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<title>D.6 Are anarchists against Nationalism?</title>
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<h1>D.6 Are anarchists against Nationalism?</h1>
<p>
Yes, anarchists are opposed to nationalism in all its forms. British
anarchists Stuart Christie and Albert Meltzer simply point out the obvious:
<i>"As a nation implies a state, it is not possible to be a nationalist and
an anarchist."</i> [<b>The Floodgates of Anarchy</b>, p. 59fn]
</p><p>
To understand this position, we must first define what anarchists mean by
nationalism. For many people, it is just the natural attachment to home,
the place one grew up. Nationality, as Bakunin noted, is a <i>"natural and
social fact,"</i> as <i>"every people and the smallest folk-unit has its own
character, its own specific mode of existence, its own way of speaking,
feeling, thinking, and acting; and it is this idiosyncrasy that constitutes
the essence of nationality."</i> [<b>The Political Philosophy of Bakunin</b>, p. 325]
These feelings, however, obviously do not exist in a social vacuum. They
cannot be discussed without also discussing the nature of these groups
and what classes and other social hierarchies they contain. Once we do
this, the anarchist opposition to nationalism becomes clear.
</p><p>
This means that anarchists distinguish between <b>nationality</b> (that is,
cultural affinity) and <b>nationalism</b> (confined to the state and government
itself). This allows us to define what we support and oppose -- nationalism,
at root, is destructive and reactionary, whereas cultural difference and
affinity is a source of community, social diversity and vitality.
</p><p>
Such diversity is to be celebrated and allowed to express it itself on its
own terms. Or, as Murray Bookchin puts it, <i>"[t]hat specific peoples should
be free to fully develop their own cultural capacities is not merely a
right but a desideratum. The world would be a drab place indeed if a
magnificent mosaic of different cultures does not replace the largely
decultured and homogenised world created by modern capitalism."</i>
[<i>"Nationalism and the 'National Question'"</i>, pp. 8-36. <b>Society and
Nature</b>, No. 5, pp. 28-29] But, as he also warns, such cultural freedom
and variety should <b>not</b> be confused with nationalism. The latter is far
more (and ethically, a lot less) than simple recognition of cultural
uniqueness and love of home. Nationalism is the love of, or the desire
to create, a nation-state and for this reason anarchists are opposed
to it, in all its forms.
</p><p>
This means that nationalism cannot and must not be confused with
nationality. The later is a product of social processes while the
former to a product of state action and elite rule. Social evolution
cannot be squeezed into the narrow, restricting borders of the nation
state without harming the individuals whose lives <b>make</b> that social
development happen in the first place.
</p><p>
The state, as we have seen, is a centralised body invested with power
and a social monopoly of force. As such it pre-empts the autonomy of
localities and peoples, and in the name of the "nation" crushes the
living, breathing reality of "nations" (i.e. peoples and their cultures)
with one law, one culture and one "official" history. Unlike most
nationalists, anarchists recognise that almost all "nations" are in
fact not homogeneous, and so consider nationality to be far wider in
application than just lines on maps, created by conquest. Hence we think
that recreating the centralised state in a slightly smaller area, as
nationalist movements generally advocate, cannot solve what is called
the "national question."
</p><p>
Ultimately, as Rudolf Rocker argued, the <i>"<b>nation is not the cause,
but the result of the state. It is the state that creates the nation,
not the nation the state</b>."</i> Every state <i>"is an artificial mechanism
imposed upon [people] from above by some ruler, and it never pursues
any other ends but to defend and make secure the interests of
privileged minorities within society."</i> Nationalism <i>"has never
been anything but the political religion of the modern state."</i>
[<b>Nationalism and Culture</b>, p. 200 and p. 201] It was created to
reinforce the state by providing it with the loyalty of a people
of shared linguistic, ethnic, and cultural affinities. And if
these shared affinities do not exist, the state will create them
by centralising education in its own hands, imposing an "official"
language and attempting to crush cultural differences from the
peoples within its borders.
</p><p>
This is because it treats groups of people not as unique individuals
but rather <i>"as if they were individuals with definite traits of
character and peculiar psychic properties or intellectual qualities"</i>
which <i>"must irrevocably lead to the most monstrously deceptive
conclusions."</i> [Rocker, <b>Op. Cit.</b>, p. 437] This creates the theoretical
justification for authoritarianism, as it allows the stamping out of
all forms of individuality and local customs and cultures which do
not concur with the abstract standard. In addition, nationalism hides
class differences within the "nation" by arguing that all people
must unite around their supposedly common interests (as members of
the same "nation"), when in fact they have nothing in common due to
the existence of hierarchies and classes.
