The Basic Tenets of Discourse on Ethnicity and Nationalism

Ethnicity is based upon cultural distinctiveness and not on race or any other physically distinguishable quality, although there is a belief in each ethnic group of the common descent of its members. The ethnic community is a community of culture, with shared beliefs, values, symbols, and ways of life that differentiates its members from other groups. Ethnicity, understood as a racial difference, is not demonstrable; even where it has been fused with a state tradition in such ethnically more or less homogeneous states as Japan or Korea. In the sense of cultural community, ethnicity certainly represents the oldest distinction among human groups, whether centered on religious beliefs or a "myths of the origins" or common historical experiences [Weber 1978, Vol. 1: 388].

Ethnic groups generally strive to achieve autonomy, as in the time of the old empires, when the rulers lived at a distance of thousands of miles from them, or in modern times, when they strive to achieve political

1 (Mayo, Patricia, The Roots of Identity: Three National Movements in Contemporary European Politics. [London, Allen Lane, 1974]: 156).

2(Lewis, Bernard, "Europe, Islam et société civile," in Le Débat. No. 62. November-December [1990}: 131).

VICTOR SEGESVARY : INTER-CIVILIZATIONAL RELATIONS AND THE DESTINY OF THE WEST

– Part Two. Disjunction Between the Western and Other Cultural Worlds – Chapter Six. Ethnicity and the Nation-state -

independence in the form of nation-states so as to be able to live in accordance with their own community's way of life. The political origins of ethnicity, as suggested by Weber, are not probable at all; it is more plausible, as Arnason pointed out, that religion played a significant role in ethnic survival, especially when the ethnic community identified itself with a salvation religion [Arnason 1990: 217]. As a result, the particularistic closure of the group and the universalistic potential of the religion created a tension which, in retrospect, must have been beneficial, as in the case of the Arab tribal ethnies proves during centuries after the Hidjra. According to Anthony Smith, four features distinguish an ethnic group: the knowledge of unique group origins, such as myths of origin or of liberation; the knowledge of the group's unique history related to its destiny; the differentiation of cultural dimensions of collective individuality; and a sense of unique solidarity of the community [Smith 1981: 66].

Connor calls nations"self-differentiating ethnic groups" and nationalism loyalty to such groups; the

"popularly held awareness or belief that one's own group is unique in a most vital sense" is a pre-requisite of nationhood [Connor 1972: 334]. He gives another important element for the definition of the nation as "an ethnic group may, therefore, be other-defined, the nation must be self-defined" [Connor 1978: 388]. Smith's definition of the political nation, in contrast to the ethnic group, though emphasizing the unmediated nature of national community, shows that the latter is a product of socio-economic and intellectual development at a certain specific moment of history:

Nations are ethnie which are economically integrated around a common system of labour with complementarity of roles, and whose members possess equal rights as citizens of the unmediated political community [Smith 1983:

167].

He correctly points to the fundamental distinction between ethnicity and nationalism by saying that the former is a phenomenon in people's consciousness, whereas the latter is inspired from above, that is, by intellectuals, politicians, or idealistic group leaders. Ethnicity is, nevertheless, the main component of a nation as a community of culture, a "cultural self-determination" in Sir Isaiah Berlin's words,³ in addition to its being a political community or an already established territorial state. Its integrative force operates even in people who live in diaspora or in tribal societies (of which the latter are probably not inclined to create their own state, or to accept the authority of any state). If embraced by nationalism, ethnicity is transformed into a total phenomenon consuming all aspects of the group's economic, political, and social life, not only the purely cultural sphere.

One cannot but agree with the crucial distinction of the concept of national sentiment or national consciousness, from the term nationalism attributed to the doctrine and political movement which aims at the creation or strengthening of a nation enjoying political autonomy. The two are, of course, intertwined, but there is no nationalism without national sentiment or national consciousness; there can, however, be such a sentiment or consciousness without it being invested in a movement and political doctrine. In this sense, the nation is not prospectively recognizable as projected by nationalism; the real nation is not only a posteriori recognizable, as Hobsbawm envisages it [Hobsbawm 1990: 9]. The interplay between nation and nationalism is the same as between "nation" and "nation-state" because there is no "nation-state" without a nation, only states or "state-nations," though the nation can exist without having created its own state.

As Binder pointed out, mass and community must be juxtaposed, the formation of national communities is grasped as actual only when identity becomes a fundamental problem for individuals. That is, mass phenomena have no relationship with authentic community formation [Binder 1964: 83]. National consciousness, which is historical consciousness, is certainly acquired over the course of socialization, formal and informal; therefore, as Kohn said, it is "a state of mind, an act of consciousness" [Kohn 1944: 10], though he does not distinguish clearly between this "state of mind," and the nationalist movement and doctrine as political phenomenon. The concept of national consciousness was well characterized by Henri Hauser, who wrote that the sentiment of belonging to a nation is a fact of the conscience collective, and, more particularly, it stands for a vouloir-vivre collectif, a collective will to live together,⁴ expressed by Ernest

3(Sir Isaiah Berlin's interview with Nathan Gardel on Two Concepts of Nationalism, in The New York Review of Books.

