Competing models of nationalism: an analysis of memorial ceremonies in schools

ABSTRACT. By analysing school memorial ceremonies in Israel, this article demonstrates how dominant groups in Israeli society (upper‐ and middle‐class, secular, educated Jews of European origin) exploit their historical monopoly over the Israeli warrior ethos in order to retreat from their unconditional commitment to the state and the military, which stands at the very core of traditional ‘heroic nationalism’. Nonetheless, despite their withdrawal from the military ethos, analysis of the school ceremonies shows that rather than distancing themselves from the national collective, they are promoting a different kind of nationalism – one that I term ‘traumatic nationalism’. This model departs from the warrior ethos and places mourning and a feeling of victimhood at its centre. Thus, through the arena of education, the dominant groups – which mark out the global as their sphere of action – promote a model of nationalism that meets the demands of the post‐national discourse.     

Between ideology and practice,national conflict and anti‐imperialist struggle: the National Liberation League in Palestine

This paper focuses on the National Liberation League (NLL), a Palestinian Arab communist movement which operated in Palestine between the years 1943–1948. The paper examines its short‐lived history in light of the relevant three contexts in which it operated: the local Palestinian national context; the regional context of communist activity in the Middle East and the external‐internationalist context of the Soviet Union. The paper further discusses the activities of the NLL during the period of the 1948 War in Palestine, as well as in the first period of military rule, imposed on the Palestinian citizens of Israel. An analysis of the NLL during the late Mandatory period and the early years of the State of Israel allows a close examination of the ways by which concepts of identity, nationalism, class and ethnicity were conceptualised, debated and contested during times of a national conflict and anti‐imperial struggle and brings to the fore tensions between ideology and practice, nationalism and internationalism. The NLL offers an important opportunity to look into the complex matrix of communist movements that combine anti‐imperial struggles with struggles for national liberation in the context of a national conflict and to examine their dilemmas and what may seem as internal contradictions.     

Is there weak nationalism and is it a useful category?

Introducing the category ‘weak nationalism’, this article emphasises the scales of intensity and the different operational modes of nationalism across time and space, as well as within the same space. It refuses to create a model or another dichotomy – strong/weak – on a par with earlier ones like organic/civic, Eastern/Western, bad/good. Rather, it approaches nationalism as a binary variable on a scale from weak/low to strong/high. It argues to extend the research focus beyond the fixation on extreme cases to so‐called weak or weaker manifestations that remain subordinate and under‐researched, all the time stressing the changeability of nationalisms in their local context and in the course of time. While it is a category more recognisable in a common sense approach than in a strictly quantifiable one, it can be identified and comparatively evaluated by the mobilising ability of the nationalist message in the public sphere.     

The orange and the ‘Cross in the Crescent’: imagining Palestine in 1929

Abstract. This article analyses a public discussion held in Palestine during the last months of 1929 over proposals for a particular Palestinian flag. Based on readers' reactions published in the daily newspaper Filastin and on letters sent to the Arab Executive, the article examines the character of Palestinian identity as it was imagined by a certain segment of the Palestinian elite. The three main leitmotifs of the flag proposals – the four colors of the Arab flag, the color orange and the ‘Cross in the Crescent’ emblem – serve as a starting point for discussing the tensions between Palestinian particularism and pan‐Arabism, as well as the status of Muslim‐Christian partnership in a period of increasing Islamisation of Palestinian identity. The second part of the article incorporates a comparative discussion that aims to explain the failure of the color orange and the ‘Cross in the Crescent’ to be accepted as emblems in the national flag. By comparing the unsuccessful proposals with the Arab flag (that eventually became the official Palestinian flag) and with the Lebanese flag, the article suggests their failure was due to three main reasons: (a) they reflected the interests of relatively marginal social groups; (b) they were not raised at a time of sweeping change in the socio‐political order; and (c) they lacked a profound basis in local tradition and the potential to be attached to an ancient past.     