</p><p>
Malatesta recognised this when he noted that you cannot talk about
states like they were <i>"homogeneous ethnographic units, each
having its proper interests, aspirations, and mission, in opposition
to the interests, aspirations, and mission of rival units. This
may be true relatively, as long as the oppressed, and chiefly the
workers, have no self-consciousness, fail to recognise the injustice
of their inferior position, and make themselves the docile tools
of the oppressors."</i> In that case, it is <i>"the dominating class only
that counts"</i> and this <i>"owning to its desire to conserve and to
enlarge its power . . . may excite racial ambitions and hatred,
and send its nation, its flock, against 'foreign' countries, with
a view to releasing them from their present oppressors, and
submitting them to its own political and economical domination."</i>
Thus anarchists have <i>"always fought against patriotism, which is
a survival of the past, and serves well the interests of the
oppressors."</i> [<b>Errico Malatesta: His Life and Ideas</b>, p. 244]
</p><p>
Thus nationalism is a key means of obscuring class differences and
getting those subject to hierarchies to accept them as "natural."
As such, it plays an important role in keeping the current class
system going (unsurprisingly, the nation-state and its nationalism
arose at the same time as capitalism). As well dividing the
working class internationally, it is also used within a nation
state to turn working class people born in a specific nation against
immigrants. By getting native-born workers to blame newcomers, the
capitalist class weakens the resistance to their power as well as
turning economic issues into racial/nationalist ones. In practice,
however, nationalism is a <i>"state ideology"</i> which boils down to saying
it is <i>"'our country' as opposed to <b>theirs</b>, meaning <b>we</b> were the
serfs of the government first."</i> [Christie and Meltzer, <b>Op. Cit.</b>, p. 71]
It tries to confuse love of where you grow up or live with <i>"love of
the State"</i> and so nationalism is <i>"not the faithful expression"</i> of
this natural feeling but rather <i>"an expression distorted by means
of a false abstraction, always for the benefit of an exploiting
minority."</i> [Bakunin, <b>Op. Cit.</b>, p. 324]
</p><p>
Needless to say, the nationalism of the bourgeoisie often comes
into direct conflict with the people who make up the nation it
claims to love. Bakunin simply stated a truism when he noted that
the capitalist class <i>"would rather submit"</i> to a <i>"foreign yoke
than renounce its social privileges and accept economic equality."</i>
This does not mean that the <i>"bourgeoisie is unpatriotic; on the
contrary patriotism, in the narrowest sense, is its essential
virtue. But the bourgeoisie love their country only because,
for them, the country, represented by the State, safeguards their
economic, political, and social privileges. Any nation withdrawing
their protection would be disowned by them, Therefore, for the
bourgeoisie, the country <b>is</b> the State. Patriots of the State,
they become furious enemies of the masses if the people, tried
of sacrificing themselves, of being used as a passive footstool
by the government, revolt against it. If the bourgeoisie had to
choose between the masses who rebel against the State"</i> and a
foreign invader, <i>"they would surely choose the latter."</i> [<b>Bakunin
on Anarchism</b>, pp. 185-6] Given this, Bakunin would have not
been surprised by either the rise of Fascism in Italy nor when
the Allies in post-fascist Italy <i>"crush[ed] revolutionary movements"</i>
and gave <i>"their support to fascists who made good by becoming
Allied Quislings."</i> [Marie-Louise Berneri, <b>Neither East Nor West</b>,
p. 97]
</p><p>
In addition, nationalism is often used to justify the most horrific
crimes, with the Nation effectively replacing God in terms of justifying
injustice and oppression and allowing individuals to wash their hands
of their own actions. For <i>"under cover of the nation everything can be
hid"</i> argues Rocker (echoing Bakunin, we must note). <i>"The national flag
covers every injustice, every inhumanity, every lie, every outrage,
every crime. The collective responsibility of the nation kills the
sense of justice of the individual and brings man to the point where
he overlooks injustice done; where, indeed, it may appear to him a
meritorious act if committed in the interests of the nation."</i> [<b>Op.
Cit.</b>, p. 252] So when discussing nationalism:
</p><p><blockquote>
<i>"we must not forget that we are always dealing with the organised
selfishness of privileged minorities which hide behind the skirts of
the nation, hide behind the credulity of the masses. We speak of
national interests, national capital, national spheres of interest,
national honour, and national spirit; but we forget that behind all
this there are hidden merely the selfish interests of power-loving
politicians and money-loving business men for whom the nation is a
convenient cover to hide their personal greed and their schemes for
political power from the eyes of the world."</i> [Rocker, <b>Op. Cit.</b>,
pp. 252-3]
</blockquote></p><p>
Hence we see the all too familiar sight of successful "national
liberation" movements replacing foreign oppression with a home-based
one. Nationalist governments introduce <i>"the worse features of the
very empires from which oppressed peoples have tried to shake loose.
