preview

A Nation Is A Nation By Ernest Renan

Decent Essays

Ernest Renan, in his classic essay “What is a Nation”, excluded religion, race, material interests, language, military necessity and even geography as suitable answers to his question. As an alternative, he argues, “a nation is a spiritual principle, the outcome of the profound complications of history” (quoted in Mehta, 1999, p. 187). In Ernest’s remark, more than anything else, the ‘spiritual principle’ included a specific outlook toward a shared history. In this case, a nation is fundamentally founded on the possession of memories and a shared past. This is evident, as I have observed, in the Baloch nationalist movement in Pakistan, where the Baloch justify their distinctive national character by their history, which distinct them from the …show more content…

Unlike Anderson, he uses the term ‘nationalism’ to associate it with the negative displays of national violence or chauvinism. Neither of them imagines nationalism as a positive force to create historical change. Gramsci, however, sees nationalism as an important part of agency, because he is concerned about hegemony in a fundamentally nationalist context (Jones, 2007). Gellner in the theoretical section of his book, he attempts to use it in a natural manner. For him, nationalism is “primarily a political principle which holds that the political and the national unit should be congruent” (Gellner, 2008, p.1). The resemblance between a form of self-rule and the group of people that identifies itself as the nation, is the evidence to nationalism, but this aim does not suggest that ‘the nation’ is ‘preordained’ and exists as a cohesive unit, nor should it mean that the political unit it seeks is certainly one to form a state. This is generally due to the fact that a nation is as much a result of nationalist endeavor as it is its object (Harris, 2009). Gellner uses the term, ‘selfless nationalism’, which he means by that its members are entitled to have their own nation. The dichotomy of nationalism first and nation later is an essential one for Gellner, as he states that it is impossible for a nation to exist without being preceded by a nationalist movement (Gellner, …show more content…

Nationalism can make a group fight fiercely for establishing its own sovereignty and could lead it to rule, that in itself does not reveal which of these nationalisms is ought to rule. Ultimately, the number of distinctive cultures and potential nationalisms are going to extinct, or become assimilated in the sea of the nation-state (Gellner, 2008, pp. 42-43). For Gellner, it is irrational to hold nationalism responsible for being forceful in homogenizing a people through its agencies which is under the command of nationalist movements. Instead, it is the typical prerequisite for nationalism as an educated, culturally standardized, exchange-capable and transportable population is what modern industrial states must have to operate successfully. In the light of the above, the main weakness of nationalism is that only a very small fraction of nationalisms attain their goals (Gellner, 2008, pp.

Get Access