>>Nationalisms of settler colonialists and anti-colonial nationalisms
>>of the colonized are not the same thing and do not occupy the same
>>place in leftist politics.
>
>They both serve the interests of particular national/ethnic
>bourgeoisies and manipulate working class patriotism to achieve
>their political aims in support of enhanced accumulation.
The national/ethnic ruling class (landlords and bourgeoisie) have tended to come to anti-colonial nationalism more slowly and reluctantly than peasants, the working class, and the petit bourgeoisie have (when the ruling class came to an anti-colonial position at all), because colonialists have often made alliances with them. Venezuela today is a good example: the poor Bolivarians are patriotic, and the rich elite are pro-American.
Also, leaders of anti-colonial nationalism may very well be socialists or left-wing populists, who come under attacks by those whose economic interests are threatened by their politics.
>>Also, it is too simplistic to set up an either/or choice between
>>nationalism and global capitalism, especially in that it is the
>>latter that begets the former in all its varieties.
>
>I disagree here as well. National capital begat global capital, historically.
I didn't say that global capitalism begat national capital; I said that global capitalism begets nationalism. Nationalism and national capital are not the same thing.
>>Nairn argues that without a national state apparatus to gain some
>>autonomy in the global economy, industrial development means
>>domination.
>
>Industrial development always means domination, usually by a
>national or comprador bourgeoisie (except in the Soviet-type states,
>which relied on another form of domination).
There are differences in degrees of domination, with different impacts on peasants and the working class.
>>The only way for people to "contest the concrete form in
>>which'progress' had taken them by the throat" is to construct their
>>own national state (Nairn 1977).
>
>Or an "internationalist" state, as in the case of the
>(pre-Stalinist) Bolsheviks.
You mean the internal composition or foreign policy of the USSR?
>>On the contrary, the over-riding power of global capital is seen as
>>continually reproducing nationalism and generating rather than
>>abating inter-national conflicts.
>
>Driven, in most cases, I would say, by national bourgeoisies which
>have lost ground to more aggressive and expansionary capitals.
The national bourgeoisie are, more often than not, content with playing economically lucrative if politically subordinate positions in the politics of global capitalism (e.g., adopting the Washington Consensus), with which the masses aren't happy (cf. Mark Ellis-Jones, "States of Unrest III: Resistance to IMF and World Bank Policies in Poor Countries in 2002," April 2003, <http://www.wdm.org.uk/cambriefs/debt/States%20of%20Unrest%20III_04.03.pdf>).
>>The key position was restated, that nationalism, "far from being an
>>irrational obstacle to development, was for most societies the only
>>feasible way into the development race - the only way they could
>>compete without being either colonized or annihilated" (Nairn 1997).
>
>I think this a non-argument. As I've said before there is no
>correlation between historical dominance/resistance to imperialism
>and the later fortunes of a society. In fact, some of the most
>"colonised" peoples are later the least "annihilated".
If you've said it before, I've missed it. What comparison do you have in your mind?
>>This critique was important as it emphasized that cosmopolitan
>>internationalism was - and is - a creed of the centre:
>
>Ah, that eternal and mythical centre which is so hard to find....
Hard to find any center if you are set on not seeing it. Not so hard to find it if you are pushed around by it, I'm sure.
> > "There is the same crypto-imperialist streak in the proletarian
>> internationalist ideology as there was in the liberal and free trade
> > dogmas that lent themselves so well to Anglo-Saxon Europe" (Nairn
>> 1997). The same could be said, and has been said, of some
>> contemporary versions of environmental cosmopolitanism, of feminist
>> cosmopolitanism, and of human rights cosmopolitanism.
>
>"Crypto-imperialist" in what sense?
E.g.:
***** Given that different factions of the Ba'ath Party have ruled Syria and Iraq for almost half a century, a study of its origins is not a purely academic exercise. The party was the brainchild of Michel Aflaq (1910-89), a left-leaning Arab nationalist intellectual of Greek Orthodox Christian origin, who was born into a nationalist household in Damascus in 1910. Both his parents were politically engaged. His father had been imprisoned by the Ottomans and their French successors. Michel Aflaq was educated at the Sorbonne, fell in love with Paris, founded an Arab Students Union and discovered Marx. On his return to Syria in 1932 he worked closely with the local communists and wrote for their magazine. Like many others he assumed that the French Communist Party favoured the independence of French colonies, but this illusion was broken in 1936 when the Popular Front government left the colonial structure intact, and the Syrian communists accepted this as an accomplished fact. Many years later he told an interviewer:
"During this period I admired the hardness of the Communists' struggle against the French. I used to admire the toughness of the young men in the Communist Party. After 1936 and the assumption of power in France by the Leon Slum Front government, I became disenchanted and felt betrayed."
He now decided that the local communists were loyal, not to an idea, but to the foreign policy interests of the Soviet state, and for that reason would be unreliable allies in any protracted struggle. This experience pushed Aflaq, his close comrade Salah Bitar and other young idealistic Arab nationalists away from any internationalist perspective. They were shocked by the 'imperialist nature' of European socialism and communism. For them the key question was how to achieve freedom and independence for their countries. Everything else was subordinated to that goal.
It was during the Second World War that Aflaq developed the theory which motivated his followers: there was one Arab nation, one Arab people, and they required one Arab republic. This unity derived from history. Islam and its Prophet had united the Arabs as never before, and this historical experience was now the property of all Arabs, not just the Muslims. Nation and nationality became the main focus of his work in the early period. This, coupled with his total disillusionment with the pro-colonial European left, led him to view the Second World War through a strictly nationalist prism.
(Tariq Ali, _The Clash of Fundamentalisms_, <http://www.canadiandimension.mb.ca/extra/d0131ta.htm>) ***** -- Yoshie
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