Mapping the nation: street names and Arab‐Palestinian identity: three case studies

The naming of streets is part of the ongoing process of mapping the boundaries of the nation. This article examines three sets of Arab‐Palestinian street names – pre‐1948 Haifa and Jerusalem and post‐1948 Umm el Fahm – as locally constructed ‘texts of identity’ in the historical and political context of their official creation. The investigation aims at charting the ideological orientations represented and the political messages entailed in these three different textual manifestations of Arab‐Palestinian national identity. The analysis focuses on notions of historical and cultural heritage as expressed in the choice of street names. Finally, it offers an interpretative evaluation of this process, placing it within broader ideological and historical contexts.     

Matching Geospatial Concepts with Geographic Educational Needs

In this paper, we assume that learning to comprehend the geospatial environment would be significantly facilitated by developing a multi‐level task ontology that identifies various levels and complexities of geospatial concepts. We suggest that, apart from four spatial ‘primitives’– identity, location, magnitude, and space‐time – all geospatial concepts involve ‘inheritance’ characteristics. The more complex and abstract the concept, the larger the inheritance links that need to be appreciated to enhance concept understanding. For example, many basic geospatial concepts – such as direction and distance – are first‐order derivatives from the ‘location’ primitive, whereas concepts such as spatial association, map projection or interpolation are high‐order concepts that require several layers of geospatial concepts in their derivation. Having offered a five‐level ontology for concept organisation, we suggest sets of tasks that could establish an understanding of concepts, thus directly making the environment more legible in a spatial sense. We develop this framework in the context of the teaching of geography in grades from kindergarten to the final years of high school (grade 12 in the United States system). Our conceptualisation is grounded in the US school system – in which geography is usually absent in the curriculum.     

The Irish question and the concept ‘identity’ in the 1980s1

ABSTRACT. This article critically investigates the social construction of ‘identity talk’ in relation to the Irish Question in the 1980s. Our contention is that the utilisation of ‘identity’ imagined people as bounded groups in a particular way – as the two traditions or communities in Northern Ireland – and that this way of imagining people was deployed against ‘will’‐based conceptions of politics. The first part of the article places the emergence of ‘identity’ as a concept in its historical context and suggests four phases in the use of ‘identity’. The second part focuses on ‘identity’ as a concept and locates its emergence within the meta‐conflict regarding Northern Ireland. The article concludes by reflecting on Brubaker and Cooper's (2000) analysis of ‘identity’ as a category of analysis in light of our case study of ‘identity’ as a category of practice regarding the Irish Question.     

The Anti‐Essentialist Choice: Nationalism and Feminism in the Interaction between Two Women's Projects

Abstract. Two cross‐national women's organisations, one in Northern Ireland the other in Bosnia‐Herzegovina, are observed here in interaction with each other. The article explores the connection between their ability to sustain such cross‐community alliances and their choice to be women's projects. In so doing, it addresses the question ‘are feminism and nationalism compatible?’ Not all the women are ‘anti‐nationalist’ in philosophy, but they draw distinctions between variants of nationalism, and may be described as ‘anti‐essentialist’. The article distinguishes between variants of ‘feminism’, recognising it, too, as a plurality of movements. An anti‐essentialist understanding of ethnicity and nation is partnered in both the Network and Medica by an anti‐essentialist feminism, in which a woman's family role is minimised and value placed instead on her autonomy and agency. Certain forms of feminism and nationalism are thus compatible – but the configuration may be progressive or retrograde.     

Political tourism in the Israeli‐Palestinian space (Respond to this article at http://www.therai.org.uk/at/debate)

With the violent clashes that took place in May 2010 during the attempt by the Free Gaza movement flotilla to break the blockade of the Gaza Strip, the remarkable strength of pro‐Palestinian networks became globally apparent. Drawing on an ethnography of political activism in the Israeli‐Palestinian space, we suggest that the striking visibility of these networks does not exclusively derive from the prominence of the Israeli‐Palestinian conflicts, but is also a consequence of the activists’ ability to produce innovative forms of sociality. However, some of the approaches taken can exist in problematic relation to the experiences of people who live with the conflict. In this context, the issue is not so much the precise relationships between indigenous ‘truths’ in Palestine and their foreign representations, but the way in which encounters redefine the conflicts that activist networks seek to represent.     

