Nationalism: a very short introduction by Steven Elliott Grosby

Author:Steven Elliott Grosby [Grosby, Steven Elliott]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: General, Political, Philosophy, Political Science, History & Theory, Nationalism, History & Theory - General, Politics & government, Current Events, International Relations, Politics, Philosophy of religion, Political Ideologies & Parties, Political Ideologies, Society & social sciences, Political Ideologies - Nationalism
ISBN: 9780192840981
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2005-02-15T05:00:00+00:00

9. The Hermannsdenkmal

Declaration of Independence about the ‘self-evident truths’ that ‘all men are created equal’ having been ‘endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights’ that are ultimately derived from a Judaeo-Christian heritage. As the American tradition has developed, there has arisen a myth of the founding fathers of the nation that obscures any number of differences between them about the implications of these statements of equality and rights, for example whether self-rule was to be federal or national. Some of the controversies arising from these ambiguities were uneasily settled by the American Civil War, in favour of – as is often the result of war

– an increased national unity. However, new myths emerged, such as the belief in the ‘manifest destiny’ of the American people to establish the boundaries of the nation from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Indeed, it was argued that these boundaries were designated by God, even though, as with the ancient Israelites, there was uncertainty as to their location, specifically whether the northwest boundary should be the 49th parallel or further north at 54,40.

Nationalism

These latter cases of modern India, Japan, Germany, Serbia, and the United States represent only a few of many possible examples that indicate that in the formation and continuation of all nations, including those of the modern world, there are appeals to ideas, such as a trans-generational territorial kinship or ‘truth’ or

‘unalienable rights’. Such ideas, while not capable of empirical verification, provide justification for the bounded social order. The most obvious example of a set of ideas that cannot be empirically verified is religion. In all of the territorial relations of kinship, both pre-modern and modern, discussed in this chapter, religion has been a factor in their formation and continued existence. The problem to be taken up now is therefore an examination of the relation between the nation and religion.

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10. The Oregon territory before 1846, indicating the uncertainty of the northwest border of the United States

Chapter 6

Whose god is mightier?

The relation between the nation and religion is historically and conceptually complicated. Religion has both been integral to, and at odds with, the formation and continuation of nations. An understanding of this relation requires a determination of how it varies from one religion to another, thereby entailing a comparative analysis. Let us begin the examination of this complicated relationship by returning to the previous chapter’s four cases, in each of which religion is integral to the existence of a nation. Although the origin of the nation of ancient Israel is, as with other nations, obscure, it is likely that an important element in its formation was the war camp. What little evidence we have about its early history, for example the monument of Pharaoh Merneptah (1207 BCE) that records the victory of Egypt over a people designated as ‘Israel’, or such ‘proto-Israelite’ military alliances as described in Judges 5, suggests as much. The likelihood of such a possibility is increased if the disputed etymology of the term ‘Israel’

is, in fact, ‘god (El) contends’.

While

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