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Nationalism or Freedom?
By Jon Bekken, Anarcho-Syndicalist Review #32
Writing in the most recent Arsenal, a well-produced "magazine of
anarchist strategy and culture," Mike
Staudenmaier devotes one of the leading articles to a critique of ASR's
"extensive and influential writings
opposing nationalism and advocating working-class internationalist
revolution." (Unfortunately, he cannot be
troubled to cite any of them, perhaps recognizing that his muddled
argument could not stand up to any anarchist
writings on the subject.)
According to Staudenmaier, we follow the "people, not nations" analysis
he attributes to Rudolf Rocker, "combin
[ing] the sort of economic reductionism that is often the hallmark of
syndicalism with careful analysis of the
harsh experiences of the Cuban revolution." Our color-blind position that
"working people have no country" was
revolutionary a century ago, he continues, but today is a manifestation of
white supremacy responsible for the
overwhelmingly white membership of "one of the best-recruiting and most
steadily growing segments of North American
anarchism."
Citing our criticism of Chomsky's suggestion that in this era of
globalization, the nation-state can serve as a
mechanism for popular self-defense (and strangely arguing that the
Brazilian nation-state, which routinely murders
homeless children on the street, aids and abets transnational corporations
in despoiling Brazil's abundant natural
resources, and forces landless peasants into debt peonage, is less
repressive than the IMF), Staudenmaier says we
fail to acknowledge the substantial divisions within global economic
classes posed by racial and national
identities. These divisions, he argues, create the possibility of
"meaningful cross-class alliances - difficult to
assimilate into a syndicalist world view." (13)
In a typically confused passage he then conflates race, culture and
nation, and claims that syndicalists say
that the struggle for racial justice must be put off until after the
anticapitalist revolution (which, Staudenmaier
suggests, is exactly backward). Conceding that syndicalists are "sincerely
anti-racist," he argues that we "
underestimate the importance of cultural identity to people's lives and to
social struggles," thereby leading
revolutionaries into a dead-end.
After some muted criticisms of anarcho-nationalist tendencies, which
have led many who consider (or once
considered) themselves anarchists into backing a variety of
Marxist-Leninist groupings (a significant fraction of
the now-dissolved Love & Rage Federation recently joined the Maoist
Freedom Road Socialist Organization) for
ignoring class struggle, the author turns from setting up his straw men to
putting forward his own perspective:
"Where ASR offers the false dichotomy between people and
nations, the ABCF upholds a similarly
questionable opposition between 'oppressor nationalism' ... and
'nationalism of the oppressed' ... [But] in both
cases, the social experience at a grassroots level is the same - cultural
identity rooted in geography, language
and assorted historical intangibles, producing a broad-based love and
prioritization of a community of communities
." (15)
Staudenmaier rejects this attempt to separate what he sees as
inextricably intertwined positive and negative
aspects of national identity. Instead he champions what he admits is an ad
hoc analysis, skeptical of national
liberation struggles while supporting them, "recit[ing] rhetoric about
class struggle" while working with radicals
of all class backgrounds (he apparently believes there are significant
numbers of the employing class to be found
in the anarchists' ranks, something I have never observed), and calling
upon activists to embrace the
contradictions.
Anarchist support for the EZLN (the Zapatistas) is offered as an
example "of this promising new anarchist
response to nationalism," (16) citing Marcos' embrace of "the nation" in a
typically incoherent quote. But for
Staudenmaier the Zapatistas embody an anti-statist nationalism, apparently
because they have recognized that they
are in no position to seize state power and so instead negotiate with the
state and pressure it to change its
policies. Unwilling to embrace nationalism fully, Staudenmaier instead
urges us to "participate in and/or lend
support to anticolonial struggles in a principled and critical way. ...
Anarchists must become involved in a
critical way in what Marcos calls the 'reconstruction' of the nation,
which can only happen if we avoid the twin
pitfalls of knee-jerk anti-nationalism and uncritical acquiescence to
national liberation. By balancing the
competing claims of race and class, we can develop a new anarchist
understanding of nations and nationalism." (17)
I apologize if this summary seems incoherent; while I have endeavored to
distill a coherent argument from seven
pages of confusion, this is at best a difficult task. I undertake this
thankless task only because Staudenmaier is
quite mistaken when he describes our writings on this question as
"influential." In fact, most North American
anarchists today embrace the muddled thinking he advocates, with
devastating results. In upholding the traditional
anarchist opposition to nationalism (although our recent writings on the
subject have hardly been extensive, and
have tended to discuss the Middle East far more than Cuba), we have waged
a difficult and usually lonely struggle
for fundamental anarchist principles. Staudenmaier's argument relies
upon an almost total exclusion of
evidence, allowing patently false claims such as that syndicalists argue
that the struggle for racial justice must
be postponed until after The Revolution to stand cheek by jowl with highly
questionable characterizations of
various nation-states and nationalist movements. Failing to critically
engage the one example of "progressive"
nationalism he discusses (the Zapatistas), he leaves readers with no
concrete sense of what this "new anarchist
understanding" might look like in actual practice, or why we might
consider it to be in any way anarchist.
