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Graduate School of Social Sciences
University of Amsterdam
Department of Political Science
Track: Political Theory
Master Thesis
Idea of state in national identity
Hrayr Manukyan
Student number: 11763345
E-mail: hrayrm@gmail.com
Supervisor: Michael Eze
Second reader: Paul Raekstad
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Content
Introduction --- --- 3
Chapter 1. Idea of state in concept nation --- 5
Chapter 2. Ethnicity, national identity and state --- 22
Conclusion --- 37
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Introduction
Thesis statement
In this thesis, I claim that national identity it is intrinsically connected with the notion of identification with the state. Some authors, like Anthony Smith, as I show, set the idea of national identity apart from any conception of the state. I argue that national identity must be define in terms of (a) identification with state, (b) identification with imagined community (any large community) and in terms of (c) congruence of (a) and (b).
Structure
For showing that national identity is intrinsically connected with the notion of identification with the state, first of all, I need to show that concept nation is connected with the concept of state. I do this in chapter 1, namely, I investigate the idea of the state in concept nation. I show that the idea of state in concept nation can be found in literature which tries to define the nation in terms of language and/or religion and/or culture. The idea of state also can be found in literature which rejects the notion to define the nation in terms of language and/or religion and/or culture. I present that literature in the following order. First, I show that both (most of the main) authors who define nation in terms of linguistic divisions and (most of the main) authors who reject to define nation in terms of linguistic divisions base their judgment on the notion that nation is something intrinsically connected with the state. I discuss the issue of language and its proposed connection with the state in section 1 of chapter 1. Second, I show that both (most of the main) authors who define nation in terms of religious divisions and (most of the main) authors who reject to define nation in terms of religious divisions base their judgment on the notion that nation is something intrinsically connected with the state. I discuss the issue of religion and its proposed connection with the state in section 2 of chapter 1. Third, I show that both (most of the main) authors who define nation in terms of cultural divisions (if any) and (most of the main) authors who reject to define nation in terms of culture base their judgment on the notion that nation is something intrinsically connected with the state. I discuss the issue of culture and its proposed connection with the state in section 3 of chapter 1. In section 4 of chapter one, I show the historical emergence of the idea of state in the meaning of the term “nation”. In section 5 of chapter 1, I conclude the first four sections of chapter 1. The conclusion is that most of the main authors connect concept nation with the concept of the state.
In section 1 of chapter 2, I discuss ethnicity and ethnic identity to show that they do not contain the notion of state. Then, is section 2 of chapter 1, I argue that a clear distinction must be drawn between the concepts of nation and national identity from one side and concepts of ethnic group and ethnic identity from another side. And I claim that that distinction must be based on the notion of a connection with a state or autonomy. Namely,
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1) National identity implies that individuals want to have a state or autonomy together
with those people (with imagined community) with whom they identify themselves
(regardless of whether they identify themselves with an ethnic group, civic group or another hypothetic group).
2) Ethnic identity does not contain any notion of state (or autonomy).
Most of the main authors drew a clear distinction between ethnic group and nation: they connect the concept of a nation with the state (or sovereignty, autonomy) and they mention the absence of a connection between ethnic group and state. However, they do not go far enough to make the clear distinction between ethnic identity and national identity, or, as it is in case of Anthony Smith, that distinction is not based on the notion of state and, therefore, confusing. I discuss an objection to the argument that national identity is intrinsically connected with the state and I conclude that that the distinction of national identity based on a connection with the state is more precise, descriptive and meaningful.
Methodology
This is a theoretical thesis which means that it is different from other political science theses in terms of structure and methodology. In this thesis I point out distinctions. Namely, I draw attention to the fact that nation is different from national identity, that national identity has 3 main layers and that my definition of national identity (based on that layers) is somewhat new. I also show why Anthony Smith is wrong in his definitions of nation and national identity and why primordialists are wrong in their judgments about nature of national identity.
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Chapter 1
Idea of state in concept nation
1. Idea of state in discussion about language as a distinctive trait for a nation
The German philosopher, Johann Gottfried Herder (1744–1803), was the first to address the issue of language in the context of nation formation. According to the American philosopher and historian, Hans Kohn (1881–1971), Herder was the first to claim that the rights of nationality were above all the rights of language and the first to insist that human civilisation lives not in its universe but in its national and peculiar manifestations. In his ‘Treatise on the Origin of
Language’ (1772), Herder argued that people are above all members of their national communities and that their creativeness expressed in their original language.
“A fiery nation reveals its courage in his metaphors, whether it lives in the Orient or in North America” (Herder, 1772, section 3, paragraph 2).
Herder equally respected all national languages and thought that each individual is equally capable of thinking and creativeness through his own mother tongue.
Herder, however, was not a nationalist in the modern sense of the word. As Kohn noted, Herder did not demand the creation of a nation-state or the unification of nations. For him, nationality was not a political or biological but a spiritual and moral concept. Politically, Herder remained an enlightened humanitarian and pacifist.
‘Though born in the lands of the King of Prussia, he hated Prussian militarism and gladly accepted Russian rule. In 1769 he wrote that ‘The states of the king of Prussia will not be happy until they are divided up’ and he characterized their inhabitants as ‘too many ignorant Germans and too many subjects’. He was in no way partial to the Germans. Each nationality was to him a manifestation of the Divine, and, therefore, something sacred which should not be destroyed but cultivated’ (Kohn, p. 32)
Thus, Herder did not consider any idea of state in the concept nation.
The first influential philosopher who can be considered as nationalist in the modern sense of the word is the German philosopher, Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762–1814). During 1807–1808, Fichte gave a series of lectures called ‘Address to the German nation’, where he stated his main ideas about the German nation and nationalism. In those lectures, Fichte considered language as the most important criterion based on which world population is divided into nations. He demanded the unification of German-speaking people under the one state. Language was so important for
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Fichte that he gave it a greater priority than the people, who he considered just a medium through which language expresses itself.
‘If we give the name of people to men whose organs of speech are influenced by the same external conditions, who live together, and who develop their language in continuous
communication with each other, then we must say: the language of this people is necessarily just what it is, and in reality these people do not express its knowledge, but its knowledge expresses itself out of the mouth of the people’ (Fichte, 1922, p. 56).
Unlike Herder, Fichte directly connected language with politics and state. Among many relationships between language and state (or politics) mentioned by Fichte, 3 main ones can be distinguished. First, according to Fichte, wherever a separate language is found, a separate state must exist and vice versa; wherever a state is failing, the language which was spoken in that failed state must disappear.
‘Just as it is true beyond doubt that, wherever a separate language is found, there a separate nation exists, which has the right to take independent charge of its affairs and to govern itself; so one can say, on the other hand, that, where a people has ceased to govern itself, it is equally bound to give up its language and to coalesce with its conquerors, in order that there may be unity and internal peace and complete oblivion of relationships which no longer exist. Even a semi-intelligent leader of such a mixture of races must insist on this’ (Fichte, 1922, p. 215-216).
