What is a nation?
An imagined community...fair enough...what is an imagined community?
Benedict Anderson's 'Imagined Communities' is the seminal work at the foundation of the idea of nation as an imagined community. An imagined community is made up of individuals who associate with each other without ever having met or seen each other. As opposed to a real community (i.e. class mates, a church congregation, office staff, teachers at a school, football team etc), members of a nation share belief in nationhood. They imagine other members of their nation to exist rather than know them in person.
The idea of nation is abstract. We all have it yet we really do not know what makes our nation a nation. Is it shared bloodline or race or ethnicity? Is it shared geography? Shared language or culture? Shared religion? Shared history? Or all of these put together?
There are nations that exist without sharing all of the above. Are the swiss a nation, with their multiple languages? Are Americans and British one nation with one language? Are the Kurds in Turkey, Iran and Iraq a nation, with their separatist claims? Are all Muslims of the world a nation? Are the Sikhs in Punjab and the Gujaratis and Tamil part of one big Indian nation? Are the Chinese and the Taiwanese one nation? Are the Palestanians a nation?
Where do you draw the line?
1.23.2008
Nationalism 101
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2 comments:
I personally agree with Renan on the definition of 'nation':
"A nation is a soul, a spiritual principle. Two things which are really one constitute this soul, this spiritual principle. One is the possession in common of a rich heritage of memories, the other is the present consent, the desire to live together, the will to realize the unimpaired heritage."
I find Renan's view on nationalism inspired by passionate thought rather than critical inquiry though of course his contribution is very valuable.
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