Nation‐freezing: images of the nation and the migrant in citizenship packages

ABSTRACT. New nationalism differs from classical nationalism in terms of its content and focus. Whereas classical nationalism distinguishes itself from other nation‐states in defining its national identity, new nationalism distinguishes the ‘native’ national identity from that of its current and prospective citizens of migrant origin. The terms of integration thus become conditions of membership in the national community. Citizenship and integration policies emerge as central arenas where the discourse of new nationalism unfolds. This study looks into the discourses of cultural citizenship by studying the content of the official ‘citizenship packages’ – materials designed to welcome newcomers and assist them in their integration – in three Western European countries: The Netherlands, France and the UK. What images are depicted of the nation‐state and the migrant in citizenship packages, and (how) do these images freeze the nation?     

Preserving ‘the Enemy’s’ architecture: preservation and gentrification in a formerly Palestinian Jerusalem neighbourhood

This article relates to the preservation of Palestinian buildings in Jerusalem and raises the question why state-sanctioned institutions act to preserve Palestinian architecture built pre-1948, bearing in mind the context of a difficult past and an on-going conflict? The article addresses the manner in which Jerusalem’s authorised heritage discourse focuses only on preserving Palestinian buildings’ tangible aspects (architectural styles), and not on intangible aspects such as the narrative of their builders. The main argument is that while preservation is presented as a civilised practice, it is driven by the commodification of the buildings and sites and their valued ‘authenticity’. The common practice is to ‘preserve’ these buildings by developing them to create more housing units. This practice inevitably leads to gentrification. Moreover, even when intangible aspects of heritage are pushed aside, preserving these buildings comes with the ‘risk’ of them being used as memory sites for subaltern groups. The article focuses on one formerly Palestinian West Jerusalem neighbourhood, Baka, where gentrification was triggered by historic Palestinian homes and where the neighbourhood’s development continues to be linked with historic preservation.     

Time‐bubbles of nationalism: dynamics of solidarity ritual in lived time

The growth of modern nationalism can be attributed to structural causes, especially the growth of the strong bureaucratic state that penetrates society, creating cultural uniformity and national identity. But structurally based nationalism need not be very intense, or constant; even when institutionalised in periodic formal rituals, it can be routine, low in emotion – even boring. We need to explain sudden upsurges in popular nationalism, but also their persistence and fading in medium‐length periods of time. Nationalist surges are connected with geopolitical rises and falls in the power‐prestige of states: strong and expanding states absorb smaller particularistic identities into a prestigious whole; weaker and defeated states suffer delegitimation of the dominant nationality and fragment in sudden upsurges of localising nationalities. Passing from macro‐patterns to micro‐sociological mechanisms, conflict producing solidarity is a key mechanism: dramatic events focus widespread attention and assemble crowds into spontaneous ‘natural rituals’ – mass‐participation interaction rituals, as distinct from formal rituals. Evidence from public assemblies and the display of national symbols following the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001 (9/11) shows an intense period of three months, then gradual return to normal internal divisions by around six months. Spontaneous rituals of national solidarity are produced not only by external conflict but by internal uprisings, where an emotional upsurge of national identity is used to legitimate insurgent crowds and discredit regimes. Although participants experience momentary feelings of historic shifts, conflict‐mobilised national solidarity lives in a 3–6‐month time‐bubble, and needs to institutionalise its successes rapidly to have long‐term effects.     

Switzerland as a ‘fractured nation’

ABSTRACT. This article deals with Swiss nationalism and Swiss nation‐building. Its main thesis is that Switzerland cannot accurately be described as either a nation or a non‐nation but is something in between, and could thus best be characterised as a ‘fractured’ nation. Switzerland has experienced some powerful nationalist moments, from the creation of the Swiss state in 1848 to the last few decades. Yet this recurrent nationalism among the Swiss, considered alongside their more traditional reluctance to consider themselves a nation, make Switzerland a peculiar object: a ‘fractured’ nation. This flawed process of nation‐building in turn reveals some basic characteristics of all nations – inherent artificiality, and the tremendous efforts undertaken to hide it. Switzerland could be considered an unfinished, incomplete nation, and this is precisely why its study can be interesting for scholars of nations and nationalism.     