The second connection between language and politics concerns the prevention of mixing people with different spoken languages. Fichte claimed that it is harmful to nations and humanity if people with other language backgrounds are integrated into the German nation.
‘Those who speak the same language are joined to each other by a multitude of invisible bonds by nature herself, long before any human art begins; they understand each other and have the power of continuing to make themselves understood more and more clearly; they belong together and are by nature one and an inseparable whole. Such a whole, if it wishes to absorb and mingle with itself any other people of different descent and language, cannot do so without itself becoming confused, in the beginning at any rate, and violently disturbing the even progress’ (Fichte, 1922, p. 223-224).
Third connection between language and politics is about purity of language. Only those nations can get real political freedoms, whose languages do not have foreign words. According to him, the mere presence of foreign words within a language can do great harm, because it contaminates the spirit of political morality. He used the example of the words ‘humanity’, ‘popularity’ and ‘liberality’ to illustrate his point of view. These words have a Latin origin and: when these words are used in speaking to a German who has learnt no language but his own they are to him
nothing but a meaningless noise, which has no relationship of sound to remind him of anything he knows already and so takes him completely out of his circle of observation and beyond any
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observation possible to him. Instead of the word ‘humanity’ (Humanitdi), Fichte suggested using a German word, ‘Menschlichkeit’, which is a literal translation of the word ‘humanity’. In that case, according to him, German people would have understood the meaning without further historical explanation. Man is formed by language far more than language is formed by men, according to Fichte (Fichte, 1922. p. 64-65).
Fichte asserted that those who speak neo-Latin languages do not have an original living speech or mother tongue. They, according to Fichte, deal with dead and mixed languages. Original, primitive languages are superior to composite, derived languages. Fichte considered German as an original language, while he stated that French and English are composite, derived languages. Fichte argued that in any language, abstract ideas are expressed in non-abstract terms. Those who speak an original language maintain an unbroken connection between the abstract ideas and the sense-experience.
‘To all who will but think the image deposited in the language is clear; to all who really think it is alive and stimulates their life”. This is the case for the languages which “from the time the first sound broke forth among the same people, has developed continuously out of the actual common life of this people, and into which no element has ever entered that did not express an observation actually experienced by this people, and, moreover, an observation standing in a connection of wide-spread reciprocal influence with all the other observations of the same people’ (Fichte, 1922, p. 61).
Thus, according to Fichte, in the cases of derived and mixed languages the living connection between abstract ideas and immediate sense-experience is broken. Therefore, claims Fichte, the personality of people who speak with those languages is impoverished, and they cannot attain freedom and individual fulfilment (Fichte, 1922, p. 65). This was the third main connection of language and politics in Fichte’s ideas.
Another famous scholar in nationalism studies, Elie Kedourie (1926–1992), made two main conclusions from Fichte’s writings. First, people who speak an original language are nations, and second, nations must speak an original language. In other words, a group speaking the same language is a nation, and a nation ought to constitute a state (Kedourie, 1961, p. 68). If a nation is a group of people speaking the same language, then, if political frontiers separate the members of such a group, these frontiers are arbitrary, unnatural and unjust.
‘‘Understand me rightly’ says a character in Fichte’s dialogue Patriotism and its Opposite (1807), “the separation of Prussians from the rest of the Germans is purely artificial… the separation of the Germans from the other European nations is based on Nature. Through a common language and through common national characteristics which unite the Germans, they are separate from the others’ (Kedourie, 1961, p. 68).
Only on this assumption did it make sense to entitle Fichte’s lectures ‘Addresses to the German nation’, claimed Kedourie. Lectures were delivered in Berlin during 1807–1808 when politically
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no united German nation existed, but people in the current territory of Germany and Austria were speaking the same German language. There were very diverse political arrangements in the German-speaking parts of Europe. Fichte and his followers tried to prove and convince the people that those who spoke the same language must unite to form their state (Kedourie, 1961, p. 69).
Ernst Moritz Arndt (1769–1860) was another philosopher who stressed language as a criterion for separating nations and states. He also maintained that the Germans excelled over all other nations by having preserved their ‘racial purity’ and by speaking the ‘purest language’. As Kohn noted, Herder believed in the equal rights of all national tongues while the new German
nationalists proclaimed the superiority of their language compare to the Latin and Slav languages.
‘At the same time Arndt centred upon language as the factor constituting a nation; all German-speaking people had to be united in a common fatherland. Arndt was one of the most powerful agitators for the national uprising of the Germans against the French; of similar importance was Friedrich Ludwig Jahn (1778- 1852) or ‘Father Jahn’ as he was commonly called. He was the author of Deutsches Volk stum (German Folkdom, 1810), in which he glorified the originality of the German folk, a divine creative force. Jahn had a great influence upon three movements which have remained characteristic for nationalism in Central and Eastern Europe and have even spread later to Asia’ (Kohn, 1965, p. 36).
Thus, both Fichte and Arndt considered the idea of state and idea of language intrinsically connected and basic parts of concept nation.
In his lecture ‘What is a nation?’ in1882, French philosopher, Ernest Renan (1823–1892) criticised the idea that language is a criterion for the distinction of nations. Renan showed that it is impossible to consider language as a distinctive feature of a nation. The United States and England, as well as Latin America and Spain (or Portugal) speak the same language but do not constitute a single nation, said Renan. By contrast, in Switzerland, people use three or four different languages.
‘The desire of Switzerland to be united despite its linguistic variety is a much more important fact than similarity often achieved by humiliation. An honorable fact about France is that it has never sought to achieve linguistic unity by means of coercion. Can’t one have the same sentiments and thoughts and love the same things in different languages?’ (Renan, 1992, p.7).
According to Renan, in many territories in different times people spoke in different languages. For example, in Prussia, where, at the end of the nineteenth century (the time when Renan gave his lecture) people spoke only in German, Slavonic languages were dominant several centuries ago. Moreover, according to him, interest in language as a criterion of nationhood is dangerous and inconvenient. When we exaggerate the importance of language in politics, we limit our
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understanding of nations and cultures. Before speaking in any language, the human is a moral being capable of reasoning and also ‘a member of this or that race, or a participant in this or that culture’ (Renan, 1992, p. 8).
Twentieth-century authors like Eric Hobsbawm (1917–2012) and Ernest Gellner (1925–1995) also stressed the impossibility of language as a criterion for nationhood. According to e Gellner, there are about 8,000 different languages in the world. This figure, said Gellner, can no doubt be increased by counting dialects separately. That is, because, for example, many Slavonic
languages, which are considered as separate languages, are more similar to one another than different dialects of Arabic while Arabic is considered one language (Gellner, 1983, p. 44). On the other hand, the number of states in the world is about 200. If we allow language to be considered as the basis for nationhood, then only one out of 40 groups would be considered a nation with its state. Thus, this notion of connecting language with the state and regarding
language as the criteria for distinction of nations Gellner considers as inadequate and dangerous. Hobsbawm discussed the issue of language more thoroughly. According to him, not knowing other group’s languages is the most obvious barrier for communication with those other groups, and, therefore, the most obvious definer of the lines which separate groups. It is difficult for those people who speak in different languages and who live side by side not to identify themselves based on language similarities and differences. However, these language barriers
and identities, according to Hobsbawm, do not play an important role, if they are not considered as the bases for potential separate nations (Hobsbawm, 1992, p. 51). Then, discussing the nature
and examples of vernacular languages, Hobsbawm concluded that the actual or literal ‘mother tongue’ – the spoken language which children learnt from illiterate mothers and used every day – was not in any sense a ‘national language’. National languages, according to Hobsbawm, are almost always semi-artificial constructs and occasionally, like in the case of Modern Hebrew, which is virtually invented, ‘Languages multiply with states; not the other way round’
(Hobsbawm, 1992, pp. 53–54, p. 63).
