Tuesday, May 08, 2007
On Nationalism
Now that I've opened the door a crack to political comment, I'm afraid there's more that wants to push through.
The recent Scottish election - which saw a separatist party win the most seats in the Scottish parliament - got me thinking about nationalism. Even though separatism in Canada is probably at its lowest ebb in over a generation, nationalism is still a topic we know too much about.
Of course, here in Canada we don't have a nation so much as we have a marriage between two peoples. Like all marriages, it has its ups and downs. The Quebec nation, you know, is very cool and stylish, a real trophy wife. But then there's the temper trantrums, the PMS, the selfishness and her outright refusal to get a jay-ooh-bee to pay for her expensive tastes. Deep down, we know she loves us, in her own way.
The old line they used to feed us in Canadian political science classes is that nationalism is a peculiarly European notion that never really worked well and therefore has no relevance to our modern world.
Yet it keeps popping up.
The Canadian dogma on this topic was originally fed by that big tit-head, Pierre Elliott Trudeau, who back in his college professor days used to sneer big long sneers at nationalism of all sorts, as only he could.
But let's review the practical record. Trudeau helped write the constitutions for two countries: Canada - which at any given moment has at least one and sometimes as many as three active separatist movements; and Czechoslovakia - which swiftly became Slovakia and the Czech Republic almost immediately after Trudeau left town.
Trudeau was clearly wrong to underestimate the abiding pull of nationalism, but I think he still had a point overall.
When you think about it, an average human feels so many loyalties criss-crossing every which way. Are the loyalties of language and local culture so powerful that they deserve to be the only ones that are considered politically?
And anyway, who are we kidding with all this talk of "culture" in this world where we all shop at Wal-Mart / Asda and watch CSI: Miami?
This of course leads to another argument that has sometimes been used by Quebec separatists: in the context of the Eurpoean Union and NAFTA, individual countries are becoming less like separate houses and more like condos living side by side in a big high rise building. So what does it matter if people change apartments every so often? If our beloved fucking bitch Quebec wants to get her own place next door, well as long as she pays her share of the bills and as long as we get together for some ex-sex every once in awhile, maybe that's not such a bad deal... or so the argument goes.
Likewise, what does it really matter if Scotland separates from Britain at this point? As long as it stays in the EU, Scotland and England would still be part of the same super-country anyway.
In the short term, this is really a moot point, because the Scottish separatists will never wield real power anyway.
Yet I have this sneaking suspicion this is an issue that won't go away soon.
What do you guys think? Is nationalism dead? Is it relevant? Does anyone really care? Is your national identity something that is overwhelmingly important in your life, or is it just another piece of the puzzle?
posted by Mentok @ 11:39 p.m.,