What is new and what is nationalist about Europe's new nationalism? Explaining the rise of the far right in Europe

Far‐right parties are on the rise across Europe. Their shared populist rhetoric, emphasis on sovereignty and policies that promote a ‘national preference’ has facilitated the term ‘the new nationalism’. According to an emerging consensus, this new nationalism is primarily a demand‐side phenomenon triggered by cultural grievances, i.e. a cultural backlash, driven by those on the wrong end of a new transnational cleavage. This explanation we argue tends to overlook important variations across countries and across time. As such, in this article, we contest the view that the ‘new nationalism’ is a linear and coherent phenomenon best understood as a cultural backlash. Specifically, our argument is threefold: (1) it is important to conceptually distinguish between populism, nationalism and the far right in order to draw meaningful conclusions about the extent to which this phenomenon is linear, coherent and comparable across cases; (2) voters' economic concerns remain pivotal within the context of the transnational cleavage, entailing that voting behaviour is structured by two dimensions of contestation; (3) the explanatory power of nationalism is in the supply, i.e. the ways in which parties use nationalism strategically in an attempt to broaden their appeal.     

East and West in Jewish nationalism: conflicting types in the Zionist vision?

ABSTRACT. This article analyses the ethnic and civic components of the early Zionist movement. The debate over whether Zionism was an Eastern‐ethnic nationalist movement or a Western‐civic movement began with the birth of Zionism. The article also investigates the conflict that broke out in 1902 surrounding the publication of Herzl's utopian vision, Altneuland. Ahad Ha'am, a leader of Hibbat Zion and ‘Eastern’ cultural Zionism, sharply attacked Herzl's ‘Western’ political Zionism, which he considered to be disconnected from the cultural foundations of historical Judaism. Instead, Ahad Ha'am supported the Eastern Zionist utopia of Elchanan Leib Lewinsky. Hans Kohn, a leading researcher of nationalism, distinguished between ‘Eastern’ and ‘Western’ nationalist movements. He argued that Herzl's political heritage led the Zionist movement to become an Eastern‐ethnic nationalist movement. The debate over the character of Jewish nationalism – ethnic or civic – continues to engage researchers and remains a topic of public debate in Israel even today. As this article demonstrates, the debate between ‘Eastern’ and ‘Western’ Zionism has its foundations in the origins of the Zionist movement. A close look at the vision held by both groups challenges Kohn's dichotomy as well as his understanding of the Zionist movement.     

Ethno‐nationalism and the global ‘modernising’ project

This article analyses the features and problems of ethno‐nationalism in the global context. The existing bodies of theories and literature on ethno‐nationalism mainly reflect the views and interests of the colonising ethno‐nations and their states at the cost of the dominated ethno‐nations. This preliminary study shows the inadequacy of information, knowledge and theory in the study of nationalism by questioning the validity of the global ‘modernising’ projects of modernisation theorists and some Marxists and by addressing the question of ethno‐nationalism from the perspective of the colonised ethno‐nations. By providing the reference cases of the Oromos and the Southern Sudanese, this study explains the challenge ethno‐nationalism poses to the nature and role of the state.     

Nationalism and National Movements: Comparing the Past and the Present of Central and Eastern Europe

Abstract. This article compares the ‘new nationalism’ in post-communist countries since the 1980s with the ‘classical’ national movements o the nineteenth century. Looking for analogies and differences between these two processes, it seeks to achieve a better understanding and more profound interpretation of contemporary ‘nationalism’. Most important analogies are: both national movements emerged as a result of (and as an answer to) the crisis and disintegration of an old regime and its value system; in both cases we observe a low level of political experience among the population, the stereotype of a personalised nation, and of a defensive position. Similarly both movements define their national border by both ethnic and historical borders: in both cases, the nationally relevant conflict of interests plays a decisive role. Among the differences are: the extremely high level of social communication in the twentieth-century movements, combined with a ‘vacuum at the top’ (the need for new elites) and with deep economic depression. The ‘contemporary’ national movements fought for the political rights of undoubtedly pre-existing nations (above all, for full independence), while the ‘classical’ ones fought for the concept of a nation-to-be, whose existence was not generally accepted. Nevertheless, in both cases, similar specifics of the nation-forming process under conditions of a ‘small nation’ can be observed. The author does not view nationalism as a ‘disease’ or external force: but rather as an answer given by some members of the nation to new challenges and unexpected conflicts of interests, which could be interpreted as national ones.     

