France facing a post-national world

Throughout France’s stormy presidential election campaign both main candidates used one word as leitmotif. The word is la nation (nation). Outgoing President Nicolas Sarkozy claimed that the election would decide the fate of the “French nation”. In contrast, Socialist challenger Francois Hollande insisted that Sarkozy was using nationalism as bait for the radical right wing of the electorate. A leading French commentator dubbed the election “ a referendum on French identity”. The real question, however, is whether present-day France could be understood in terms of a classical nation-state. Hasn’t France developed into a post-national entity in which the concept of “ la nation” may no longer be central? One of the oldest states in Europe, France is the birthplace of nationalism. The idea of Frenchness began to take shape in the 13th century as Capetian kings extended their hold on hexagonal France. Over the following centuries, regional particularities, languages and cultures were systematically destroyed to create a single “national” identity. Under the same policy, Louis XIV decimated the Protestant community. Even then, on the eve of the French Revolution in the 18th century, French was the mother tongue of only 12 per cent of the population. The idea of a single uniform nation was always a myth. What mattered was the degree to which it was accepted as reality. It is possible that, for much of the 19th and 20th centuries, a majority did so. Today, as the pattern of voting has revealed, that concept is seriously questioned. Over decades, France has been slowly divided into religious, ethnic and cultural communities. This communitarian trend has replaced the old class divisions in determining political behaviour. Supporters of “Frenchness” in the old sense voted overwhelmingly for Sarkozy while those who see France as a bouquet of communities went for Hollande. It is not only in France that nationalism is under pressure. Throughout Europe the myths of nationhood has to compete with the more complex myth of European-ness. Great Britain always saw itself as an empire, with the multinational United Kingdom at its heart, thus rejecting nationalism in the classical sense. Created as a state in 1870, Italy never managed to transform into a nation. As for Germany, created as a state in 1871, the myth of “one German people” became a barrier to nationhood. While nationalism is in retreat in its original birthplace, Western Europe, it is still alive and kicking elsewhere. In Russia, the ruling elite use nationalism as a defence mechanism against falling demography and communitarianism especially with reference to the rapidly growing Muslim minority. In Hungary, efforts to build a mini-nationalism represent a challenge to the myth of European-ness. In most European countries, residual nationalism has assumed the form of a radical rightist ideological monster, breathing fire and brimstone on the fringes. Outside Europe, nationalism, imported as an ideology, has failed to take roots. Despite rhetorical claims none of Africa’s 53 state could be regarded as a nation in the classical sense. The largest African state, Nigeria, is splitting into three segments, each harbouring further tribal divisions. If anything, the trend in much of Africa is towards divisions across ethnic and religious lines. We have seen this with the emergence of South Sudan as an independent state. In Congo (Kinshasa), the provinces of Kivu and Katanga are developing separate “national” identities. South Africa is unlikely to develop into a classical nation. In Latin America, too, the trend is away from classical nationhood even in the more ethnically harmonious Argentina. In Brazil, recent economic success and occasional victories in football foster a myth of Brazilian-ness. But by no stretch of imagination could one regard Brazil as a nation in the classical sense. In Asia, the Chinese ruling elite is trying to morph Communism into a new national identity, so far with little success. In Japan a sense of nationhood, subdued by the tragic memory of the Second World War, is still strong for an ageing population. In India, efforts to produce a nationalist ideology out of pride in democracy and recent economic success is unlikely to succeed. Religious differences, the caste system and the resurgence of local languages cannot be easily pushed aside. Elsewhere in Asia, European-style nationalism is either irrelevant or hard to sell. In the United States, the myth of nationhood built around the Constitution, is under pressure from all sides. In Iran, the ruling elite is working hard to dissolve the Iranian identity into a broader Islamic one, thus creating a hybrid religious nationalism. However, the effort so far has led to nothing but growing hostility towards Islam. Between the 1940s and the 1970s Arab elites tried to propagate nationalism as official ideology. They, too, failed. Local nationalisms, for example in Egypt, had to compete with the bigger myth of pan-Arabism. Today, nationalism in most Arab countries faces Islamism as a rival ideology. At the same time, the quest for democracy reduces the appeal of nationalism. In some Arab countries, Iraq and Lebanon for example, religious sectarianism prevents the forging of a sense of nationhood. Are we entering a post-national era in human history? The question is not fanciful. Nationalism is a recent ideology; it was born in the 18th century and started to peak out at the end of the 20th, a mere flash in human history. Nationalism is challenged by the contradictory trends of globalisation and communitarianism. Massive immigration, the rise in the number of individuals with two or more nationalities, and the use of modern communication technologies to foster communitarian identities defy the dream of a single uniform nation virtually anywhere in the world. In France, 25 per cent of the population have at least one parent or grandparent of non-French origin. Some five million French nationals possess a second nationality. In other words, there is a French people if not a French nation in the sense that old nationalists intended. And this may well be the new trend as a post-national world takes shape.