Vol. XXXVIII. No. 19. [21 November 1991]: 19-23).

4(Hauser, Henri. Le principe des nationalités: Ses origines historiques. [Paris, Alcan, 1916]: 7).

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VICTOR SEGESVARY : INTER-CIVILIZATIONAL RELATIONS AND THE DESTINY OF THE WEST

– Part Two. Disjunction Between the Western and Other Cultural Worlds – Chapter Six. Ethnicity and the Nation-state -

Renan, in his famous pamphlet on the nation: "The existence of a nation is an everyday plebiscite."⁵ The deepest meaning of these explanations is that nationhood is nothing else but the ongoing self-definition of the nation which is, however, not identical with the choice of nationality or citizenship.

Many reasons have been given, since Herder, for the development of nationalism in Europe and, consecutively, in other areas of the world. Language is primarily representative as the cohesive force of an ethnic group or a nation and its principal means of communication and association. It is interesting to observe how this nineteenth-century idea concerning linguistically-defined nations was enlarged and extended to the whole human species in the twentieth century, from phenomenologists and Heidegger through the positivists and language-game theorists, to the advocates of "communicative action" or

"communicative society." Nobody could deny the unique role of language as means of communication and the strong cohesive element in any human grouping or community, but it would be unreasonable to eliminate in favor of language, all other important components of ethnic belonging or of nationhood. Social communication does not generate elements of ethnicity or nationhood, but instead amplifies and maintains them through transmittal. Nation as a cultural community has a plurality of characteristics which together form and sustain national consciousness; they are the products of historical events and forces and reflect stages of the formative historical evolution.

Though group consciousness in societies is never exclusive, people do simultaneously belong to several groups without feeling contradiction between their multiple allegiances, as there is generally one allegiance that dominates over the other group-belongings. This is the case in the Arab world where submission to Islam is amalgamated with nationalism, though in the beginning, during the first decades of Arab nationalism, its main standard-bearers were non-Muslim Arabs. After the Second World War, religious consciousness became a most important and basic element of Arab consciousness. It is perhaps enlightening to refer here to the dialectical interplay of authenticity and identity, in the sense that recently formed or renascent nations seek to realize their authenticity, or freedom to be what one already is, according to one's history and cultural tradition, and to formulate that identity. In other words, acquiring the freedom to be what one wants to be even by overcoming particularities inherited from the past [Laroui 1967: 164-168], that is often a result of nation-formation.

There are some who attribute the origins of nationalism to different causes explained in terms of modern development. Ernest Gellner, for example, advances regional discrepancies in economic development, whereby certain groups suffered from a sentiment of relative deprivation in comparison to other dominating groups in a country or territory. He assumes that "uneven development" contributed substantially to some cultural cleavages. However, this argument is not very convincing, as one may ask when and where was economic development ever not uneven; or, conversely, why ethnic/national differences were present in some regions despite apparently similar economic conditions and even development. Is it really possible to say that Central and Eastern European, or Asian and African ethnic and national differences did not exist before autochthonous economic upheavals did not occur, or before such events were not imposed by foreign colonizers?

It seems more plausible to consider modernization and industrialization, as well as cultural ethnicity and nationalism, as cumulative, self-generating and sui generis processes mutually influencing each other in particular contexts. When one considers Gellner's thesis about the importance of general education for the rise of nationalism as a political movement and for the creation of nation-states, it is clear that his argument is much more pertinent in light of the fact that an industrialized and bureaucratized state requires a homogeneous cultural and social base (all the more so if one accepts the concept of nationality as an expression of the individual will). In a wider perspective, education and mass communication reinforce ethnic, cultural and national sentiments in the masses if the educated classes are committed to them, as Napoleon knew only too well. On the other hand, education enhances mobility and therefore weakens the ethnic and cultural ties by reducing the compactness of ethnic groups and dispersing them in accordance with economic opportunities. Conversely, if linguistic or cultural limitations reduce the mobility of members of a specific social group, then they reinforce the group's cohesion.

5(Renan, Ernest, Qu'est ce qu'une nation? [Paris, Calmann-Lévy, 1882]: 27).

VICTOR SEGESVARY : INTER-CIVILIZATIONAL RELATIONS AND THE DESTINY OF THE WEST

– Part Two. Disjunction Between the Western and Other Cultural Worlds – Chapter Six. Ethnicity and the Nation-state -