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Title: NationStates
Author: Solidarity Federation
Date: Summer 1998
Language: en
Topics: nationalism, Wales, United Kingdom, Direct Action Magazine
Source: Retrieved on April 8, 2005 from https://web.archive.org/web/20050408024044/http://www.directa.force9.co.uk/archive/da7-features.htm#NationStates
Notes: Published in Direct Action #7 — Summer 1998.

Solidarity Federation

NationStates

Nationalism, in any form, is totally incompatible with

anarcho-syndicalism.

As is often stated, national boundaries are flukes of history and

geography.

More specifically, they are the results of political machinations by

robber barons throughout the last millennium or so, who use and abuse

ordinary people in their search for glory, power and wealth.

The nation can be seen as the gangster’s turf, an area marked by bloody

skirmishes, in which the real beneficiaries rarely take part. There are

some obvious exceptions to this, notably in those areas of the world

where the European rulers deemed it their right of conquest to divvy up

the land as they saw fit. How many boundaries between two areas? Exactly

the same as the number of people you ask to draw them. An appeal to the

nation is an appeal to an abstract idea that is used to cover up the

fact that we are expected to support one (our) ruling oppressor over

another.

The call to nationalism is a call to create an ‘other’ that is not ‘one

of us’ based on the dictates of history and political expediency of the

leaders. Nationalism is not about a cultural identity, it is not about a

sense of place, or of a nostalgia for home — though these will all be

used in attempts to develop these ‘others’ (outsiders, foreigners,

inferiors..).

If being an anarcho-syndicalist is about anything, it is about

recognising the humanity of everyone. You cannot create a libertarian

communist society in one country surrounded by other systems and accept

that as a stable situation. To have borders, to have foreigners that are

defined by their situation in another geo-political unit is to define

ourselves by what we are not and to define them by what they are not.

They are not ‘us’; they are ‘other’ — this denies people the right to

define themselves. Nationalism is the wholesale degradation of people by

the defining of them as ‘other’; as inferior.

On what basis is this definition of ‘foreign’ drawn up? I will seek to

address this through the use of an example close to home, that of Welsh

Nationalism. For many people, Welsh Nationalism is an almost benign form

of opposition to the Westminster Government and, as such, it has proved

attractive to socialists and libertarians. Now, it would be wrong to

claim that many of those who are skirting around the rim of Welsh

Nationalism are actively hostile to non-Welsh, I would just maintain

that they are mistaken in what they are doing. What does it mean to be

Welsh? How do they define what it is to be Welsh? Is someone who moves

from England to Wales, who lives there, works there and makes their life

there not as affected by decisions of the Westminster Parliament which

affect the ‘Welsh’? If not, what is the position of the immigrant from

the West Indies, from the Indian sub-continent? I know the answer of the

BNP. Here, I am not talking about state decisions which seek to suppress

the culture of colonised regions/states/continents. Such ethnic

cleansing, whoever advocates it and on whatever grounds or level, is

wrong.

So it follows, obviously, any attempts to suppress the speaking of the

Welsh language should be opposed, but I am not here concerned about the

long term survival of the Welsh culture and language other than its part

in an evolving and developing society. If languages and cultures

develop, it is up to those who are interested in them and who practise

them to keep them relevant and alive. As a libertarian, it would be

wrong to tell someone that in order to live in England they must speak

English, as it would for an anarcho-syndicalist in Wales to insist that

someone living in Wales speaks Welsh. Again, it is self-evident that if

you move to an area where the language is different, it makes sense to

learn the one spoken there if possible; it does greatly aid

communication.

Many of the social issues which are addressed by these groups which seek

a friendly nationalism, are not issues of nationalism at all. The issues

of holiday homes is a problem in the Lake District, in Cornwall, in

areas of the Yorkshire Dales, and I am sure elsewhere as well. It is not

the imposition of the English per se, but of a certain class of wealthy

middle-class, seeking an improvement in their already privileged

life-style at the expense of the housing possibilities of those who live

in the area. The problems of the imposition of rule from an

unaccountable Government based in Westminster is true throughout the UK.

To make it a view of English Government vs. Welsh people is to play with

very dangerous ideas. The unscrupulous politician can stir up hatred

based on semi-fabled stories from hundreds of years ago in an attempt to

grasp power — all they need is the right environment. It serves those

who would call themselves socialist and libertarians badly to contribute

to this environment.

At a slight tangent, I would like to address the issue of xenophobia.

The excuse often given for xenophobes is that evolutionary biology is

part of our basic make up. The idea is that it is common in higher apes

to be actively and pro-actively hostile to other troops of apes. It has

been shown that chimpanzees form raiding parties to attack individuals

from neighbouring groups. Similar things are known in other primates,

including baboons, and other species throughout nature. The comparison

has been drawn to with earlier human societies, where inter-group

rivalry was characterised by ongoing low level warfare, with occasional

intensifications of the fighting.

Those who have something to gain use this as an excuse for the necessity

of the nation state. This denies one important fact; that we have the

capacity to learn, to consider and to make decisions based on our

understanding, not only of our experience, but of the experience of

others; both those we know and those throughout history. We have the

ability to understand that we are no longer living in small groups,

primarily of extended families, with a large amount of common genetic

material. We have moved beyond the need for base genetic propagation. We

have developed other things which we may wish to propagate; ideas, such

as solidarity, mutual aid and compassion.

Fear of the unknown may well be part of the human make up; it would seem

sensible in this dangerous world. I have no problem with accepting this,

in fact I see it as a further reason for the importance of the ideas.

The fact that we may once have been xenophobic apes means we have to

work all the harder to develop our ideas in overcoming any lingering

tendencies in this direction.

Indeed, these xenophobic apes and early humans also practised a great

deal more in terms of co-operation. If you want to live in a society

where you are not the one on the receiving end of xenophobic aggression,

work with the part of human nature that seeks solidarity and

co-operation, the part that is still relevant today — not with the part

that seeks to form fights over patches of earth.

If nothing else, getting all heated over a patch of mud usually means

some cozy fat bastards are about to send you and your children to work

or to war for their profit.

On a final point, we do live in a world where states exist, and where

differing governments interpret their job of control in different ways.

It is sensible to take these states into account when seeking to defend

people and promote the ideas of libertarian communism. But it seems to

me not only dangerous, but patently absurd, to pretend that

nationalistic rhetoric, ‘however camouflaged’, can ever be beneficial or

progressive. When you use the Nationalistic argument, you choose to set

out to identify and to denigrate the ‘foreign’, the ‘other’. And when

that happens, it is usually the powerful who get the last say over who

the ‘others’ really are.