A Swiss anomaly? A relational account of national boundary‐making

ABSTRACT. This article reviews how major theorists of nationalism – from Ernest Renan to Benedict Anderson – have tried to come to grips with the puzzle that Swiss nationalism and the Swiss state present in view of the monoethnic states that surround it. I will argue that this puzzle disappears when assuming a political sociology perspective that highlights the networks of political alliances underlying nationalist movements and the power structure of recently formed nation‐states. Studying an ‘outlier’ case such as Switzerland helps us to gain insight into the general processes and mechanisms at work in the rise of nationalism and the nation‐state.     

‘We are of the connections’: migration,methodological nationalism,and ‘militant research’

Abstract

If there were no borders, there would be no migrants – only mobility. The persistent reification of migrants and migration – even in critical migration studies –(re-)fetishizes and (re-)naturalizes the epistemological stability attributed to the (‘national’) state as a modular fixture of geopolitical space. In this regard, migration scholarship (however critical) is implicated in a continuous (re-)reification of ‘migrants’ as a distinct category of human mobility. Thus, the methodological nationalism that rationalizes the whole conjuncture of borders-making-migrants supplies a kind of defining horizon for migration studies as such. The dilemma of methodological nationalism has never been merely a problem of thought, however. It is indeed a manifestation of the veritable participation of researchers and scholars – whether consciously or unwittingly – in the very same sociopolitical processes and struggles through which the ‘national’ configuration of ‘society’ (or, the social field) is reified and actualized as the territorial expression of state power. Therefore, the questions of methodological nationalism and what might be called ‘militant research’ are deeply interconnected, indeed, mutually constitutive. As scholars of ‘migration’ – and above all, as practitioners of ‘militant research’ – we must attend to a self-reflexive critique of our own complicities with the ongoing nationalization of ‘society’. Hence, as researchers or scholars of migration, we are indeed ‘of the connections’ between migrants’ transnational mobilities and the political, legal, and border-policing regimes that seek to orchestrate, regiment, and manage their energies. We are ‘of’ these connections because there is no ‘outside’ or analytical position beyond them. The larger juridical regimes of citizenship, denizenship, and alienage configure us to be always-already located within the nexus of inequalities that are at stake in these conflicts.     

Team Arab: al‐Jazeera and the flagging of everyday Arabism during the 2008 Beijing Olympics

The linking of living rooms across state borders by al‐Jazeera and other pan‐Arab satellite television channels has prompted claims that a ‘new Arabism’ that undermines state nationalism is emerging. Until now, analysts have mostly focused on the ‘hot’ Arabism in the news coverage of politicised events such as the Israel–Palestine conflict. This article offers a new dimension by suggesting that as important to satellite television's construction and reproduction of Arab identity is the everyday discourse found in less overtly political programmes such as sport. To demonstrate this, it offers an analysis of al‐Jazeera's coverage of the 2008 Beijing Olympics showing how the broadcasts address viewers as a common Arab audience who are simultaneously encouraged to be nationalistic towards their separate nation‐states within a given ‘Arab arena’ of states with whom they should primarily compete. This suggests that new Arabism should in fact be considered a ‘supranationalism’, not a revived Arab nationalism as it simultaneously promotes Arab and state identities in tandem. Finally, it aims to expand our understanding of ‘everyday nationalism’ by adapting Michael Billig's theory and methodology of ‘banal nationalism’ in British newspapers to facilitate the study of sport on supranational Arab identity on satellite television.