To conclude this section, both those who claimed that language is the criteria for the existence of different nations and those who claimed that language is not the criteria for existence of different nations based their judgment on how language is connected with state (with the exaction of Herder). Idea of state is the central issue for those groups of authors.
10 2. Idea of state in discussions about religion as a distinctive trait for a nation
According to Renan, at its origin, religion was an extension of the family and there were times when religion was connected with politics. For example, the religion of Athens was a cult of Athens and the basis for Athens’ laws and customs. However, it was also, according to Renan, a state religion, because if someone refused to practice that religion, he/she would not be
considered as Athenian. Renan compares the Athens religion with current mandatory military service.
‘To refuse to participate in such a cult was the same as it would be in our modern societies to refuse military service: it was to declare that one was not Athenian’ (Renan 1992, p. 8). The situation was similar in several small republics during the Middle Ages. One was not a good Venetian, said Renan, if one did not swear by Saint Mark. One was not a good Amalfian if one did not put Saint Andrew above all other saints.
In the nineteenth century, however, in the time when Renan lived, the situation was changed. Europe had already seen the bloody religious wars after which religious tolerance and religious freedom gained ground.
‘There is no longer any religion of the state’ said Renan, ‘one can be French, English, or German while being a Catholic, a Protestant, a Jew, or someone who practices no religion’ (Renan, 1992, p. 8).
Religion had become something individual which, having still an important role in society, did not have a strong connection with the state at the end of the nineteenth century.
‘The division of nations between Catholics and Protestants no longer exists. Religion, something that, fifty-two years ago, played so major a role in the creation of Belgium, still maintains its importance in the interior of each individual. But it has nearly nothing to do with the reasons that determine the limits of various peoples’ (Renan, p. 8).
In some cases, however, religion played an important role in defining the boundaries of a nation. As Kedourie noted (Kedourie 1961, p. 76), Pan Arab, Armenian or Greek nationalism derived the greater part of their strength from the existence of ancient religious ties. In most cases, however, when religion played a distinctive role in nation formation, it had to transform itself. Gellner also claimed that religion had to transform itself in modernity for playing the role in nation formation.
‘To perform the diacritical, nation-defining role, the religion in question may in fact need to transform itself totally, as it did in Algeria: in the nineteenth century, Algerian Islam with its reverence for holy lineages was for all practical purposes co-extensive with rural shrine and saint cults’ (Gellner, p. 73).
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According to Hobsbawm, the links between religion and national consciousness can still be very close, as the examples of Poland and Ireland demonstrate. The relation, claims Hobsbawm, in fact, seems to grow closer in those phases where nationalism becomes a mass force than in those when religion was a minority ideology and activists’ movement. Hobsbawm noted the example of Zionist militants, who were more likely to eat ham sandwiches demonstratively in the ‘heroic days of the Palestine Yishuv’ than to wear ritual caps, as Israeli zealots are apt to do today. Another example is the nationalism of Arab countries, which is identified with Islam. Growing identification of nationalism with religion is also characteristic of the Irish movement
(Hobsbawm, 1992, 68).
Thus, according to Hobsbawm, religion is an old and well-tried method for establishing communion through common practice. It is also a kind of brotherhood between people who otherwise have nothing much in common. Some versions of religion, such as Judaism, are specifically designed as membership badges for particular human communities.
‘Yet religion is a paradoxical cement for proto-nationalism, and indeed for modern nationalism, which has usually (at least in its more crusading phases) treated it with considerable reserve as a force which could challenge the “nation’s monopoly claim to its members’ loyalty. In any case, genuinely tribal religions normally operate on too small a scale for modern nationalities and resist much broadening out’ (Hobsbawm 68).
On the other hand, said Hobsbawm, the world religions which were invented at various times between the sixth century BC and the seventh century AD, are universal by definition, and therefore, designed to fudge ethnic, linguistic, political and other differences. Hobsbawm noted the examples of Spaniards and Indians in the empire, Paraguayans, Brazilians and Argentines since independence, who were faithful ‘children’ of Rome, and who could not distinguish
themselves as communities by their religion. However, there is also competition between nations and peoples who live in the borders of one religion and who sometimes can choose to
differentiate themselves as distinct nations. For example, Russians, Ukrainians and Poles were able to differentiate themselves while staying Orthodox.
“Nevertheless, it is worth noting that the prevalence of transnational religions, at all events in the regions of the world in which modern nationalism developed, imposed limits on religio-ethnic identification. It is far from universal, and even where it is found, it usually
distinguishes the people in question not from all its neighbors, but only from some, as, e.g. Lithuanians are separated from Lutheran Germans and Latvians and from Orthodox Russians and Byelorussians by their Roman Catholicism, but not from Poles who are equally fervent Catholics. In Europe, only the nationalist Irish, who have no neighbors other than Protestants, are exclusively defined by their religion” (Hobsbawm 69).
Thus, as in the case of language, religion also was discussed in literature as a distinctive trait for nations and for formation of state. I will state main conclusions in section 5 of this chapter.
12 3. Idea of state in discussions about nation as a self-determined cultural group
In this section I discuss the notion that it is the culture which determines a nation and forms states. This idea is inherent to many theorists’ works. In short, they claim that a nation is just a distinct cultural unit (Yael Tamir, David Miller) with corresponding political sovereignty or state (Robert McKim). I will start with a discussion concerning the first part of the previous sentence – with the claim that a nation is a distinct cultural unit. This can be considered as the first premise of the cultural argument.
