The Virulence Of Nationalism

BERKELEY

As the troubled Olympic torch relay winds its way to Beijing, the recent furyin China about the evil doings of the "Dalai clique" in Tibet and ofthe western media goes beyond the ever-active orchestration by the Chineseleadership. As nationalism has replaced socialism as the social glue in thisvast country, old memories of humiliation at foreign hands and current pride inphenomenal economic success generate popular resentment at what looks likeexternal attempts to rain on the parade of China’s glorious Olympic moment.

Of course, the Chinese protestation that the West is politicizing a sportsevent is disingenuous, as all parties concerned, including the Chinesegovernment, treat it as much more than a sports event. The government now triesto tame the anti-West passions of the people and has made some gestures, at besthalf-hearted and likely futile, toward negotiation with the Tibetans. Modulatingthe mass passions and keeping them under appropriate bounds so that they don’tboomerang back is a tough job, as Chinese administrators know very well.

But serious Chinese social thinkers cannot be comfortable about the preeningnationalism all around them, often stoked by the frenzy of the internetmob--witness the harassment and persecution of a Chinese student at DukeUniversity and her family in China on grounds that she committed the grievousoffense of trying to mediate between two opposed groups of demonstrators on theoccasion of the campus protests around Tibet. Nor can the Chinese thinkers beunaware, that despite tight state control over sources of information, theeconomic, political, cultural domination--and migration--of the Han Chinese willkeep on fueling unrest in Tibet even when the current opportunist protests diedown.

Nationalism in all countries whirls around the great tradition and ridesroughshod over the "little people" and their distinctiveness. China inparticular has a long history of homogenization of culture and language, andsuppression of voices of dissent, reflexively taken as signs of rebellion. Thehistorian W.J.F. Jenner in his book The Tyranny of History, describes oneof the basic tenets of Chinese civilization as "that uniformity isinherently desirable, that there should be only one empire, one culture, onescript, one tradition." Even feeble movements for autonomy among theTibetans and Uighurs are thus treated as sedition or "splittist." Thisway the moderates in these movements are discredited, often radicalizing theleadership in the long run and providing the ingredients of self-fulfillingprophecy of the ruling authority in their efforts at suppression.

In contrast, Indian political culture has been somewhat more tolerant ofpluralism, dissent and diversity, and electoral arithmetic often makescompromise and cooptation of dissenting groups necessary. Yet much of the restof the country looks away--or regards it as the necessary price for keeping thenation state intact--as gross abuse of human rights and violence by the IndianArmy regularly take place in Kashmir and the north-eastern part of the country,often reciprocated by the rebels. In different parts of India, the Hindunationalist forces raise their ugly head, politically and socially, and winelections from time to time. They regularly question the national loyalty ofother religious groups and justify atrocities on them. Even sporting eventsbecome political when, during an India-Pakistan cricket match, the Hindufanatics look for traitorous signs of jubilation among Indian Muslim spectatorsif the Pakistan team scores.

Majoritarian violence against ethnic minorities is also familiar in therecent history of Malaysia and Indonesia. Xenophobia has been almost astate-propagated religion in North Korea and Burma. In all these countries, theminorities are routinely branded as anti-national. And earlier in the first fewdecades of the 20th century, militant nationalism that grew in strength in Japanwreaked havoc in much of Asia.

Of course, in many of these countries the ideology of the nation state with itshomogenizing and aggrandizing propensities was an import from the West. Westernhistory is littered with the devastation at home and abroad caused by theoverbearing nation state. The memory of colonial oppression and defeat by theWest and the longstanding reality of its international economic and militarydomination add fuel to the ultra-nationalism in Asia, both on the chauvinistright and the anti-imperialist left. The misdeeds and the ambiguity of acountry’s own history do not deter the nationalist zeal and myth-making. Asthe 19th-century French philosopher, Ernst Renan, famously said, part of being anation is to get its history wrong..

Surely, nationalism is not without its benefits, especially in countrieswhere divisive conflicts among different parochial communities tear societyapart. Particularly in socially extremely heterogeneous countries like India orIndonesia, nationalism can play a role in taming and transcending theinternecine-group conflicts and chaos. But while there may be occasions when onewants to give some primacy to the national identity over other cultural orregional identities, this should not be an argument for suppressing the latteror letting the national identity supersede the larger values of humanitarianism.

India is somewhat fortunate in having Gandhi, Nehru and Tagore as intellectualmentors in the independence movement against the colonizer, as all three warnedagainst the excesses of nationalism. Gandhi called imperialism another name ofarmed nationalism, which he regarded as a curse.

In particular, Tagore, one of India’s greatest writers and thinkers, was mosttrenchant in his criticism of nationalism--even though two of his songs became,posthumously, the national anthems of India and of Bangladesh. About a hundredyears back, even at a time when a fervent nationalist movement in India wassurging all around, he wrote novels and essays that pointedly showed how harmfulnationalism can be--"with all its paraphernalia of power and prosperity,its flags and pious hymns"--how in the name of national unity the majorityoften tramples on minority concerns and aspirations for self-expression, and hownational conceit makes society lose its moral balance.

Exactly hundred years back, in 1908, he wrote in a letter to a friend:"Patriotism cannot be our final spiritual shelter; my refuge is humanity. Iwill not buy glass for the price of diamonds, and I will never allow patriotismto triumph over humanity as long as I live." During an invited lecture onNationalism in Japan in 1916, Tagore praised Japan for its impressive nationalachievements and for inspiring self-confidence among other Asian people, but hewas open in his sharp criticism on the rise of militant nationalism there. TheJapanese public, earlier effusive about him, considerably cooled its receptionin subsequent days. In 1938, shortly after the Japanese invasion of China, whena Japanese poet and friend wrote to Tagore, seeking moral support of Japan’saction since China was being "saved" from the clutches of the West,Tagore was severely critical and described the Japanese poet’s sentiments astranslating "military swagger into spiritual bravado."

At a time when Asian countries are becoming more important economically andgeo-politically, they should be wary of the dangers of ultra-nationalism and thedamages it can cause to their own society and to others, as the history ofnation states in the West illustrates so tragically.

Pranab Bardhan is professor of economics at the University of California,Berkeley, and co-chair of the Network on the Effects of Inequality on EconomicPerformance, funded by the MacArthur Foundation. He was the editor of the Journalof Development Economics for many years. Rights: © 2008 Yale Center for theStudy of Globalization. YaleGlobalOnline