Anxiety and injustice: the anatomy of contemporary English nationalism*

ABSTRACT. An explicit and politically mobilised English nationalism has been remarkable because of its absence from deliberation on constitutional change in the United Kingdom. In short, it remains a mood and not a movement. This article explores the mood and explains why that mood has not become, as yet, a movement. It examines three related aspects of the English nationalist mood. First, it considers anxieties about the condition of contemporary England which can be found in the work of intellectuals and artists. Second, it identifies the sense of injustice which animates the lobby group the Campaign for an English Parliament. Finally, it looks at how mainstream party politics responds to these national anxieties and that sense of national injustice.     

The ethno‐religious ambitions of the Roman Catholic Church and the ascendancy of communism in post‐war Poland (1945–50)

ABSTRACT. This paper differentiates between centrifugal and centripetal aspects of ethno‐nationalism to help account for the ascendancy of communism in the immediate aftermath of World War II in Poland. It argues that the directing of social antipathy to defined out‐groups allowed the Polish Workers' Party (PPR) to manage social anger and that the Roman Catholic Church's ethno‐religious agenda was aligned with the PPR's ethno‐nationalist policy. Furthermore, it is contended that the Church's toleration of hostile actions directed at minority communities supported the PPR's management of social anger. The paper concludes that the Church, despite its manifest intentions and contrary to contemporary perceptions, played a role in the PPR's achievement of hegemony.     

National identity,allegiance and constitutional change in the United Kingdom†

ABSTRACT. It has become conventional to discuss nationalism in terms of identity. While this approach is fruitful and illuminating, it can often be ambiguous, running together cultural, social, personal and political issues. It becomes particularly problematic when discussing multinationalism, the character of which may be confused by reference to national identity alone. Allegiance is used in this article to explore how a political commitment to the multinational state can coexist with a range of national and regional identities in the United Kingdom. The argument is that, recent constitutional changes notwithstanding, the multinational ideal involves still a state of distinctive national identities tempered by the habit of allegiance to legitimate British government.     

The worship of general Yue Fei and his problematic creation as a national hero in twentieth century China

National heroes are important in the development of nationalist thinking. One important figure in this context is General Yue Fei (1103–42), who unsuccessfully fought the invading Jurchen in the twelfth century. Shortly after his execution, a temple was built in his honour in Hangzhou. Local chronicles show that this temple was constantly renovated in later dynasties. Due to his continuous worship as a loyal warrior—even during the Qing dynasty—his temple became a powerful site of identity. His veneration as a national hero in the course of the twentieth century has, however, posed a problem to a post-1911 China that felt compelled to sustain a multi-ethnic nation-state, whilst at the same time facing the difficulty of not being able to do without General Yue Fei. This article shall make it apparent that his resurrection as a national hero in the twentieth century was possible because of certain narrative strategies that had already been propagated by the Manchurian rulers of the eighteenth century.     

Pangs of nascent nationalism from the nationless state? Euro coins and undocumented migrants in Malta since 2004†

ABSTRACT. This paper examines recent manifestations of the emergence of national identity amongst the citizens of Malta, now the smallest member state of the European Union. In this search, discrete events and ‘things’ are examined as symbolic paraphernalia, empirical phenomena that provide insights to overarching narratives about identity, nationalism and integration. The discussion and eventual decision on the choice of euro coin faces in Malta is proposed as one that illustrates a process of ‘nascent nationalism’. Meanwhile, the arrival of boatloads of undocumented migrants on Malta's shores has also encouraged the evolution of a secular, national character in Malta. Such episodes, and others, ultimately reflect a need for symbols of national unity that remain largely absent in this ‘nationless state’ which continues to be gripped by a bipolar partisanship that spares almost no one.     

