, but the
historic land; the land of past generations, the land
that saw the flowering of the nation’s genius.
• The nationalist therefore wants to repossess the
land, to make it into a secure ‘homeland’ for the
nation, and to ‘build’ the nation on it.
 A homeland
• The solidarity he desires is therefore based on territory.
Without territory, you cannot build the fraternity and
solidarity that the national ideal requires.
• You cannot instill in people a sense of kinship and
brotherhood without attaching them to a place that
they feel is theirs, a homeland that is theirs by right of
history.
• Nor can they realise their peculiar identity and culture
in the future, unless they possess a recognised
homeland.
 Self Rule
• The homeland must be free.
• It cannot be ruled by others of a different historical culture.
• The nationalist therefore is drawn into politics, into the struggle for
self-government and sovereignty in his homeland.
• Not all nationalists want complete sovereignty. Some may prefer the
autonomy of ‘home rule’, or federation with another state.
• But all want recognition of their right to the homeland, and freedom
from interference in their internal, especially cultural, affairs.
• And since such recognition and freedom are often difficult to secure
in a federation with a stronger state, nationalists usually prefer
outright secession in order to set up a sovereign state of their own,
for whose defence and administration they will be wholly
responsible.
• Nationalism, therefore, involves four
elements: a vision, a culture, a solidarity and a
policy.