“Nationalism and patriotism depend on an ‘othering’ of those who do not belong to the ‘nation’, whether inside it (Jews to the Nazis, Tamils and Muslims to Sinhala nationalists, Sinhalese and Muslims to Tamil nationalists, and so forth) or outside (the Iraqis to Bush, etc.), and this is turn can be used as a justification for all kinds of atrocities, up to and including genocide.”
_____________________
by Rohini Hensman
Introduction
(July 19, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) It is very clear from Marx’s writings that united action of the working class across national borders is a necessary condition for the overthrow of capitalism, and that nationalism therefore has no place in his politics. However, by the early twentieth century, Marxists like Lenin and Luxemburg were grappling with the dilemmas posed by colonialism, and what policies should be adopted in relation to the colonies. The idea of ‘the right to self-determination’ became the most widely accepted outcome of this debate; nationalism thus became acceptable and even respectable. In the process, the whole notion of internationalism has been lost. The consequences can be seen in Sri Lanka, where one section of the Left supported Sinhala nationalism, another supports Tamil nationalism, and most sections oppose globalisation with the notion of national sovereignty.
Nationalism and imperialism: separating the strands
Often we use one word to describe a complex historical process involving diverse social forces that converge at a certain point in time; at that point, it seems appropriate to use the word, yet as soon as the convergence unravels, we are in trouble. Nationalism is such a word. Any alliance between the classes constituting the ‘nation’ is bound to be fragile and ephemeral. The fundamental premise of nationalism – that all those who constitute the nation have a community of interest greater than the common interest any segment of that nation may have with others outside it – is an illusion which only those in power have an interest in fostering.
As Max Adler pointed out, ‘imperialism and its World War’ grew organically out of the nationalism of the industrialised nations. [1] Each state, in order to secure the interests of its bourgeoisie, strove to control larger and larger areas of the globe, and at first the prosperity arising from imperialist expansion gave workers in these countries a stake in it: ‘there arises on the ground of national politics a sudden community of interest between capital and the proletariat, which finds expression in an identical inclination of both classes to imperialism’. [2]
But what about the nationalism of the colonies and oppressed nations? It was Rosa Luxemburg who argued most passionately that ‘the famous “right of self-determination of nations” is nothing but hollow, petty bourgeois phraseology and humbug’. How could she reconcile this position with her own declaration that ‘socialism opposes every form of oppression, including also that of one nation by another’? [3] Here it is important to separate the genuine aspiration for democracy of the masses who participate in independence and national liberation movements from the desire for power that drives others. The distinction here is between those who support values of equality and individual rights and those who oppose them. Unless the presence of the latter in Third World nationalism is recognised, it is not possible to understand the numerous civil and international wars, including the so-called ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka, that have claimed so many millions of victims.
Nationalism and patriotism depend on an ‘othering’ of those who do not belong to the ‘nation’, whether inside it (Jews to the Nazis, Tamils and Muslims to Sinhala nationalists, Sinhalese and Muslims to Tamil nationalists, and so forth) or outside (the Iraqis to Bush, etc.), and this is turn can be used as a justification for all kinds of atrocities, up to and including genocide. Although Lenin and Luxemburg appeared to be arguing opposite positions in the debate on national self-determination, in a deeper sense they were in agreement. Lenin, coming from imperialist Russia, was attempting to counteract the nationalist illusions of workers in imperialist countries; Luxemburg, coming from oppressed Poland, was attempting to counteract the nationalist currents in oppressed nations.
Lenin’s Imperialism, written in 1916, also conflates two distinct strands – colonialism and international capital – that converged temporarily. The subsequent history of the twentieth century shows that these tendencies move in opposite directions. The postwar expansion of international capital involved a different dynamic of global integration which would actually drive the industrialisation of countries like India and Brazil, whereas imperialism had been largely successful in staving off the growth of new manufacturing industries in such countries. Contrary to the naïve view of globalisation that sees it as a process manipulated and determined by imperialist states, MNCs, and institutions like the World Bank, IMF and WTO, the global expansion of capital has a logic and dynamic of its own that in the longer term defies all attempts to control it. Much of the history of the latter half of the twentieth century, including the disintegration of the Soviet Union, can be seen as the unfolding of the process of decolonisation as a condition for the further progress of economic globalisation.