Staudenmaier is unable even to keep his core concept clear. He offers two
definitions of nationalism: a common
language and shared geography (11) and cultural identity rooted in
geography, language and historical intangibles
(15). These definitions are quite useless in understanding actually
existing nationalism. In the Balkans, for
example, the allegedly intractable nationalisms there (we leave aside the
high levels of intermarriage and other
such inconvenient facts) have nothing whatever to do with language
(Serbian and Croatian are the same language,
only the script in which they are written differs) or geography (the
populations are completely intermingled, thus
the necessity for "ethnic cleansing"). This confusion is not entirely his
fault. The "nation" is an essentially
mythic concept, its signifiers chosen arbitrarily by ideologues seeking to
unite followers against the "other" or
to conceal real conflicting interests behind a faŤade of national unity.
As Mikhail Bakunin (whose understanding of nationalism was far more
complex than Staudenmaier's), noted: "There
is nothing more absurd and at the same time more harmful, more deadly, for
the people than to uphold the fictitious
principle of nationalism as the ideal of all the people's aspirations.
Nationality is not a universal human
principle; it is a historic, local fact. ... We should place human,
universal justice above all national interests
." While consistently defending the principle of self-determination,
Bakunin (whose political activity began in
pan-Slavism) came to see nationalism (and its corollary, patriotism) as a
manifestation of backwardness. "The less
developed a civilization is, and the less complex the basis of its social
life, the stronger the manifestation of
natural patriotism."
Bakunin also termed nationalism a "natural fact" that had to be reckoned
with. Indeed, nationalism does exist,
in precisely the same sense that dementia does. There are many people in
the world who hear God giving them orders
- sometimes cruel, sometimes bizarre, sometimes quite humane - or who see
hallucinations. While these unfortunates
insist upon the reality of their visions, we know better. Such things
simply do not exist, for all that thousands
of our fellow humans act upon them. But the mental disorder that sparks
these delusions quite certainly exists.
Sometimes it is relatively harmless and can perhaps be ignored, though I
tend to believe symptoms should be
responded to before the disease gets worse. Sometimes the derangement is
quite serious, and must be confronted
forcefully. In precisely the same way, we can say that nationalism
exists, even though there is no useful
sense in which "nations" can be said to exist, except as an artificial
construct imposed by states, churches and
other powers to suit their own interests.
Nations are in fact inventions of relatively recent origin. Five hundred
years ago, the language we now know as
"French" was a family of loosely related regional tongues that were not
mutually intelligible. The "Italian" nation
was invented in the 1800s, and a significant fraction of the Italian right
now seems determined to uninvent it. In
Chicago, in the early 1900s, there was a prolonged struggle over the
national identity of the people now known as
Ukrainian immigrants, with competing networks of institutions seeking to
construct national identities as Poles,
Ruthenians, Little Russians, Russians, and Ukrainians. With the defeat of
the claimants in the diaspora, the
Ruthenian nation vanished without a trace, aside from some old buildings
where it was engraved into the stone.
Similarly, there was heated debate within the Polish community over
whether Jews, atheists, socialists, and members
of the Polish National Alliance could be considered members of the Polish
nation. Such debates had little to do
with language or culture, rather they represented efforts by competing
leaderships to establish dominance and to
exclude those who subscribed to competing identities from inclusion in the
fold of "the people."
But Staudenmaier's confusion does not end with his definition of
nationalism. Throughout his essay, he treats
the concepts of "nation" and "race" as if they were synonyms. There are,
of course, important similarities between
the two concepts: Both lack any basis in the real, material world, but are
instead ideological constructs invented
to justify oppression and domination. Although their boundaries are
porous, subject to constant reinterpretation
and redefinition (as are all arbitrary categorization schemes), many
people have internalized these constructs,
making them part of their own self-identification. Both are poisonous,
pernicious ideologies; there is no crime too
heinous to be "justified" under the cloak of race or nation. And, of
course, both are manifested in social
arrangements that reflect not only relations of power (which have their
own historic weight), but have also
implanted themselves in the consciousness even of those sincerely
committed to the cause of human emancipation.
But despite these similarities, there are also important distinctions
between race and nation. While no one can
define either with any precision, given their wholly mythic character,
race certainly does not involve questions of
geography or language - the only two generally agreed-upon markers of
nationality. (That nation is not in fact
defined in any way by these markers is a different question.)
