In the history of humankind the demise of the Soviet Union proved to be a turning point when, for the working class, history actually turned turtle. It left quite a few wounds gaping and a number of new cauldrons simmering. Nation and religion were two such cauldrons that wasted no time in transforming into volcanoes. In the Balkan states, the fire was conflagrated even before the smoke could billow. Both nationhood and religious fanaticism went about as roaring lions: “The devils went about in a shape by which few but savages and hunters were attracted.” And there was no dearth of those. The former communists — if at all they were entitled to this attribute — unsheathed their swords and, in the name of religion, de-scalped their own fellow countrymen.
Besides religion, which too has been sufficiently diluted by western values, Serbs, Croats and Bosnians had nothing uncommon among them. According to Noel Malcolm, “Only few individuals in the entire Balkan peninsula could honestly claim a racially pure ancestry for themselves. And yet, at many times during the last two centuries, bogus theories of racial-ethnic identity had dominated the national politics of Balkan land. The modern Bosnia can be called Slav due to language, culture and a thousand years of history. No typical Bosnian face can be seen in Bosnia.” Eric Hobsbawm peeps into the past and adds: “In the past, Croats spoke three dialects — Èakavian, Kajkavian and Štokavian. The two of these dialects (most likely the stratification of Èakavian and Štokavian) ultimately shaped the literary version. Ljudevit Gaj (1809-72) who wrote the orthography and grammar of the Croatian language was the leading Croat apostle of Illyrianism. His native language both as a speaker and writer was Kajkavian but he decided to opt for Štokavian or Shtokavian. Apparently, it seemed as if the purpose was to show unity and solidarity among south Slavs but the real intentions were a little less than noble. The mission covertly went on to achieve many masqueraded goals. For instance, this helped Štokavian to become a Serb-Croat language though written in different scripts. It ultimately developed as a literary language of the southern Slavs. That is how it helped to curb one kind of nationalism to develop the other. Croatian nationalism retreated while the south Slav one was fostered. This also provided an excuse for both Serb and later Croat expansionism. “The unique Croatian dialectical situation that is the use of three dialects…could not be reconciled with the romantic belief that language was the most profound expression of national spirit. Obviously one nation cannot have three spirits, nor could one dialect be shared by two nationalities” (Hobsbawm).
Finally, Croatian nationalism emerged somewhere around the 1860s. Akin to everywhere else, one finds no exception here too. It was led by the petit bourgeoisie — the retailers and tradesmen flaunted its flag. During the great depression of the 19th century, it got a firm hold among the economically hard pressed lower middle class. According to Mirjana Gross, “It mirrored the opposition of the petite bourgeoisie to Yugoslavism as an ideology of the wealthier bourgeoisie. In this instance, since neither language nor race was available to mark the chosen people off from the rest, a historic mission of the Croat nation to defend Christianity against invasion from the east served to provide strata lacking in self-confidence with the required sense of superiority.” By the end of the 19th century, the same devastated middle classes ignited the fire of anti-Semitism after joining hands with the native bourgeoisie of Austria, Italy, Germany and France. This, as alluded to by Gramsci, later (that is, in the 20th century) became a cross-class phenomenon and led to the rise of Fascism in Italy and Germany. Unlike German fascism, the pendulum of its twin sister, the Italian one though, oscillated between non-racial to anti-Semitic trends. In fact, prior to 1919, the capitalists of the world had easy excess to cheap labour from communities around the world. Due to the post-war economic crisis, the surplus labour created the anti-immigrant drive, a movement connived and supported by the capitalists, which was appropriately named by Edward H Carr as “economic-nationalism”.
“In the history of nations, 1870 played a turning point. In 1871, after the unification of Germany and Italy took place, there were 14 states, in 1914, 20, in 1924, 26 states in Europe. In 1914 it (nationalism) spread to the Arab world, to India, to the Far East. Popular national hatred was created in 1914 and conflagrated before the 1st world war. In the 2nd world war any distinction between armed forces and civilian population disappeared from the outset” (Hobsbawm). According to Edward Hallett Carr (Nationalism and After), “Prior to the 19th century, throughout western Europe, the word nation was used for political units. In Eastern Europe this word or its equivalent meant a racial or linguistic group and had no political significance before the 19th century, when the doctrine gradually became prevalent that such groups have the right to political independence and statehood (national self-determination). The Habsburg and the Romanovs were not nations but empires and the colourless legal word ‘state’ covered them as well as both numerous small German and Italian states.” He continues: “In the same way it has lately become customary to speak of Scottish, Welsh and Indian nationalism though more rarely of the Scottish, Welsh or Indian nations. The terminology is further complicated by the usage of United States where nation is reserved for the major unit and ‘states’ are its components and have no international standing; from the American point of view it would have made nonsense to call the ‘League of Nations’ as ‘League of States’.” “It is the pride of the US,” adds Hobsbawm, “to have been the ‘melting point’ of nations. In the American army, for the liberation of Europe, men from German, Polish, Italian, Croat and a dozen other national origins have marched side by side. In the presidential election of 1940, one candidate could speak with pride of his Dutch, the other his German ancestry.”
Did ‘British’ ever have any national connotations? Perhaps not. Even now the citizens of the UK have acquired no particular name, except the latest, ‘the entitled ones’ by Prime Minister Cameron showered upon the underprivileged of society. Benjamin Disraeli, a twice-elected conservative prime minister of England despite being an apostle of aristocracy, had to make an interesting confession about the British nation. In his novel, Sybil, or The Two Nations (1845), Disraeli, while highlighting the misery, desolation and pauperisation of the working class, admits the class conflict. He writes, “[England is divided into] two nations between whom there is no intercourse and no sympathy; who are as ignorant of each other’s habits, thoughts and feelings, as if they were dwellers in different zones, or inhabitants of different planets, who are formed by a different breeding, are fed by a different food, are ordered by different manners and are not governed by the same laws. The rich and poor.”
(To be continued)
The writer is based in Australia and has authored books on socialism and history. He can be reached at [email protected]