Blame the Capitalists!<\/p>\n
There\u2019s only so much room on this planet.\u00a0 If a nation is to expand, or a new one emerge, some existing borders have to be shifted around a bit.\u00a0 It\u2019s just the nature of things.\u00a0 It\u2019s interesting to me to watch as (even as we speak) a new nation (Islamic State) is establishing itself by military force, carving away real estate from two existing\u00a0 \u201cnations\u201d (Iraq and Syria).\u00a0 I placed \u201cnations\u201d in quotes because this book, Imagined Communities, <\/i>has me thinking about what legitimates a nation in the first place.\u00a0 And honestly, I think we all understand that there really is no such thing as a historical \u201cIraq.\u201d\u00a0 Those boundaries were created in the aftermath of WW-1 and VOILA!\u00a0 Now there are \u201cIraqis\u201d where they simply did not previously exist.\u00a0 But, the recent performance of the Iraqi army as they \u201cdefended\u201d their \u201ccountry\u201d from the \u201cIslamic State\u2019s\u201d military advance demonstrates just how deeply patriotic they feel.\u00a0 (Wow! That was a LOT of quotation marks!)\u00a0 They absolutely were NOT prepared to lay down their lives!<\/p>\n
So, what is it that binds a collection of people together?\u00a0 What causes them to live, and in many cases, die for this thing called \u201ccountry?\u201d\u00a0 Will people truly die for a country or is it the preservation of a beloved culture embedded within those imagined connections that they so desperately seek to preserve?\u00a0 I\u2019m considering these things.<\/p>\n
Recently, Russia successfully annexed the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine with virtually no resistance and is presently angling for even more territory in the East.\u00a0 How could this happen?\u00a0 I mean, I am trying to imagine what the response would be from most red-blooded \u2018Mericans if Canada said, \u201cHey, we\u2019d like to have Washington, Idaho, North Dakota and Minnesota.\u00a0 You don\u2019t mind, do you?\u00a0 We\u2019ll just redraw those lines\u2026\u201d\u00a0 Or what if Mexico offered to take back Southern California?\u00a0 Even IF they gave back the fifteen million dollars, we probably would have a problem with that. \u00a0 (or maybe\u2026\u2026 hmmm\u2026)\u00a0 The reality is that the people who live in those annexed areas don\u2019t consider themselves to be Ukrainian.\u00a0 They are ethnic Russians speaking primarily the Russian language.\u00a0 They relate with Russia in culturo-linguistic terms.\u00a0 They just were unfortunate enough to wind up living in the wrong place at the wrong time.\u00a0 This action by Russia could easily be viewed by the occupants of these contested areas as acts of liberation from Ukrainian oppression. Their Russian culture, especially language, holds sway over the arbitrary boundary line behind which they live.1<\/p>\n
So, how is it that Russia could pull of its recent land-grabs?\u00a0 Was it simply because they carry the biggest stick?\u00a0 I don\u2019t think so.\u00a0 I think this was made possible because even if the Ukrainian central government waaaaaaaaay over there in Kiev could muster enough fire-power to defend their territory from invaders encroaching from without, they knew they could never turn the hearts of the people living within<\/i>.\u00a0 So, might as well just rattle a few sabers, do your best to save face, then redraw the lines.\u00a0 Like Benedict Anderson, I believe the true roots of nationalism extend deeply into the soil of culture, and at the heart of culture is shared language.2<\/p>\n
While I can agree with Anderson that common language ultimately is at the heart of any nationalism, probably the most fascinating (and disconcerting) aspect of Anderson\u2019s reflections is his take on how global capitalization fueled the formation of fewer, but more widely embraced, common languages.\u00a0 In other words, there are fewer languages now than in antiquity, and because of that a tendency towards nationalistic emotionalism, and oh yeah, by the way, it\u2019s the Capitalists fault!<\/i><\/b>\u00a0 It\u2019s interesting that when a Marxist identifies what they perceive to be a problem (in this case, the carving down of the human race into national sub-sets), oftentimes, their default posture is to point the finger of blame at Capitalism.\u00a0 Anderson takes a somewhat simplistic approach.\u00a0 His logic moves like this: Once the printing press was fired up on a mass scale, the businessmen who owned them needed to create a market into which their product could be sold.\u00a0 Capitalistic eagerness (think \u201cgreed\u201d) then responded by accelerating the consolidation of languages which, in turn, advanced artificial nationalistic identities. Simple!\u00a0 A grand conspiracy indeed!<\/i><\/b>\u00a0 And once again, a Marxist accuses Capitalists of manipulating the masses for their own ill-gotten gain.\u00a0 That\u2019s the easy explanation, it fits the Socialist narrative.\u00a0 I\u2019m just not so sure it\u2019s that simple.\u00a0 It seems that there are at least a few other markers of national identity than just a common language.<\/p>\n
Food maybe?<\/p>\n
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