Part 10 (1/2)
[135] _I. e._, the British Government of India.
[136] _I. e._, the Montagu-Chelmsford reforms, previously noted.
[137] Lionel Curtis, _Letters to the People of India on Responsible Government_, pp. 159-160 (London, 1918).
CHAPTER V
NATIONALISM
The spirit of nationality is one of the great dynamics of modern times.
In Europe, where it first attained self-conscious maturity, it radically altered the face of things during the nineteenth century, so that that century is often called the Age of Nationalities. But nationalism is not merely a European phenomenon. It has spread to the remotest corners of the earth, and is apparently still destined to effect momentous transformations.
Given a phenomenon of so vital a character, the question at once arises: What is nationalism? Curiously enough, this question has been endlessly debated. Many theories have been advanced, seeking variously to identify nationalism with language, culture, race, politics, geography, economics, or religion. Now these, and even other, matters may be factors predisposing or contributing to the formation of national consciousness. But, in the last a.n.a.lysis, nationalism is something over and above all its const.i.tuent elements, which it works into a new and higher synthesis. There is really nothing recondite or mysterious about nationalism, despite all the arguments that have raged concerning its exact meaning. As a matter of fact, nationalism is _a state of mind_.
Nationalism is a _belief_, held by a fairly large number of individuals, that they const.i.tute a ”Nationality”; it is a sense of _belonging together_ as a ”Nation.” This ”Nation,” as visualized in the minds of its believers, is a people or community a.s.sociated together and organized under one government, and dwelling together in a distinct territory. When the nationalist ideal is realized, we have what is known as a body-politic or ”State.” But we must not forget that this ”State”
is the material manifestation of an ideal, which may have pre-existed for generations as a mere pious aspiration with no tangible attributes like state sovereignty or physical frontiers. Conversely, we must remember that a state need not be a nation. Witness the defunct Hapsburg Empire of Austria-Hungary, an a.s.semblage of discordant nationalities which flew to pieces under the shock of war.
The late war was a liberal education regarding nationalistic phenomena, especially as applied to Europe, and most of the fallacies regarding nationality were vividly disclosed. It is enough to cite Switzerland--a country whose very existence flagrantly violates ”tests” like language, culture, religion, or geography, and where nevertheless a lively sense of nationality emerged triumphant from the ordeal of Armageddon.
So familiar are these matters to the general public that only one point need here be stressed: the difference between nationality and race.
Unfortunately the two terms have been used very loosely, if not interchangeably, and are still much confused in current thinking. As a matter of fact, they connote utterly different things. Nationality is a psychological concept or state of mind. Race is a physiological fact, which may be accurately determined by scientific tests such as skull-measurement, hair-formation, and colour of eyes and skin. In other words, race is what people anthropologically _really_ are; nationality is what people politically _think_ they are.
Right here we encounter a most curious paradox. There can be no question that, as between race and nationality, race is the more fundamental, and, in the long run, the more important. A man's innate capacity is obviously dependent upon his heredity, and no matter how stimulating may be his environment, the potential limits of his reaction to that environment are fixed at his birth. Nevertheless, the fact remains that men pay scant attention to race, while nationalism stirs them to their very souls. The main reason for this seems to be because it is only about half a century since even savants realized the true nature and importance of race. Even after an idea is scientifically established, it takes a long time for it to be genuinely accepted by the public, and only after it has been thus accepted will it form the basis of practical conduct. Meanwhile the far older idea of nationality has permeated the popular consciousness, and has thereby been able to produce tangible effects. In fine, our political life is still dominated by nationalism rather than race, and practical politics are thus conditioned, not by what men really are, but by what they think they are.
The late war is a striking case in point. That war is very generally regarded as having been one of ”race.” The idea certainly lent to the struggle much of its bitterness and uncompromising fury. And yet, from the genuine racial standpoint, it was nothing of the kind. Ethnologists have proved conclusively that, apart from certain palaeolithic survivals and a few historically recent Asiatic intruders, Europe is inhabited by only three stocks: (1) The blond, long-headed ”Nordic” race, (2) the medium-complexioned, round-headed ”Alpine” race, (3) the _brunet_, long-headed ”Mediterranean” race. These races are so dispersed and intermingled that every European nation is built of at least two of these stocks, while most are compounded of all three. Strictly speaking, therefore, the European War was not a race-war at all, but a domestic struggle between closely knit blood-relatives.
Now all this was known to most well-educated Europeans long before 1914.