Domestic Economy and Daily Practice in Guadeloupe: Historical Archaeology at La Mahaudière Plantation

Archaeological research has made significant contributions to the study of the African Diaspora in the Caribbean, but until recently researchers neglected the French islands. This paper reports on archaeological fieldwork at Habitation La Mahaudière in Guadeloupe, focusing on the economic and social lives of plantation laborers and exploring articulations between local realities at this sugar plantation and broader historical process of the Caribbean region and the French colonial world.     

The Hindu nationalist reinterpretation of pilgrimage in India: the limits of Yatra politics

ABSTRACT. Victor Turner's anthropological reading of pilgrimages in terms of communitas is of utmost relevance in the case of Hinduism: indeed, Hindu pilgrimages produce a relative and temporal obliteration of social cleavages – particularly caste divisions – allowing the emergence of a sense of group belonging. Moreover, the geography of pilgrimage sites maps out the sacred land, marking the area of extension of Hindu civilisation in space. Hindu nationalists have tried to exploit this particular alchemy to offer an ethnic definition of the nation (and its territory) and thereby gather a following by lending some of their demonstrations the appearance of a pilgrimage. This approach asserted itself in the early 1980s thanks to the Ekatmata Yatra (Unity March) in 1983, and was confirmed in 1990 during the Rath Yatra (Chariot festival). Nevertheless, the instrumentalist interpretation of such movements comes up against an issue that is already at the core of subaltern studies' historiography, i.e. that masses do not always mobilise for the reasons put forth by political leaders. More specifically, if women march massively in the streets during these Yatra pilgrimages, it is both because they feel concerned by the reason for demonstrations and because these demonstrations have legitimised their entry into the public space, which still remains relatively closed to them.     

Resistance to alien rule in Taiwan and Korea†

ABSTRACT. Although alien rule is widely assumed to be illegitimate, nationalist resistance to it varies across time and space. This article explores why there was greater nationalist resistance to Japanese colonial rule in Korea than Taiwan from the turn of the twentieth century to the end of World War II. Resistance to alien rulers requires both a supply of participants in nationalist collective action and a demand for national self‐determination. The article assesses two principal propositions: (1) that the supply of participants increases to the degree that native elites are stripped of their traditional authority and offered few incentives to collaborate; and (2) that the demand for national self‐determination decreases to the degree that alien rule is fair and effective. A comparative analysis of the effects of Japanese alien rule in Taiwan and Korea suggests that nationalist resistance is greater in the earliest phases of occupation, that the greater native elites' opportunities, the weaker the resistance to alien rule; and that the fairer the governance, the weaker the resistance to alien rule.     

An interpretation of Finnish religious nationalism: the four topoi of theological depoliticisation

ABSTRACT. The topic of this article is the relation between ‘politicality’ and theology in the discourse of Finnish religious nationalism during the Winter War of 1939–40 and the Continuation War of 1941–44. I shall draw on the ideas of Kari Palonen and Anthony D. Smith in attempting to thematise theological depoliticisation as an intrinsic element of religious nationalism. Also, I will elaborate its political significance in the Finnish context, where the role of traditional religion in the general development of nationalist thought has been particularly important. The specific focus is on how prominent representatives of the Finnish clergy related to war and nationalist claims in general. My interpretation is that their arguments were drawn from what I call the topoi of theological depoliticisation, which, at the same time, rendered the discourse extremely political.     

Vulnerability and nationalism: the support for the war against Iraq in five established states

ABSTRACT. This essay attempts to shed light on why aggressive ideas gain support within established western states. To do that it attempts to answer the question why the armed conflict against Iraq received such varied support during the first four months of 2003 within the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, France and Spain. A comparative study indicates that the justifications for the armed conflict must be endorsed in the national identities of the particular states. If not, either the justifications or national identities have to be modified. The dominant elite emerge as essential to this process, as does the public experience of vulnerability. It appears that the war against Iraq received such varied support because the initial definitions of national identities endorsed the justifications for the war to different degrees, the dominant elites promoted different opinions and the people experienced different degrees of vulnerability.