Economic globalisation was accompanied by the first shaky steps towards a notion of global human rights and democracy. The carnage of the Holocaust and World War II made apparent the danger of defining ‘national sovereignty’ as the right of the State to do as it pleases within its own borders, including exterminating part of its population; instead, there was a feeling that democracy or sovereignty of the people had to be upheld by the international community against genocidal regimes, acting either outside or inside their own borders. The idea of the United Nations as an institution upholding these values was embodied in the Genocide Convention (1948) and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), followed by a large number of similar international treaties, although the lack of machinery for implementation and the structure of the UN itself made the realisation of this idea a distant utopia. The International Criminal Court (ICC) which came into force on 1 July 2002 is a significant recent step towards upholding human rights internationally.
The important point here is that globalisation in the sense of the development of a post-imperialist world economy and of global regulation, especially of human rights, is historically progressive, and can counteract forces of both fascism and imperialism. The contradictions between imperialism and globalisation are revealed most strikingly by the Bush administration’s ultra-nationalist rejection of globalisation. With the world’s biggest arsenal of weapons of mass destruction, it is the only state which has ever used nuclear weapons and is currently developing new ones with the intention of using them; it has backed out of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and refused to ratify the Comprehensive (Nuclear) Test Ban Treaty. It rejected the Kyoto Protocol on climate change and the Land Mine Treaty, plotted to get rid of Jose Bustani, director-general of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (set up to enforce the Chemical Weapons Convention), and successfully sabotaged the Biological Weapons Convention. Most significantly, the US not only refused to ratify the treaty setting up the ICC, but in November 2001 passed the American Service-members Protection Act authorising the US to use force to ‘liberate’ criminals detained by the court and took the unprecedented step of unsigning the treaty, signifying its intention of sabotaging the ICC actively. All this indicates that we are here in a very real sense dealing with a ‘rogue’ state: one that is not, and does not wish to be, part of the international community. The only hope of being able to survive lies in pushing forward regulatory globalisation, in strengthening and democratising international bodies dealing with human rights and international law.
Democracy and Socialism
Partly as a result of ‘communism’ becoming associated with the Soviet Union and ‘democracy’ with the United States, both concepts have been debased, and the politics associated with them are seen in Cold War terms as being opposed to each other. Yet even a cursory reading of Marx’s Civil War in France makes it clear that socialism and communism are seen not as the antithesis of democracy but as the further development of democracy into areas such as production and the executive arm of the state, which under capitalism are hardly subject to democratic control.
If this is recognised, it should be clear that democracy – including human rights, equality, freedom of information, expression, association and peaceful assembly, and the right to participate in government, at the very least through free and fair elections – must be an essential part of the programme of any communist movement. Where there is a conflict between any brand of nationalism and democracy, as there always will be, the Left should take a firm and unambiguous stand in favour of democracy. This means, for example, insisting that any proposed solution to the ethnic conflict includes a guarantee of all the democratic rights listed above for people of all communities in all parts of Sri Lanka. Once a reorientation towards a twenty-first century politics of internationalism is achieved, it becomes clear that the field of activity open to the Left is vast. Remaining stuck in the politics of nationalism, on the contrary, will only ensure that the Left becomes increasingly reactionary and irrelevant.
--------------------------------
[1] Max Adler, “The Ideology of the World War”, in Austro-Marxism, tr. and ed. Tom Bottomore and Patrick Goode (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1978), 125
[2] Ibid. 131
[3] Rosa Luxemburg, “The Russian Revolution”, in Rosa Luxemburg Speaks, ed. Mary-Alice Waters (New York, Pathfinder Press 1970) 379-80.