Not only do they typically reproduce state machines that are as
oppressive as the ones that colonial powers imposed on them, but
they reinforce those machines with cultural, religious, ethnic,
and xenophobic traits that are often used to foster regional and
even domestic hatreds and sub-imperialisms."</i> [Bookchin, <b>Op. Cit.</b>,
p. 30] This is unsurprising as nationalism delivers power to local
ruling classes as it relies on taking state power. As a result,
nationalism can never deliver freedom to the working class (the vast
majority of a given "nation") as its function is to build a mass
support base for local elites angry with imperialism for blocking
their ambitions to rule and exploit "their" nation and fellow
country people.
</p><p>
In fact, nationalism is no threat to capitalism or even to
imperialism. It replaces imperialist domination with local elite
and foreign oppression and exploitation with native versions. That
sometimes the local elites, like imperial ones, introduce reforms
which benefit the majority does not change the nature of the new
regimes although this does potentially bring them into conflict
with imperialist powers. As Chomsky notes, for imperialism the
<i>"threat is not nationalism, but independent nationalism, which
focuses on the needs of the population, not merely the wealthy
sectors and the foreign investors to whom they are linked.
Subservient nationalism that does not succumb to these heresies
is quite welcome"</i> and it is <i>"quite willing to deal with them if
they are willing to sell the country to the foreign master, as
Third World elites (including now those in much of Eastern
Europe) are often quite willing to do, since they may greatly
benefit even as their countries are destroyed."</i> [<i>"Nationalism
and the New World Order"</i> pp. 1-7, <b>Society and Nature</b>, No. 5,
pp. 4-5] However, independent nationalism is like social democracy
in imperialist countries in that it may, at best, reduce the evils
of the class system and social hierarchies but it never gets rid
of them (at worse, it creates new classes and hierarchies clustered
around the state bureaucracy).
</p><p>
Anarchists oppose nationalism in all its forms as harmful to the
interests of those who make up a given nation and their cultural
identities. As Rocker put it, peoples and groups of peoples
have <i>"existed long before the state put in its appearance"</i> and
<i>"develop without the assistance of the state. They are only hindered
in their natural development when some external power interferes by
violence with their life and forces it into patterns which it has not
known before."</i> A nation, in contrast, <i>"encompasses a whole array of
different peoples and groups of peoples who have by more or less
violent means been pressed together into the frame of a common
state."</i> In other words, the <i>"nation is, then, unthinkable without
the state."</i> [<b>Op. Cit.</b>, p. 201]
</p><p>
Given this, we do support nationality and cultural difference, diversity
and self-determination as a natural expression of our love of freedom
and support for decentralisation. This should not, however, be confused
with supporting nationalism. In addition, it goes without saying that
a nationality that take on notions of racial, cultural or ethnic
"superiority" or "purity" or believe that cultural differences are
somehow rooted in biology get no support from anarchists. Equally
unsurprisingly, anarchists have been the most consistent foes of
that particularly extreme form of nationalism, fascism (<i>"a
politico-economic state where the ruling class of each country
behaves towards its own people as . . . it has behaved to the colonial
peoples under its heel."</i> [Bart de Ligt, <b>The Conquest of Violence</b>,
p. 74]). Moreover, we do not support those aspects of specific
cultures which reflect social hierarchies (for example, many
traditional cultures have sexist and homophobic tendencies). By
supporting nationality, we do not advocate tolerating these. Nor do
the negative aspects of specific cultures justify another state
imposing its will on it in the name of "civilising" it. As history
shows, such "humanitarian" intervention is just a mask for justifying
imperialist conquest and exploitation and it rarely works as cultural
change has to flow from below, by the actions of the oppressed
themselves, in order to be successful.
</p><p>
In opposition to nationalism, Anarchists are <i>"proud of being
internationalists."</i> We seek <i>"the end of all oppression and of all
exploitation,"</i> and so aim <i>"to awaken a consciousness of the antagonism
of interests between dominators and dominated, between exploiters and
workers, and to develop the class struggle inside each country, and
the solidarity among all workers across the frontiers, as against
any prejudice and any passion of either race or nationality."</i>
[Malatesta, <b>Op. Cit.</b>, p. 244]
</p><p>
We must stress that anarchists, being opposed to all forms of
exploitation and oppression, are against a situation of external
domination where the one country dominates the people and territory
of another country (i.e., imperialism -- see <a href="secD5.html">section D.5</a>). This
flows from our basic principles as <i>"[t]rue internationalism will
never be attained except by the independence of each nationality,
little or large, compact or disunited -- just as anarchy is in the
independence of each individual. If we say no government of man over
man, how can [we] permit the government of conquered nationalities
by the conquering nationalities?"</i> [Kropotkin, quoted by Martin A.
Miller, <b>Kropotkin</b>, p. 231] As we discuss in the <a href="secD7.html">next section</a>,
while rejecting Nationalism anarchists do not necessarily oppose
national liberation struggles against foreign domination.
</p>
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