(POLITICAL NATIONALISM)[28th March 1987]

[Redbook3:47-51][19870328:2010](POLITICAL NATIONALISM)[28^th March 1987]

.2010

I think this may be one reason why I instinctively distrust political Nationalism, when it appears within part of an existing political organisation (such as Britain). Its other name in these circumstances, Separatism, gives the game away: nationalist movements within regions of a political nation have an interest in emphasising the separation dividing their own people from others, especially when, for various reasons, separatism ceases to be a means to various ends and becomes an end in itself. Before long, any who work for greater unities (such as the United Kingdom of Great Britain and *Ireland, instead of Ireland; or perhaps one day for the European Community, instead of the UK?) may be considered traitors – in the latter case, to the nation of the past; in the former case, to the political nation of the future which does not yet even exist.

These cases are riddled with problems and paradoxes: but on the whole, the trend towards democratic unity of 'pluralist' societies seems preferable to the fragmenting tendencies of Separatism.

So much of Separatist argument seems so desperately unfair, in the sense dishonest and selective: when political separatism calls cultural and (by implication) racial separatism in its support, every undesirable fact of the present can be blamed on the Union, and every good thing attributed to the natural resilience of the oppressed people, the Nation-to-be. Separate Nationhood, never having been tested (or having existed too far in the past to be remembered) can claim all potential excellence. Once achieved, of course, it can re-write History in the Separatist cause: all evils of the years of Union may be blamed automatically on the Union, since the Union, even in a democratic State, exercised all potential** power, by definition; and any regressive tendencies towards re-Union may be suppressed as acts of treason. Genuinely divided loyalties are beyond nationalist comprehension, even being, sometimes, outlawed. Pluralism is in jeopardy, and individuals are expected to conform to the Nation's mores.

*[Northern, presumably, unless looking back to the period leading up to the foundation of Eire.]

**[and actual, presumably]

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