There are certainly people who have historically been - and continue to
be - oppressed in particular ways,
justified in part by alleged differences in skin color and/or physical
build. (Such differences have relatively
little explanatory power; in the 1790s there was a debate in this country
over whether Germans were "white" or "
black"; in the 1800s the same question was raised about the Irish; in the
early 1900s Finns were widely considered
an "Asiatic" people by specialists in racial categorization. Physical
characteristics are purely incidental to such
arguments, which are fundamentally about power and domination.) This
history of oppression manifests itself in many
ways, from the jobs workers are able to obtain, to the schools their
children are enrolled in, to the accumulated
resources they have at their disposal to see them through hard times or
enable them to secure a viable economic
foothold, to their likelihood of being shot by police. Syndicalists have
always recognized the importance of racial
oppression, fighting against discrimination on the job and in the broader
society, demanding equal access to jobs,
and putting our bodies on the line in the struggle for racial justice.
"Race" has been used both to divide the
working class and to subject one segment of our class to particularly
brutal oppression and exploitation, and as
such it can not be ignored. But its manifestation is radically different
than that of "nation," and to treat them
as interchangeable is a dangerous confusion.
It is particularly dangerous when Staudenmaier swings between race and
nation, arguing that anarchists should
build cross-class alliances - an anarchist version of the Popular Front
which has sucked so many radicals into
pallid reformism. While there is a certain logic to cross-class alliances
for those who seek state power above all
else (the politician needs money for propaganda, for armed henchmen, and
his material comforts, but also needs a
mass base to provide cannon fodder, generate wealth and implement the
great leader's schemes), there is absolutely
no reason why anarchists should be making common cause with our
exploiters. It is not only wrong in principle, it
not only feeds illusions among our fellow workers, but it is tactically
stupid to boot. As we noted earlier
this year, "The right of a people to self-determination is a long-standing
anarchist principle. Nationalism,
however, is a fraud whereby would-be rulers 'self-determine' to impose
their vision of nationhood on an entire
community. Nationalism is an ideology of separation, of hatred for the
'other.' It is a creed of violence and war
and oppression. And it has absolutely nothing to offer the world's
oppressed. What is necessary is to develop human
solidarity, the instincts of mutual aid that enable us to survive and
which have fueled all human progress..."
Even many Marxists are at long last recognizing the folly of their long
detour into nationalism. In a recent
essay, George Kateb describes nationalism (and its close cousin,
patriotism) as "a grave moral error" arising out
of "a state of mental confusion." Noting that the nation is an amalgam "of
a few actual and many imaginary
ingredients," he notes that patriotism, in its essence, "is a readiness to
die and to kill for an abstraction ...
for what is largely a figment of the imagination." (907) Necessarily
constructed to exclude the vast majority of
humanity from its imagined community, patriotism - the celebration of the
nation armed - needs external enemies. "
Patriotism is on a permanent moral holiday, and once it is made dynamic,
it invariably becomes criminal." (914) But
not only does nationalism define itself in opposition to the whole of
humanity, Kateb argues, it also requires that
the individual surrender her moral authority and individuality, abandoning
her own dignity and individuality to
embrace submersion into an ideology of hatred, a life of criminality.
Quoting Thoreau, he concludes that only those
who surrender their "self-respect, and sacrifice the greater to the less"
can be patriotic. "They love the soil
which makes their graves, but have no sympathy with the spirit which may
still animate their clay. Patriotism is a
maggot in their heads."
As Rudolf Rocker noted, "the change of human groups into nations, that is,
State peoples, has not opened out a
new outlook... It is today one of the most dangerous hindrances to social
liberation." (202) Peoples with common
history, language and cultural backgrounds evolved over long periods of
living together in free (and sometimes not
so free) social alliances. No anarchist would propose that such
communities should be forced to dissolve themselves
into some invented social identity. But this is precisely what
nationalism, the political theology of the state,
attempts. "Nations" are in no sense natural communities; they stand in
stark opposition to human autonomy, to the
right of self-organization and self-determination, and to the principles
of mutual aid and solidarity upon which
our very survival depends.
References
ASR: "The Folly of Nationalism," #30 (Winter 2000/01), pp. 1-2.
Mikhail Bakunin, "Statism and Anarchism," "Letters on Patriotism," "A
Circular Letter to My Friends in Italy,"
"The Knouto-Germanic Empire and the Social Revolution." Excerpted in G.P.
Maximoff, ed., The Political
Philosophy of Bakunin.
Jon Bekken, "Negotiating Clas and Ethnicity: The Polish-Language Press in
Chicago." Polish-American Studies<
/i> (Autumn 2000), pp. 5-29. George Kateb, "Is Patriotism a
Mistake?" Social Research 67(4) (Winter
2000), pp. 901-24.
Rudolf Rocker, iNationalism and Culture.
Werner Sollors (ed.), The Invention of Ehtnicity. Mike
Staudenmaier, "What Good are Nations?"
Arsenal 3 (2001), pp. 11-17.
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