Arguing Against Hobsbawm's Nations and Nationalism since 1780

Introduction

Attempts to establish objective criteria for nationhood, or to explain why certain groups have become nations and others not, have often been made, based on single critiera such as language or ethnicity, or a combination of criteria such as language, common territory, common history, cultural traits or whatever else. 1

The placement of language first recognizes that language and nation are interlinked. My argument has never been that to create a nation one needs linguistic homogeneity, simply that, given a nation, language issues are the most fundamental.

On pages 6 and 7 Hobsbawm discusses the Tamil separtists in Sri Lanka, and starts by quoting a Tamil nationalist's case for separation based on distinct language, history, and distinct territory on the island. Hobsbawm shows that none of these claims are as cut and dry as the propagandist suggests, and finishes with "the point is that almost any classification of some community on as a 'nation' on the grounds of such purportedly objective criteria would be open to similar objections, unless the fact that it was a 'nation' could be established on other grounds."2 Until some other grounds are supplied, this point can safely be ignored. And again, I'm talking about a nation existing, and language being the most important internal linkage to keep it together, not what grounds to create a nation. Sri Lanka is just one case where the language of the government being quite distinct from the language of the population must cause problems. Hobsbawm's argument also ignores that the Tamil nationalism would appear to be strongest in just such areas where the non-Moor Tamil speakers form upwards of 90% of the population, Jaffna, an area which saw the Tamil militants take and keep the territory from the Sri Lankan government for some time.

Then Hobsbawm rejects the consciousness argument, of Renan when he states "a nation is a daily plebiscite" or the Austro-Marxists, who apparently believe anyone can claim any nationality they please at any time.3 The consciuosness angle is important to what I am saying, since the building blocks of any shared ideas are expressed through language.

Hobsbawm closes this discussion by claiming there is no a priori definition of a nation, and will focus on any "sufficiently large body of people whose members regard themselves as members of a 'nation'"4 , apparently favoring the subjective (consciousness) arguments rather than the objective (language, history) ones.

Hobsbawm states that wars are an obligation which overrides all others for nationalism, where he means to say "defensive wars." Failure to conquer other peoples may be detrimental, but is not determinative, to the future of a nation.5 Hobsbawm says "[m]ost students today will agree that standard national languages, spoken or written, cannot emerge as such before printing, mass literacy, and hence, mass schooling" but this argument does not comport with history. Roman administration, for example, was conducted in Latin throughout the Western empire, where the knowledge of Latin was only required to be sufficient for the 'national' aims of Rome, not standardized. Roman citizens would travel to Rome to learn the most precise form of the language only until such schools and texts as obviated the necessity were distributed throughout Roman lands. I argue there is nothing particular about nations, or the idea of them, which has changed in human history, only the particulars which are, of course, dictated by technological change.

Hobsbawm argues first, "official ideologies of states and movements are not guides to what it is in the minds of even the most loyal citizens or supporters" which ignores that official ideologies are , more often than not, the starting points for such thinking. Second, that nationalism can't be expected to be a person's primary identification, which ignores that it can rise to that point at just the point the nation requires it (when under attack) and that most people don't go about thinking of themselves as humans most of the time, regardless of the fact that they are. Thirdly, the ideas of nationalism can, and do, change over time. This is inarguable.6 Hobsbawm argues, incorrectly, that the "workers, servants and peasants" are the last to join the nationalist zeitgeist. Instead, the propaganda of the state is, except in rare circumstances, not uniform, and that strain of it which becomes popular can, in fact, define or help to define the state, even as factions of the ruling class believe different, or even contrary, things.7

Chapter 1: The nation as novelty: from revolution to liberalism

Hobsbawm starts this chapter by showing dictionary definitions change over time with respect to the meaning of the word nation, in order to show that the modern nation is distinct. Instead, Hobsbawm has simply shown that the word nation has only recently begun to be used to define, as Hobsbawm quotes the Enciclopedia Brasileira Merito

'the community of the citizens of the state , living under the same regime or government and having a community of interests; the collectivity of the inhabitants of a territory with common traditions, aspirations and interests, and subordinated to a central power which takes charge of maintaining the unity of the group.(emphasis added)8

This definition, although not attached to the word "nation," is applicable to any historic state, regardless of its nomenclature. Apparently it is the word "state" which precedes nation. A similar argument can be used with the definition given by the (allegedly pre-national) 1726 Spanish dictionary for tierra which is given alternatively as (non-nation) "the place, township or land where one is born" or (national) "any region, province or district of any lordship or state (emphasis added)."9 Ignored are other words, like Government, Country, Kingdom, Empire, Sultanate, Caliphate, Principality, or anything else which might connote the identical sense of nation, which might be, perhaps, a forged top-down consensus and community over a particular territorial exent.

It should be pointed out that although Hobsbawm takes as given that the modern nation is distinct from any previous organization, he has yet to give any distinguishing characteristics of either the modern, or pre-modern, state. Instead Hobsbawm argues, philologically, that since the word nation with its modern meaning is young therefore it follows that the concept of nation is "historically very young,"10 which was not in any way shown.

Hobsbawm comes close to supporting a distinct view of the definition of a nation when he paraphrases Pierre Vilar, saying "what characterized the nation-people as seen from below was precisely that it represented the common interest against particular interests, the common good against privilege." However revealing of Hobsbawm's Marxist sympathies this is, it ignores political parties of privilege, or noblesse oblige which were actions by the few elites to help the common many. Did Italy cease to be a nation when Mussolini took over with the explicit aim of protecting the wealth of the wealthy?

Hobsbawm states that neither language nor ethnicity united the American colonists, even though they were united both linguistically and, I find this term troubling, ethnically. Similarly the French nation, expanded by Napoleon, expanded to encompass numerous non-French speaking people, but they were exactly the people returned to independence less than 20 years later, by force of arms, by the powers allied against Napoleon.11 The truth of the matter might be seen when Hobsbawm quotes Barere, in his report to the Committee of Public Safety on languages, following his own statement that "the more heterogenity within [the state] created problems."

Who, in the Departments of Haut-Rhin and Bas-Rhin, has joined with the traitors to call the Prussian and the Austrian on our invaded frontiers? It is the inhabitant of the [Alsatian] countryside, who speaks the same language as our enemies, and who consequently considers himself their brother and fellow-citizen rather than the brother and fellow-citizen of Frenchmen who address him in another language and have other customs.12

Following directly, Hobsbawm says the emphasis on French linguistic uniformity was "at the time quite exceptional" but is hardly exceptional in the grand scheme of things, ignoring the France of Francis I in 1539, the numerous attempts by the Spanish Crowns to wipe out Andalusian Arabic from 1492 through the 1600s.

Hobsbawm then informs the reader of the existence of a Richard Bockh, who wrote that language was the only "adequate indicator of nationality"13 . He points out that Yiddish speaking Jews would therefore be German, and this would be disagreeable to anti-Semitic Germans, about whom I could care less. He tries to draw a contrast with France, where one became a citizen when one accepted the conditions of citizenship, which he also notes "which naturally included speaking French" which seems to bolster, rather than undermine, the linguistic component. Later Bochk, as the chief statistician of the Prussian state, had "mother language" added to the census questions.

He cites Renan's "famous question 'why is Holland a nation, while Hanover and the Grand Duchy of Parma are not?'" To which I answer, Dutch is a language, while the Hanoverian government speaks German, and the Parmese Italian. John Stuart Mill is presented having given an easier answer, namely that the nation had to be both feasible and desired, implying, perhaps, that the Parmese simply didn't care.