81 lines
4.3 KiB
Plaintext
81 lines
4.3 KiB
Plaintext
Libertarian Labor Review #14
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Winter 1992-93, page 1
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Editorial:
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The Scourge of Nationalism
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Patriotism assumes that our globe is divided into little
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spots, each one surrounded by an iron gate. Those who
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have had the fortune of being born on some particular
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spot consider themselves better, nobler, grander, more
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intelligent than the living beings inhabiting any other
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spot. It is, therefore, the duty of everyone living on
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that chosen spot to fight, kill and die in the attempt to
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impose his superiority upon all others. The inhabitants
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of the other spots reason in like manner...
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Emma Goldman, Patriotism
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As we go to press, Croatians, Serbians and Bosnians are
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engaged in full-scale war. Russia is threatening action against
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Estonia unless it stops discriminating against ethnic Russians.
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Border disputes are flaring throughout the former Soviet empire as
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nationalists try to carve out their own, ethnically-pure nation
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states.
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Thus, we see the "national independence" movements move from
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the Third World to eastern Europe. Nationalism is not, of course,
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a new phenomena. But today "civilized" warfare has advanced to the
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point where entire cities can be levelled in a matter of hours, and
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tens of thousands slaughtered in mere minutes.
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War is tragic enough even when necessitated (as, for example,
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during the Spanish Revolution) by workers' self-defense. But its
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devastation is all the more tragic resulting from the empty chimera
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of nationalism. There is, at root, no such thing as a nation--
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nationalism is an empty construct that serves both to conceal
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internal oppression and to define the vast majority of the world's
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population as outside the realm of human solidarity.
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As Jose Marti noted, "To change the master is not to be free."
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Throughout the Third World, nationalism has served as the vehicle
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for a new set of masters to take control--but there is no evidence
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that the majority of the population has benefitted thereby. Nor
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have the nationalist revolutions in the Soviet Bloc benefitted most
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workers (as evidenced most recently in Lithuania where voters have
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ousted the nationalists and returned the former communists to
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power--not that there is any reason to believe their oppressive
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yoke will be any lighter).
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The nation-state is not a natural community. Rather,
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nationalism is the political theology of the state--a doctrine
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evolved to justify all manner of outrages against external and
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internal threats to the state's (or the aspiring state's)
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interests. Self-determination has nothing to do with it.
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Thus, Serbian nationalists relocate Croatian and Moslem
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populations to concentration camps (when they don't execute them
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outright) in order to create ethnically homogenous territories in
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which to construct their new nation-state.
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Indonesian generals massacre residents of East Timor who wish
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to set up their own nation-state, in the name of preserving the
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unity of the Indonesian nation (itself a colonial construct devised
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to simplify administration of far-flung islands).
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In the name of nationalism, the U.S. and its allies felt no
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compunction about massacring Iraqis. In turn, Iraq's leaders appeal
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to nationalism to mobilize support for their attacks against the
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Kurds (whose nationalist "leaders" in turn use their armed forces
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to suppress efforts by workers to take control of their
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workplaces).
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The anarchist alternative to nationalism, as Sam Dolgoff notes
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in "Third World Nationalism and the State" (available from LLR), is
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a libertarian, stateless federation of various peoples with all
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other peoples of the world. We reject the artificial national
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boundaries imposed by capitalism and the state to segregate and
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divide the workers into hostile camps.
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Our freedom, our ability to realize our capacities and pursue
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our desires, can only be realized when we reject nationalist
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efforts to paint our fellow workers in different parts of the world
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as "other"--as people whose aspirations and needs are less
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important or less legitimate than our own. It is time to more
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beyond international solidarity, with its implicit notion that
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national boundaries retain some meaning or legitimacy, towards a
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global solidarity of people struggling to realize our common
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humanity, and the freedom that we can truly enjoy only when it is
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extended to all.
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