The idea that there is a distinct cultural unit called ‘national culture’ is not always explicitly stated but it is assumed. For example, Yael Tamir in his ‘Liberal nationalism’ (1993) discussed the question ‘why should the wishes of individuals to … adhere to their national culture be respected?’ He also made statements like ‘membership in a national culture is part of the essence of being human’; ‘individuals should be discouraged or even prevented from adhering to their own culture if it seems less rich or less suitable to modern times’; ‘national cultures should, therefore, be protected if, and only if, their members express a reflective interest in adhering to them’ (Tamir, 1993, pp. 35–37) and so on. In all those examples, the expressions ‘national culture’ or ‘own culture’ imply that there are such things as distinct cultures whose boundaries coincide with nations, therefore, the expression ‘national culture’ makes sense. The same line of thought can be found in another famous author David Miller who writes about liberal
nationalism. For example, in his work ‘On nationality’ he used the expressions like ‘the equal rights of all nations to protect their cultures’ (Miller, 1995, p. 9) or ‘equal respect for cultures other than our own’ (Miller, 1995, p. 10) or ‘common public culture’ which he described as ‘a set of characteristics that in the past was often referred to as a “national character”’ (Miller, 1995, p. 25). In all those examples, Miller assumed that distinct national cultures do exist. According to cultural theorist Joseph Raz, a culture provides a comprehensive or encompassing context within which members of that cultural group make choices: ‘Familiarity with a culture determines the boundaries of the imaginable. Sharing in a culture, being part of it, determines the limits of the feasible’ (Raz, 1995, p. 134). Moreover, this line of argumentation implies that not only are national cultures comprehensive, but also that they are the most comprehensive form of cultural units (for example, compared to fan clubs of football teams or lovers of classical music, which can also be considered as cultural units). The claim about national culture as the most comprehensive form of a cultural unit can be considered the second premise of the cultural argument.
The third premise of the cultural argument is the notion that culture also has a political
dimension. ‘There are good reasons for cultural groups to have a political dimension’ claimed Robert McKim and Jeff McMahan (McKim & McMahan, 1997, p. 259). They discussed the question about the kind of political dimensions that fit best for different kinds of cultural units and conclude that nation is the most comprehensive and distinct form of cultural unit.
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‘So nationhood has both a cultural dimension and a political dimension. It seems that if the political dimension is completely absent, we would not normally talk of there being a nation. Thus the Amish in the United States, the Chinese in Malaysia, and evangelical Protestants in Ireland are all well-defined cultural groups, but none of them counts as a nation; the reason, I think, is that they lack a well-defined political agenda of the right sort. In this they differ from, say, the Quebecois in Canada, the Kurds in Iraq, Iran, and Turkey, and the French, each of which is a cultural group that either has a political aspiration of this sort or has Its own state and hence is considered to be a nation. Irish nationalists and Irish unionists are also groups that ought to be classified as nations’ (McKim and McMahan, 1997, p. 259).
Finally, because the highest form of sovereignty is the state, namely the national state, then it is logical to conclude that a nation is a distinct and the most comprehensive cultural unit with a corresponding state. The next conclusion then is the claim that a nation ‘provides an anchor’ for individuals for their ‘self-identification and the safety of effortless, secure belonging’ (Raz, 1995, p. 133).
It is important to stress that the above described cultural argument implies that it is culture which determines the nation and/or state and not the other way around. As Miscevic noted, ‘the national character (or essence) of culture dictates the need for, and the character of, the nation-state: it is because cultures are national that states should also be so, not vice versa’ (Miscevic, 2001, p. 140).
This was a very short description of the ‘cultural’ argument which claims that culture is the distinctive trait of a nation, therefore, culture as an identification trait is provided by a nation. I can summarise it in following premises and conclusions:
Premise 1: A nation is a distinct cultural unit.
Premise 2: A nation is the most comprehensive cultural unit.
Premise 3: Cultural units have a political dimension (or political sovereignty).
Premise 4: The more comprehensive a cultural unit is, the higher the form of political sovereignty it needs.
Premise 5: The highest form of political sovereignty is the state.
Conclusion 1: A nation is a distinct and the most comprehensive cultural unit with a corresponding state.
Conclusion 2: A nation provides a comprehensive and distinct culture for identification of individuals.
Before discussing the objections to this argument, a few words must be said about the definition of the concept ‘culture’. De George wrote that the wide or general meaning of ‘culture’ refers to
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a ‘way of life’, encompassing ‘customs, ways of doing things, traditions of a society’. Rorty defined it simply as ‘a set of shared habits of action, those which enable members of a single human community to get along with each other and with the surrounding environment as well as they do’ (cited from Miscevic, 2001, p. 145).
Language and religion are usually considered important aspects of national culture. Common ancestry is also sometimes considered as such. However, a ‘national way of life’ can be distinct from language, religion and common ancestry, because different people can have a similar language, the same religion and even the same common ancestry but still develop different ‘ways of life’ and be different nations. At least the cultural argument described above stresses first of all the national ‘way of life’ and only after that language, religion or ethnicity. However, in case language and/or religion are considered the most important aspects of national culture, my discussion in previous sections and argumentations would apply for a ‘cultural argument’. In case of ethnicity my discussion in chapter 2 would apply for cultural argument. In case a national way of life is stressed in the cultural argument, the following discussion would apply for the cultural argument.
The first premise of the cultural argument, namely the idea of a nation as a distinct unit of culture was rejected by many authors. They claim that there is no such thing as a distinct national
culture. As Amy Gutmann noted, it is misleading to say ‘our culture’, ‘their culture’ or ‘a culture’ because the singularity of cultures just does not exist in the real world (Gutmann, 2003, p. 48). James Tully noted that cultures always exist in the processes of interaction with other cultures, they overlap geographically, come in a variety of types and are densely interdependent in their formation and identity.
“The modern age is intercultural rather than multicultural. The interaction and entanglement of cultures have been further heightened by the massive migrations of this century. Cultural diversity is not a phenomenon of exotic and incommensurable others in distant lands and at different stages of historical development, as the old concept of culture made it appear. No. It is here and now in every society. Citizens are members of more than one dynamic culture and the experience of crossing cultures is normal activity. In Europe and the People without History (1982), Eric Wolf showed that the interaction and interdependency of cultures is not a recent phenomenon; the cultures of the world have been shaped and formed by interaction for a millennium (Tully, 1995, p. 118)”.
Miscevic also rejected the idea that cultures are primarily national:
‘Why would culture be particularly national, given the historical fluidity of national identities and the extent to which nations are brought into being by extraneous
circumstances such as conflicts between states? Suppose a nation sprouts at the beginning of the twentieth century as a result of a conflict between two states. Why assume that it will have a distinct, recognizable culture?’ (Miscevic, 2001, p 148)
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Miscevic said that ‘the illusion that the nation is anything like a natural or mandatory unit’ of culture comes from ‘the salience and excellence of the few Western European and some
traditional Asian examples, plus a vague sense that something similar must also go on elsewhere’ (Miscevic, 2001, p. 149).
The idea that cultures are not static and they evolve all the time is connected to the so-called ‘cultural turn’ in the social sciences which happened at the end of the twentieth century. The rise of new social movements challenged the purported homogeneity of national cultures and
identities. As Ozkirimli noted:
in this context, the static notion of “culture” as a coherent, harmonious whole is replaced by more fluid and dynamic interpretations which treat the latter as a deeply contested concept whose meaning is continually negotiated and revised by successive generations and by different groups that are presumed to make up the national body (Ozkirimli, 2017, p. 182).
This new notion of culture in social sciences constructed the basis for contemporary approaches in nationalism studies.