_____________________
Rohini Hensman is a writer and researcher active in the trade union, women's liberation and human rights movements.
- Sri Lanka Guardian
_____________________
by Rohini Hensman
Introduction
(July 19, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) It is very clear from Marx’s writings that united action of the working class across national borders is a necessary condition for the overthrow of capitalism, and that nationalism therefore has no place in his politics. However, by the early twentieth century, Marxists like Lenin and Luxemburg were grappling with the dilemmas posed by colonialism, and what policies should be adopted in relation to the colonies. The idea of ‘the right to self-determination’ became the most widely accepted outcome of this debate; nationalism thus became acceptable and even respectable. In the process, the whole notion of internationalism has been lost. The consequences can be seen in Sri Lanka, where one section of the Left supported Sinhala nationalism, another supports Tamil nationalism, and most sections oppose globalisation with the notion of national sovereignty.
Nationalism and imperialism: separating the strands
Often we use one word to describe a complex historical process involving diverse social forces that converge at a certain point in time; at that point, it seems appropriate to use the word, yet as soon as the convergence unravels, we are in trouble. Nationalism is such a word. Any alliance between the classes constituting the ‘nation’ is bound to be fragile and ephemeral. The fundamental premise of nationalism – that all those who constitute the nation have a community of interest greater than the common interest any segment of that nation may have with others outside it – is an illusion which only those in power have an interest in fostering.
As Max Adler pointed out, ‘imperialism and its World War’ grew organically out of the nationalism of the industrialised nations. [1] Each state, in order to secure the interests of its bourgeoisie, strove to control larger and larger areas of the globe, and at first the prosperity arising from imperialist expansion gave workers in these countries a stake in it: ‘there arises on the ground of national politics a sudden community of interest between capital and the proletariat, which finds expression in an identical inclination of both classes to imperialism’. [2]
But what about the nationalism of the colonies and oppressed nations? It was Rosa Luxemburg who argued most passionately that ‘the famous “right of self-determination of nations” is nothing but hollow, petty bourgeois phraseology and humbug’. How could she reconcile this position with her own declaration that ‘socialism opposes every form of oppression, including also that of one nation by another’? [3] Here it is important to separate the genuine aspiration for democracy of the masses who participate in independence and national liberation movements from the desire for power that drives others. The distinction here is between those who support values of equality and individual rights and those who oppose them. Unless the presence of the latter in Third World nationalism is recognised, it is not possible to understand the numerous civil and international wars, including the so-called ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka, that have claimed so many millions of victims.
Nationalism and patriotism depend on an ‘othering’ of those who do not belong to the ‘nation’, whether inside it (Jews to the Nazis, Tamils and Muslims to Sinhala nationalists, Sinhalese and Muslims to Tamil nationalists, and so forth) or outside (the Iraqis to Bush, etc.), and this is turn can be used as a justification for all kinds of atrocities, up to and including genocide. Although Lenin and Luxemburg appeared to be arguing opposite positions in the debate on national self-determination, in a deeper sense they were in agreement. Lenin, coming from imperialist Russia, was attempting to counteract the nationalist illusions of workers in imperialist countries; Luxemburg, coming from oppressed Poland, was attempting to counteract the nationalist currents in oppressed nations.
Lenin’s Imperialism, written in 1916, also conflates two distinct strands – colonialism and international capital – that converged temporarily. The subsequent history of the twentieth century shows that these tendencies move in opposite directions. The postwar expansion of international capital involved a different dynamic of global integration which would actually drive the industrialisation of countries like India and Brazil, whereas imperialism had been largely successful in staving off the growth of new manufacturing industries in such countries. Contrary to the naïve view of globalisation that sees it as a process manipulated and determined by imperialist states, MNCs, and institutions like the World Bank, IMF and WTO, the global expansion of capital has a logic and dynamic of its own that in the longer term defies all attempts to control it. Much of the history of the latter half of the twentieth century, including the disintegration of the Soviet Union, can be seen as the unfolding of the process of decolonisation as a condition for the further progress of economic globalisation.