And yet it did not make the slightest difference. The reason is that, in spite of everything, the vast majority of Europeans still believe that they fit into an entirely different race-category. They think they belong to the ”Teutonic” race, the ”Latin” race, the ”Slav” race, or the ”Anglo-Saxon” race. The fact that these so-called ”races” simply do not exist but are really historical differentiations, based on language and culture, which cut sublimely across genuine race-lines--all that is quite beside the point. Your European may apprehend this intellectually, but so long as it remains an intellectual novelty it will have no appreciable effect upon his conduct. In his heart of hearts he will still believe himself a Latin, a Teuton, an Anglo-Saxon, or a Slav. For his blood-race he will not stir; for his thought-race he will die. For the glory of the dolichocephalic ”Nordic” or the brachycephalic ”Alpine”
he will not p.r.i.c.k his finger or wager a groat; for the triumph of the ”Teuton” or the ”Slav” he will give his last farthing and shed his heart's blood. In other words: Not what men really are, but what they think they are.
At first it may seem strange that in contemporary Europe thought-race should be all-powerful while blood-race is impotent. Yet there are very good reasons. Not only has modern Europe's great dynamic been nationalism, but also nationalism has seized upon the nascent racial concept and has perverted it to its own ends. Until quite recent times ”Nationality” was a distinctly intensive concept, connoting approximate ident.i.ty of culture, language, and historic past. It was the logical product of a relatively narrow European outlook. Indeed, it grew out of a still narrower outlook which had contented itself with the regional, feudal, and dialectic loyalties of the Middle Ages. But the first half of the nineteenth century saw a still further widening of the European outlook to a continental or even to a world horizon. At once the early concept of nationality ceased to satisfy. Nationalism became extensive. It tended to embrace all those of kindred speech, culture, and historic tradition, however distant such persons might be. Obviously a new terminology was required. The keyword was presently discovered--”Race.” Hence we get that whole series of _pseudo_ ”race” phrases--”Pan-Germanism,” ”Pan-Slavism,” ”Pan-Angleism,”
”Pan-Latinism,” and the rest. Of course these are not racial at all. They merely signify nationalism brought up to date. But the European peoples, with all the fervour of the nationalist faith that is in them, believe and proclaim them to be racial. Hence, so far as practical politics are concerned, they _are_ racial and will so continue while the nationalist dynamic endures.
This new development of nationalism (the ”racial” stage, as we may call it) was at first confined to the older centres of European civilization, but with the spread of Western ideas it presently appeared in the most unexpected quarters. Its advent in the Balkans, for example, quickly engendered those fanatical propagandas, ”Pan-h.e.l.lenism,” ”Pan-Serbism,”
etc., which turned that unhappy region first into a bear-garden and latterly into a witches' sabbath.
Meanwhile, by the closing decades of the nineteenth century, the first phase of nationalism had patently pa.s.sed into Asia. The ”Young-Turk” and ”Young-Egyptian” movements, and the ”Nationalist” stirrings in regions so far remote from each other as Algeria, Persia, and India, were unmistakable signs that Asia was gripped by the initial throes of nationalist self-consciousness. Furthermore, with the opening years of the twentieth century, numerous symptoms proclaimed the fact that in Asia, as in the Balkans, the second or ”racial” stage of nationalism had begun. These years saw the definite emergence of far-flung ”Pan-”
movements: ”Pan-Turanism,” ”Pan-Arabism,” and (most amazing of apparent paradoxes) ”Pan-Islamic Nationalism.”
I
Let us now trace the genesis and growth of nationalism in the Near and Middle East, devoting the present chapter to nationalist developments in the Moslem world with the exception of India. India requires special treatment, because there nationalist activity has been mainly the work of the non-Moslem Hindu element. Indian nationalism has followed a course differing distinctly from that of Islam, and will therefore be considered in the following chapter.
Before it received the Western impact of the nineteenth century, the Islamic world was virtually devoid of self-conscious nationalism. There were, to be sure, strong local and tribal loyalties. There was intense dynastic sentiment like the Turks' devotion to their ”Padishas,” the Ottoman sultans. There was also marked pride of race such as the Arabs'
conviction that they were the ”Chosen People.” Here, obviously, were potential nationalist elements. But these elements were as yet dispersed and unco-ordinated. They were not yet fused into the new synthesis of self-conscious nationalism. The only Moslem people which could be said to possess anything like true nationalist feeling were the Persians, with their traditional devotion to their plateau-land of ”Iran.” The various peoples of the Moslem world had thus, at most, a rudimentary, inchoate nationalist consciousness: a dull, inert unitary spirit; capable of development, perhaps, but as yet scarcely perceptible even to outsiders and certainly unperceived by themselves.
Furthermore, Islam itself was in many respects hostile to nationalism.
Islam's insistence upon the brotherhood of all True Believers, and the Islamic political ideal of the ”Imamat,” or universal theocratic democracy, naturally tended to inhibit the formation of sovereign, mutually exclusive national units; just as the nascent nationalities of Renaissance Europe conflicted with the mediaeval ideals of universal papacy and ”Holy Roman Empire.”