Nationalism and Modernism

These pictures are taken from Civic Education Carnival June 2013

Nationalism and Modernism

(A critical survey of recent theories of nations and nationalism)

Routledge London and new York

Anthony D.Smith

The Social Base of Nationalism

One of the central issues raised by Nairn’s analysis is the social composition of the ideological movement of nationalism. For many, nationalism is specifically a movement of the intellectuals, or more broadly, the intelligentsia. They occupy a pivotal role in the analyses of Ernest Gellner, Elie Kedourie, J.H.Kautsky, Peter Worsley and Anthony D.Smith and by implication, Benedict Anderson, providing both the leadership and the main following of the movement, as well as being the most zealous consumers of nationalist mythology.9

There is considerable truth in this characterisation. Most nationalisms are led by intellectuals and/or professionals. Intellectuals furnish the basic definitions and characterisations of the nation, professionals are the main disseminators of the idea and ideals of the nation, and the intelligentsia are the most avid purveyors and consumers of nationalist myths. One has only to scrutinise the origins and early development of nationalisms in central and eastern Europe, India, China, the Arab Middle East, Nigeria, Ghana, French West Africa and North Africa, to see how intellectuals and professionals have acted as the midwives, if not the parents, of the movement. Even in continents like Latin America, North America and Southeast Asia, ‘printmen’ and professionals played an important role in the dissemination of national ideals (see Anderson 1991: ch. 4; Argyle 1976; Gella 1976).

In a sense, this is a truism. All modern political and social movements require well educated leaders if they are to make any impact on a world in which secular education, communications and rational bureaucracy have become the hallmarks of modernity. They require the skills of oratory, propaganda, organisation and communications which professionals have made largely their preserve. Besides, the meaning of the term ‘intellectual’ is not uniform; it takes its character from the traditions and circumstances of each culture area, and we should be careful not to compare cases that are essentially dissimilar (Zubaida 1978; Breuilly 1993: ch. 2).

What is more important is the relationship between the ‘intellectuals’, however defined, the professionals and the ‘people’. This is what Nairn was attempting to characterise and place at the nerve centre of nationalism’s success. Miroslav Hroch’s analysis of the social composition of nationalist movements in a number of smaller east European countries, takes this suggestion one stage further. Like Peter Worsley before him, Hroch sees a chronological progression from elite to mass involvement in nationalist mobilisation. Only for Hroch, this occurs in three main stages. First, an original small circle of intellectuals rediscovers the national culture and past and formulates the idea of the nation (phase A). There follows the crucial process of dissemination of the idea of the nation by agitator- professionals who politicise cultural nationalism in the growing towns (phase B). Finally the stage of popular involvement in nationalism creates a mass movement (phase C). Hroch applies this schema to the nationalisms of small peoples in the context of processes of urbanisation and industrialisation in Eastern Europe in the latter half of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and shows how regional elites were important elements in the course of nationalist developments (Worsley 1964; Pearson 1983; Hroch 1985).

But can such a sequence be generalised? And are ‘the people’ always involved? It is tempting to see nationalism as a river of wave-like movements starting out as a trickle in its cultural heartlands and gaining in power and extent ofinvolvement as it gathers pace. This is one of nationalism’s most successful self- images. But it can also be misleading and Eurocentric. The ‘trickle’ of scholarly circles of ethnic rediscoverers may suddenly break out into a flood, or the political movement of subelites may antedate the cultural revival, while intellectuals (as creators of ideas) may appear later on the scene. This latter scenario can be found in the Eritrean and Baluch struggles for independence, where only later was there any attempt to give cultural substance to an essentially social and political movement of liberation from oppression. Nor can we always count on the movement involving ‘the masses’. To some extent this depends on tactical considerations of the leaders. Galvanising the ‘people’, beyond rhetorical appeals, may jeopardise middle-class interests or it may involve distasteful recourse to religious symbolism and uneasy compromises with traditional elites in order to mobilise strata with subordinate roles and traditional outlooks for the nationalist cause.10

Nevertheless, even if the east European pattern is not universal and cultural nationalism sometimes occupies a subordinate role, at least initially, it can still be convincingly argued that for a new nation to achieve lasting popular success and maintain itself in a world of competing nations, intellectuals and professionals have an important, perhaps crucial role to play. Beyond the immediate needs of propaganda, advocacy and communications, the intellectuals and intelligentsia are the only strata with an abiding interest in the very idea of the nation, and alone possess the ability to bring other classes onto the platform of communal solidarity in the cause of autonomy. Only they know how to present the nationalist ideal of autoemancipation through citizenship so that all classes will, in principle, come to understand the benefits of solidarity and participation. Only they can provide the social and cultural links with other strata which are necessary for the ideal of the nation to be translated into a practical programme with a popular following. This is not to deny the importance of other elites or strata like bureaucrats, clergy and officers, who can exert a powerful influence on the cultural horizons and political directions of particular nationalisms. But, whereas such ‘leading classes’ may vary between and even within movements at different times without endangering the success of the movement, the pivotal role of professionals and intellectuals must remain constant or the movement risks disintegration.

When intellectuals and professionals split into rival nationalist organisations fighting each other, the whole movement is weakened and jeopardised (see Gella 1976; A.D.Smith 1981a: ch. 6; Pinard and Hamilton 1984; and more generally, Gouldner 1979).