Because the first premise is not true, the whole cultural argument is not sound. However, for the discussion of the second premise (for the sake of argument), I can assume that the first premise is true and discuss the second premise. I argue that even if the first premise is true (and I assume for a moment that there are such things as distinct cultures), the second premise is not true. That is because we can think of other cultural formats, namely local, regional, international and global, which are at least as comprehensive as nation-state level cultures. For example, we can think of the distinct culture of Amsterdam (we temporarily accepted the notion of distinct
cultures) compared to other regions or cities of the Netherlands and compared to the Netherlands as a whole. Amsterdam has its own schools, universities, hospitals, theatres, galleries and many other social institutions which all together can be considered as quite comprehensive or at least no less comprehensive than the culture of nation-state level. One can be born in Amsterdam, go to school and university there, work there and mostly read local newspapers and watch local TV channels. The culture of Amsterdam provides quite encompassing choices of everything for an individual. Alternatively, we can imagine a resident of Amsterdam who studied in another European country, who travels a lot inside Europe because of his/her work, whose wife (or husband) is from a neighbouring country and who has a hobby of exploring all the museums of Europe. It is easy to see that the nation-state level culture of the Netherlands is not as
comprehensive for this individual as the European culture, or, at least, national level culture is not more comprehensive than European culture. The idea is that in the age globalisation and integrations when information technologies, social media and Hollywood movies play a
significant role in shaping cultures and identities, it is quite problematic to claim that the nation-state level cultures are the most encompassing ones. Besides that, when we speak about culture as an identity provider, we must not forget that culture does not completely encompass the
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identity of its members (Gutmann, 2003, p. 49). Even all cultures combined cannot completely comprehend and constrain individuals’ creative thinking, imagining and hoping (Gutmann, 2003, p. 49). Therefore, we must not exaggerate the role of cultures in the formation of identities (Conclusion 2) even if all premises of the cultural argument are true (which they are not). Premise 3 and Premise 4 are also problematic. Discussing the claims of sovereignty-based minority group cultures and ‘dangers of nationalism writ large and small’, Gutmann argued that the rule that ‘the more encompassing a culture, the more absolute the sovereignty of the group should be’ does not respect individuals, because ‘the degree to which a cultural group is encompassing is not necessarily the degree to which it takes equal freedom and civic equality seriously’ (Gutmann, 2003, p. 49, p. 53).
To conclude this section, cultural argument, which implies that a nation is a distinct cultural group with a corresponding state and that (therefore) a nation provides culture as an
identification trait is not sound. Cultures are not distinct and static, they are evolving all the time and they cannot have any corresponding state.
17 4. Idea of state in the genesis of the term “nation”
It is important to see why and how state (or the notion of statehood) was connected to the word ‘nation’ and what other important meanings or connotations (besides the state) the word ‘nation’ historically has (if any).
According to Peter Burke, only after 1800 did the term ‘nation’ get a meaning intrinsically connected with state. Although the term ‘nation’ was used before the eighteenth century, it had different meanings. Dante used it to denote the inhabitance of the city Florence (‘Florentine nation’). Machiavelli used the expression ‘Ghibelline nation’ to denote the faction or party of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, which supported the Holy Roman Emperor against the Pope. Edmund Spenser spoke about the ‘nation of birds’ and Ben Jonson about the ‘nation of lawyers’. ‘Even when the word “nation” was used about Germans, for instance, or Poles, it might refer to the nobility alone (an early modern Polish myth described the nobles and the peasants as two different races, descended from Japhet and Cham respectively)’ (Breuilly, 2013, p. 22).
According to Kedourie, in ordinary speech, by the word ‘nation’ people originally meant a group of men larger than a family, but smaller than a clan and who were close to each other because they were born in the same or close places. In ancient and medieval times, you could speak about the ‘Roman Senate and People’ (in Latin – ‘Senātus Populusque Rōmānus’), not about the ‘Roman nation’. Kedourie thought that the word nation applied also to communities of foreigners. It is well known, according to him, that medieval universities were divided into ‘nations’. For example, the University of Paris had four nations: l'honorable nation de France; la fidèle nation de Picardie; la vénérable nation de Normandie; and la constante nation de
Germanie. ‘These distinctions in use within the university, indicated places of provenance, but in no way corresponded either to modern geographical divisions, or indeed to what is now
understood by “nations”’ (Kedourie, 1961, p. 13).
Later, according to Kedourie, the word started to be used as a collective noun, ‘sometimes in a pejorative sense’. Machiavelli and Montesquieu used the term in that sense. The use of the word as a collective noun persisted until the eighteenth century, when David Hume defined nation as ‘nothing but a collection of individuals’ who acquired some common traits. After that, gradually the word ‘nation’ started to acquire political meaning. Diderot and D’Alembert, in the
Encyclopédie, defined nation as ‘a collective word used to denote a considerable quantity of those people who inhabit a certain extent of country defined within certain limits, and obeying the same government’. Elected representatives of different councils, diets or estates started to be called ‘nations’. Thus, the term was used to denote aristocracy, lords and bishops, as we can conclude from ‘The Spirit of the Laws’ written by Montesquieu. When he said that under the first two dynasties in France ‘the nation was often called together’, he meant that it was ‘the lords and the bishops’ who were called together. When the French revolution of 1789 took place and the slogan according to which ‘the principle of sovereignty resides essentially in the nation’
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was formulated, the notion that the nation was more than the King and the aristocracy emerged. Diderot and D’Alembert’s definition of word ‘nation’ in the Encyclopédie was changed by Sieyès, who defined it as ‘a body of associates living under one common law and represented by the same legislature’ (Kedourie, 1961, pp. 14). Such a claim said Kedourie, means that:
a nation is a body of people to whom a government is responsible through their
legislature; any body of people associating together, and deciding on a scheme for their own government form a nation, and if, on this definition, all the people of the world decided on a common government, they would form one [common] nation (Kedourie, 1961, pp. 15).
Kohn also paid attention to the fact that a nation was born in a common fight for political rights, for individual liberty and tolerance, for the inalienable rights of every man, universalised as a hope and message for the whole of mankind. After bloody European religious wars, the diversity and tolerance of religion was accepted in America in the eighteenth century to a degree unheard of at that period. Diversity in ethnic and racial strains made America a ‘melting pot’. The ideas of liberty then, expressed in the Constitution, became the ide which formed the American nation. Without that idea, claimed Kohn, there would have been no American nation:
For the first time a nation had arisen on the basis of “these truths held to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain
inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” – truths which the nation could not give up without destroying its own foundation (Kohn, 1965, pp. 19–20).
Hobsbawm also presented valuable information about the genesis of the word ‘nation’. He scrutinised the different editions of the Dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy to see how the concepts of nation, state and language were defined. He concluded that the Dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy did not use the terminology of state, nation and language in the modern meaning before its edition of 1884. In that edition, it was written that ‘lengua nacional’ is ‘the official and literary language of a country, and the one generally spoken in that country, as distinct from dialects and the languages of other nations’. Before 1884, the word ‘nación’ simply meant ‘the aggregate of the inhabitants of a province, a country or a kingdom’ and also ‘a
foreigner’. But now it was given as ‘a State or political body which recognizes a supreme centre of common government’ and also ‘the territory constituted by that state and its individual
inhabitants, considered as a whole, and henceforth the element of a common and supreme state is central to such definitions, at least in the Iberian world’ (Hobsbawm, 1990, p. 15).
