In la France there are also, at least, Catalans,
Occitans and Corses, dammit! (It's clear unless you go bombing around you get no
recognition...) And Spain has also, at least, Galicians.
For me, "nation" -> "let us be,
hell!" opposed to "nation-state" -> "gonna weep all those barbars out".
So "nationalist" is that who looks for freedom, while "nation-statalist" is that
who looks for supremacy. Nothing to do, then, between a Catalan nationalist and
a French nationalist.
In addition, let me say that the only heirs of
tribe are nations, not states, which are a modern invention. The matter is how
we determine what makes an ethnic group "different" from others. In ancient
times, it could be that two tribes were ethnically the same, but considered (and
acted) different to the other. Today, technology allows ethinic groups to keep
together and avoid fragmentation in case they don't have a statal structure, so
the difference between "tribe" and "nation" is due only to technological
factors. The ideal thing is a tribe to become nation and then state, but I don't
know a sole case of that. Then the worst thing is a tribe that becomes nation
and creates (not "becomes", "CREATES") a state, for it will necessarily do it
damaging other nations. The first is non agressive (it only affects the nation
itself, its internal organization) and the second leads to violence (physical
violence or cultural violence, usually both because it affects other nations
which will oppose some kind of resistence in order to not disappear as a
differenciate ethnic group). This last thesis (tribe>nation>state) appears
to be necessair today in order to survive as a nation (that nation which doesn't
become a state, or, at least something similar will probably disappear
soon).
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Thursday, September 06, 2001 8:53
PM
Subject: [tied] Re: Scientific
Nationalism?
"Nation" has two senses, that of 'people', 'distinct ethnic
group' (as
used in the King James Bible), and 'nation-state' (the usual
modern
sense). Nation-states can and often do have multiple ethnicities
contained within their borders (France has Bretons and Basques, Spain
has Basques and Catalans, etc).
I have never thought of 'tribe' as
applying to a nation-state. Even
with ancient Israel -- where the word
'tribe' gets most of its
coloration -- it was not one tribe, but a
tribal confederacy, and by
one thesis, it began as an amphictyony that
only later developed all
the trappings of a nation-state. Greece was never
a nation-state, but
rather, a fractious amphictyony of independent
city-states.
In its earliest stages, Switzerland was not a distinct
nation-state,
but rather a treaty organization a la Nato and it's only
fairly
recently that the Swiss think of themselves as a distinct people.
More
recently, it's really only in the last 50 years that Canadians and
Australians have developed a distinct sense of national identity
(before then, they were just good subjects of the Queen in one of her
Dominions Across the Sea.
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