Economic globalisation was accompanied by the first shaky steps towards a notion of global human rights and democracy. The carnage of the Holocaust and World War II made apparent the danger of defining ‘national sovereignty’ as the right of the State to do as it pleases within its own borders, including exterminating part of its population; instead, there was a feeling that democracy or sovereignty of the people had to be upheld by the international community against genocidal regimes, acting either outside or inside their own borders. The idea of the United Nations as an institution upholding these values was embodied in the Genocide Convention (1948) and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), followed by a large number of similar international treaties, although the lack of machinery for implementation and the structure of the UN itself made the realisation of this idea a distant utopia. The International Criminal Court (ICC) which came into force on 1 July 2002 is a significant recent step towards upholding human rights internationally.
The important point here is that globalisation in the sense of the development of a post-imperialist world economy and of global regulation, especially of human rights, is historically progressive, and can counteract forces of both fascism and imperialism. The contradictions between imperialism and globalisation are revealed most strikingly by the Bush administration’s ultra-nationalist rejection of globalisation. With the world’s biggest arsenal of weapons of mass destruction, it is the only state which has ever used nuclear weapons and is currently developing new ones with the intention of using them; it has backed out of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and refused to ratify the Comprehensive (Nuclear) Test Ban Treaty. It rejected the Kyoto Protocol on climate change and the Land Mine Treaty, plotted to get rid of Jose Bustani, director-general of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (set up to enforce the Chemical Weapons Convention), and successfully sabotaged the Biological Weapons Convention. Most significantly, the US not only refused to ratify the treaty setting up the ICC, but in November 2001 passed the American Service-members Protection Act authorising the US to use force to ‘liberate’ criminals detained by the court and took the unprecedented step of unsigning the treaty, signifying its intention of sabotaging the ICC actively. All this indicates that we are here in a very real sense dealing with a ‘rogue’ state: one that is not, and does not wish to be, part of the international community. The only hope of being able to survive lies in pushing forward regulatory globalisation, in strengthening and democratising international bodies dealing with human rights and international law.
Democracy and Socialism
Partly as a result of ‘communism’ becoming associated with the Soviet Union and ‘democracy’ with the United States, both concepts have been debased, and the politics associated with them are seen in Cold War terms as being opposed to each other. Yet even a cursory reading of Marx’s Civil War in France makes it clear that socialism and communism are seen not as the antithesis of democracy but as the further development of democracy into areas such as production and the executive arm of the state, which under capitalism are hardly subject to democratic control.
If this is recognised, it should be clear that democracy – including human rights, equality, freedom of information, expression, association and peaceful assembly, and the right to participate in government, at the very least through free and fair elections – must be an essential part of the programme of any communist movement. Where there is a conflict between any brand of nationalism and democracy, as there always will be, the Left should take a firm and unambiguous stand in favour of democracy. This means, for example, insisting that any proposed solution to the ethnic conflict includes a guarantee of all the democratic rights listed above for people of all communities in all parts of Sri Lanka. Once a reorientation towards a twenty-first century politics of internationalism is achieved, it becomes clear that the field of activity open to the Left is vast. Remaining stuck in the politics of nationalism, on the contrary, will only ensure that the Left becomes increasingly reactionary and irrelevant.
--------------------------------
[1] Max Adler, “The Ideology of the World War”, in Austro-Marxism, tr. and ed. Tom Bottomore and Patrick Goode (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1978), 125
[2] Ibid. 131
[3] Rosa Luxemburg, “The Russian Revolution”, in Rosa Luxemburg Speaks, ed. Mary-Alice Waters (New York, Pathfinder Press 1970) 379-80.
_____________________
Rohini Hensman is a writer and researcher active in the trade union, women's liberation and human rights movements.
- Sri Lanka Guardian
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