The government, concluded Hobsbawm, was not therefore specifically linked with the concept of nation until 1884. Hobsbawm also scrutinised the word ‘patria’ (the homeland) and ‘tierra’ (land) in the Spanish dictionary of 1726 (its first edition). The concept ‘homeland’ meant only ‘the place, township or land where one is born’, or ‘any region, province or district of any lordship or
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state’. Only in the 1884 edited version of the Spanish dictionary was the meaning of ‘tierra’ connected with a state. Then, in 1925, in an edited version of the Spanish dictionary, an
emotional note of modern patriotism emerged in the word patria – ‘our own nation, with the sum total of material and immaterial things, past, present and future that enjoy the loving loyalty of patriots’ (Hobsbawm, 1990, p. 15).
Hobsbawm also discussed the historical meaning of the German words ‘volk’ (people), ‘natio’ and ‘natie’ as well as the meaning of the word ‘nation’ in the Dutch and English dictionaries and concluded that today the term ‘nation’ has quite a different meaning compared to its original:
In its modern and basically political sense the concept nation is historically very young. Indeed, this is underlined by another linguistic monument, the New English Dictionary which pointed out in 1908, that the old meaning of the word envisaged mainly the ethnic unit, but recent usage rather stressed “the notion of political unity and independence” (Hobsbawm, 1990, pp. 16–17).
After the discussion of the eighteenth and nineteenth century revolutions in Europe and America, Hobsbawm concluded that ‘the element of citizenship and mass participation or choice was never absent’ from the modern meaning of the word nation (Hobsbawm, 1990, p. 18).
To conclude this section, I would like to stress that the notion of state is inherent for the concept ‘nation’.
20 5. The conclusion of Chapter 1
Two main conclusions can be made for chapter 1. First and foremost, there is something which unites almost all parts of the debate about the issue of language, religion and culture in context of nation. Starting from Fichte and McKim until Renan and Miscevic, they all discuss language,
religion and culture in the context of a connection (or absence of connection) with a state, because they all imply that a nation is something which is intrinsically connected with a state.
Fichte claimed that language is a distinctive trait for a nation, because, he argued, each different linguistic group must have its own state and each state must have its separate language. McKim claimed that nation is distinct cultural unit because each cultural unit has its corresponding political dimension (sovereignty). The other side of the debate, in contrast, claims that there is no congruence between linguistic, religious and cultural differences and differences between states. Or, even if somewhere there is congruence between language division and state, or congruence between religious divisions and state, there are many cases when no such congruence can be found. But they all agree that a nation is something political, something which implies statehood. Second, language, religion, and culture cannot be considered as distinctive traits of a nation. As I demonstrated, Renan, Kohn, Kedourie, Hobsbawm and many other discussed authors brought quite a sound arguments why languages, religions and culture cannot be the basis for the distinction of nations. As Hobsbawm concluded, attempts to establish objective criteria for nationhood, or to explain why certain groups have become ‘nations’ and others not, have often been made, based on single criteria such as language or religion or a combination of criteria such as language, common territory, common history, cultural traits or whatever else. However, ‘all such objective definitions have failed, because whenever some members of the large class of entities would fit the definitions of “nations”, exceptions can always be found’ (Hobsbawm 1992, p. 5).
According to Kedourie, races, languages, religions, political traditions and loyalties are so inextricably intermixed that there can be no clear convincing reason why people who speak the same language, but whose history stances otherwise widely diverge, should form one state, or why people who speak two different languages and whom circumstances have thrown together should not form one state:
On nationalist logic, the separate existence of Britain and America, and the union of English and French Canadians within the Canadian state, are both monstrosities of nature; and a consistent nationalist interpretation of history would reduce large parts of it to inexplicable and irritating anomalies. The inventors of the doctrine tried to prove that nations are obvious and natural divisions of the human race, by appealing to history, anthropology, and linguistics. But the attempt breaks down since, whatever ethnological or philological doctrine may be fashionable for the moment, there is no convincing reason why the fact that people speak the same language or belong to the same race should, by itself, entitle them to enjoy a government exclusively their own. For such a
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claim to be convincing, it must also be proved that similarity in one respect absolutely overrides differences in other respects (Kedourie, 1961, pp. 79–80).
Thus, in this chapter I discussed the idea of state in the concept nation. I showed that for almost all main authors (who disagree with each other on the role of language, religion and culture in the formation of a nation), the idea of state occupies a central position in the concept nation. I also showed that language religion and culture cannot be considered as distinctive traits for a nation. So far, thus, I showed that nation is 1) something intrinsically connected with state and 2) something which cannot be defined in terms of language, religion and culture.
However, I need to define concept nation before moving to the question of national identity and before moving to the question of the idea of state in national identity. In next chapter first of all I will show that nation cannot be defined in terms of ethnicity and that ethnicity does not imply sovereignty or state (just like in case of language, religion and culture). I put the discussion about ethnicity (in section 1) in second chapter because it seems that it is ethnic identity that is mostly confused (or used interchangeably) with national identity and because the distinction between ethnic and national identities is crucial for my main argument. Linguistic, religious and cultural identities (if any) are not seemed confused with national identity as much as it is the case of ethnic identity. After the discussion of ethnicity, finally, I will be able to define nation, then national identity (based on the definition of nation and definition of identity) in section 2. I will show that distinction between the concepts of national identity as opposed to ethnic identity must be done in the basis of identification with state. National identity includes (among others) the idea of identification with state while ethnic identity does not include any idea of identification with state.
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Chapter 2
Ethnicity, national identity and state
1. Ethnicity and stateThere are 3 main approaches in the issue of ethnicity and connection of ethnicity with state and with nation. The first group of authors claim that nations were form on the basis of ethnic groups and ethnic groups have always been existed during the recorded human history. According to this approach, in modern time ethnic groups created their ethnic states, therefore nation must be defined in terms of ethnicity and state. To put it simplistically, according to this approach, nation= ethnic group + state, where sign ‘+’ means in ‘congruence with’. The second approach goes further and claims that ethnicity has always been political; therefore nations have always existed during the recorded human history. And the third approach claims that even if there were ethnic identities before modernity, they could not be the basis for nation formation. I will start discussion with the first approach.
Approach 1. Ethnic origins of nations
There are 3 main schools whose authors claim that nation must be defined in terms of ethnicity and that ethnicity has always existed. Those 3 schools are primordialism (Pier van der Berghe), perennialism (Adrian Hastings) and ethno-symbolism (John Armstrong, Anthony Smith). Primordialism is an umbrella term for studies that consider nationalism as a natural part of human beings, perennialism considers nations as the fundamental feature of human life throughout recorded history and ethno-symbolism stresses the role of myths, symbols and traditions for the formation of nations (Smith, 2009, pp. 3–25).
According to the primordialist, Pier van der Berghe, there were always ethnic groups, from the beginning of human history. Then, claimed Berghe, ethnic groups transformed to the nation during modernity, when demand for political autonomy started to be considered in connection with the sense of belonging to an ethnic group. A nation, according to Berghe, is simply ‘a politically conscious ethnie’ (cited from Ozkirimli, 2016, p. 57).
Ethno-symbolist Armstrong claimed that ethnic consciousness existed in both ancient
civilisations like Egypt and Mesopotamia and also in medieval European and Middle Eastern civilisations. Ethnicity, according to Armstrong, was always the base for forming collective organisations. Contemporary nationalism is just the final phase of the larger cycle of ethnic consciousness (Armstrong, 1982, pp. 3–5). Armstrong agrees with modernist authors (like Anderson and Hobsbawm) that national identities along with other identities were invented during modernity. However, he grounds the emergence of national identities on persistent ethnic identities, giving ethnicity a major role in the formation of nations and nationalism.
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Smith, another ethno-symbolist, also gives ethnicity a very important role in nationality. In his book ‘The ethnic origins of nations’ (1986) he also claimed that ethnic communities not only existed in modern time but also in the premodern era. Ethnic communities, according to Smith, have been widespread in all eras of history:
at least since the onset of the Bronze Age in the Middle East and Aegean, when written records appear to recount communal exploits and chronicle ethnic vicissitudes and they [ethnic
communities] still characterize many areas of the globe and are to be found even in the most modernized states of the industrialized world (Smith, 1988, p. 32).
Anthony Smith defined ethnic communities as ‘named human populations with shared ancestry, myths, histories, and cultures, having an association with a specific territory and a sense of solidarity’ (Smith, 1986, p. 32).
Smith did not agree with premordialists and other authors, who claimed that ethnic groups have constituted the main mode of socio-cultural organisation or even that they were the only one in premodern eras. Smith, however, said that ethnic grouping has been at least as important as other forms of organisation and culture. He also rejected ‘perennialism’ and ‘primordialism’, which consider ethnicity as a continuous entity (even if invisible). He tried to show that ethnicity emerged and re-emerged right before the modern era in different continents and in different times.
‘Ethnicity was a socio-cultural model for human organization and communication from the early third millennium BC until today, even if not every “society” has followed this model of organization. In other words, while making no claims for its universality, I am arguing for the widespread and chronic, if intermittent, appearance and persistence of this
phenomenon. The paradox of ethnicity is its mutability in persistence, and its persistence through change’ (Simith 1986, p 32).
Although Smith rejected the notion of continuity of ethnic groups from early ages until
modernity, he also claimed that once ethnic identities are formed, they are very durable, namely – they can only be changed (because of migration, intermarriages and so on) very slowly.
“Usually, there has been some ethnic basis for the construction of modern nations, be it only some dim memories and elements of culture and alleged ancestry, which it is hoped to revive” (Smith 1986, 16-18).
Approach 2. Ethnicity and sovereignty
Neoperenialists (Hence Steven Grosby, Aviel Roshwold and Azar Gat) go further and claimed that political sovereignty was almost always expressed in ethnic groups of ancient times. This is the strongest claim in the scope of the notion that ethnicity is the main trait or characteristic of nationality because this claim almost equates nation with ethnicity. Grosby criticises another
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perennialist, Adrian Hastings, in his article ‘Religion, ethnicity, and nationalism: the uncertain perennialism of Adrian Hastings’. Hastings called premodern expressions of ethnicity a ‘proto-nation’, ‘nation in waiting’, ‘semi-conscious’ or ‘half-self-conscious’ nation, a ‘somnolent’ nation and a ‘half-submerged reality of a medieval nation’, because Hastings did not attribute political significance to ethnic groups (Grosby, 2003, p. 8). So, after the recognition of ‘how appropriately difficult it often is to demarcate sharply the nation from many expressions of ethnicity’, Grosby does not hesitate to almost equate ethnicity with nation by claiming that:
politically stable ethnicity and a mythology of uniqueness, transmitted, albeit unevenly, through a vernacular literature, can be found not only in ancient Israel and those ancient societies influenced by the image of ancient Israel such as Armenia and Ethiopia, but also in other instances, such as ancient Egypt, Babylon and Japan (Grosby, 2003, p. 8, p. 10). Poland of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries and Korea between the tenth and fourteenth centuries can be considered nations too, because all those premodern societies had ‘a self-designating name; a written history; a degree of cultural uniformity, often as a result of and sustained by religion; legal codes; an authoritative center, and a conception of a bounded territory’ (Grosby, 2005, p. 72).
On the other hand, Grosby attributes the characteristics of ethnicity (like kinship and traditions) to the nation. However, according to Grosby, there are some nuances between the concepts of ‘nation’ and ‘ethnicity’.
‘While it is sometimes difficult to distinguish clearly an ethnic group from a nation, ethnicity tends to emphasize beliefs in descent from a supposed common ancestor or ancestors, as if the ethnic group were an extended family, while the focus of the nation is territorial descent’ (Grosby 2005, p 14).
Aviel Roshwald also claimed that nations existed in the ancient world. For him, a nation is: any community larger than one of the mutual acquaintance that claims some form of collective, bounded, territorial sovereignty in the name of its distinctive identity, or any population in its capacity as a society on whose behalf such claims are asserted
(Roshwald, 2006, p. 3).
For Azar Gat, nationalism is one particular form of a broader phenomenon, called ‘political ethnicity’. By ethnicity, he means a population of shared kinship (real or perceived) and culture. Ethnicity, according to Gat, has always been highly political, ever since the emergence of the state and even before (Gat, 2013, p. 3). He claimed that the first nation-state was ancient Egypt, but city-states like ancient Athens should also be regarded as nations. Gat claimed that although everything about ancient states, including Egypt, is partly conjectured, the archaeological
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of shared ethnicity (Gat, 2013, pp. 85–86). Gat goes so far as to even claim that in ancient times both interstate and between states’ wars were motivated by ethnic differences.
“Most ethnic communities were too small and weak to achieve and retain statehood, that is, national independence, whereas more powerful ethnic communities went on to conquer others, assuming a dominant position within a multiethnic state or empire. National states appeared only in those cases in which a rough congruence between an ethnos and a state occurred” (Gat, 2013, p. 5).
The following citation best describes Gat’s position and his main argument.
“Far from being a coincidence, the rough congruence of ethnicity, peoplehood, and statehood in national monarchies throughout history was grounded in common identity, affinity, and solidarity, which greatly facilitated and legitimized political rule. Ethnicity has always been political and politicized, ever since the beginning of politics, because people have always been heavily biased toward those they identify as their kin–culture community” (Gat, 2013, p. 382).
Approach 3. Ethnicity is very different from nationality
The authors who claim that ethnicity was not the bases for nation formation and that ethnicity does not imply sovereignty or state are mostly representatives of modern school of nationalism study (Hobsbawm, Gellner, Anderson and many others). Representatives of this school raised three main type of objections against primordialists, perennialists and ethno-symbolists’ positions.
First, there is little evidence supporting the idea that in ancient and medieval times ethnic groups and ethnic identities were connected with politics or that people felt the desire to have autonomy based on their alleged ethnic identity (even if they have an ethnic identity). In this sense Grosby, Roshwald and Gat’s positions and analyses are very vulnerable. Second, it is easy to show that most modern-day nations are not connected with premodern-day ethnic groups. Third, many authors cast doubt that individuals in premodern time had an ethnic identity.
Grosby, Roshwald and Gat’s analyses, which try to show that ethnicity always was political, suffer from profound methodological flaws. According to Umut Ozkirimli, they rely almost exclusively on documents provided by elites to prove the existence of premodern nations or even nationalism, without much reference to the historiographical debates around the difficulty of obtaining evidence about the sentiments of illiterate masses which comprised the vast majority of the population of states. Primordialists also do not analyse the meaning of the term ‘nation’ and how and in what senses that term was used, even in elite documents. Moreover, according to Ozkirimli, their historical examples are highly selective, important historiographical analyses are omitted and ignored: ‘In other words, neoperenialist case is simply assumed or stated, not
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Even ethno-symbolist Smith, who is in a closer position with perennialists and primordialists, accuses the perenialists, neoperenialists and primordialists ‘retrospective nationalism’ – the propensity to project modern concepts and categories onto earlier social formations (Smith, 2000, p. 10). Citing other authors, who in line with Grosby, Roshwald and Gat, claimed that Jewish history and the Hebrew Bible are early examples of a nation, Smith noted that
primordial/perennial interpretation of Jewish history has been challenged by the ‘post-Zionist’ new historians and sociologists (Smith, 2000, p. 90). Morgenstern, for example, claimed that ‘the ambiguity and the laconic quality of the Hebrew Bible render it constantly open to new
interpretations, and its texts therefore always speak to changing circumstances’ (Morgenstern, 2009, p. 1).
The second line of objections is against the claims of ethno-symbolists (also perennialists and primordialists) that modern-day national communities are the developed version or highest stage of premodern-day ethnic communities. For example, for Patrick J. Geary, the congruence
between early medieval (let alone ancient) and contemporary peoples is a myth. According to him, we have difficulty in recognising the differences between earlier ways of perceiving group identities and more contemporary attitudes because we are trapped in the very historical process we are attempting to study.
“What we see in reality is the long-term, discontinues use of certain labels that we have come to see as “ethnic” but these names were fewer descriptions than claims; and the social realities behind them underwent the rapid and radical transformation in each case” (Geary 2002, p. 41, 155).
Geary tried to dismantle that myth by analysing the actual history of Europe’s transformation between the fourth and ninth centuries – the period of grand migrations.
“Whatever a Goth was in the third-century kingdom of Cniva, the reality of a Goth in sixteenth-century Spain was far different, in language, religion, political and social organization, even ancestry…With the constant shifting of allegiances, intermarriages, transformations, and appropriations, it appears that all that remained constant were names, and these were vessels that could hold different contents at different times” (Geary 2002, p. 118).
According to him, the fact that the same names were used could create an impression of continuity, even if radical discontinuity was the lived reality.
Another argument against the idea that nations are the continuations of ethnicity was formulated by Ernest Gellner. If modern national identity is rooted in old ethnic identities and people had the feeling for their ethnic identities, then why have so many alleged ethnic groups disappeared so easily? Why have only a small proportion of ethnic groups became aware of their common identity, while others disappeared so easily? Why do some groups seek to endow their culture
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with a political roof, while others do not? In fact, ‘for every successful nationalist movement, there are “n” unsuccessful ones’ (Gellner, 1983, pp. 44–45).
The third line of objections against ethno-symbolists, perennialists and primordialists is that it is not certain that individuals of premodern time always identified themselves with their ethnic communities. Sami Zubaida claimed that ethnicity was not the basis for identification. Or, according to him, even if ethnicity was the base of identification; it was not the primary basis for identification in the past. Ethnic designations, although not devoid of reference to linguistic groups or ethnicities, were inconsistently used and often had non-ethnic connotations.
“For many, locality or religion remained a strong anchor of identity until well into the nineteenth century. Even then, ethnicity was one identity among many, and certainly not the most important” (cited from Ozkirimli, 2017, p. 67).
Hans-Werner Goetz in his extensive work ‘Regna and Gentes: the relationship between Late Antique and Early medieval peoples and kingdoms in the transformation of the Roman world’ (2003) also claimed that it remains difficult to understand to what extent people in the Roman period regarded themselves as ethnic units and developed an ethnic identity.
“Although we may assume that they shared some kind of solidarity and cohesion, it remains uncertain on what elements these were based or if such elements were of greater import than the interests of the individual” (Goetz 2003, p. 604-605).
Goetz’ argument goes further. According to him, even if there were some ethnic units, they were primarily shaped and influenced by kings. Even when there was a sense of common identity before the formation of political unity, ‘the kingdom changed the structure and definition of the people’ (Goetz, 2003, pp. 623–624).
Walter Pohl and Helmut Reimitz noted that ancient and modern authors have defined ethnicity by a set of features like language, customs and costume.
“What is our evidence that these criteria were actually used to distinguish between ethnic groups, or to express their identity? ... All of these features, in a number of instances, could be counted as distinctive for some groups, and this is what has led many to believe that they were more or less universally valid. But in most cases, their use is surrounded by a halo of uncertainties and contradictions” (Pohl, Reimitz 1998, p. 9).
Thus, the evidence, according to Pohl Reimitz, tells us relatively little about how members of different ethnic communities could actually be distinguished.
“Everybody knew that foreigners looked different. But whenever this alterity is actually taken as an expression of ethnic identities, the picture becomes blurred, and only vague concepts remain. …A lot of our evidence shows how fleeting ethnic identity in the early Middle Ages could be, and that no more than a generation was needed to make a people
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disappear from the sources (for instance the Avars), or to establish it as a first-rate political factor (for instance the Bavarians)” (Pohl and Reimitz 1998, p 10).
That ethnicity cannot be a distinctive trait for a nation can also be shown by modern-day state’s analyses. As Hobsbawm noted, the populations of current large territorial nation-states are almost invariably too heterogeneous to claim a common ethnicity, even if we leave aside modern immigration.
“In any case the demographic history of large parts of Europe has been such that we know how multifarious the origin of ethnic groups can be, especially when areas have been depopulated and resettled in the course of time, as in vast areas of central, eastern and south-eastern Europe, or even in parts of France…Moreover, very few modern national movements are actually based on a strong ethnic consciousness, though they often invent one once they have got going, in the form of racism” (Hobsbawm 63, 65).
To conclude this section, there is substantive evidence which suggests that nation cannot be defined in terms of ethnicity and that ethnicity does not imply statehood.
