Posted on 06/22/2006 4:29:24 PM PDT by Pokey78
THE SOUND of lusty Germans filling World Cup stadiums with the refrain of what much of the world still thinks of as Deutschland über Alles has provoked mixed reactions. Despite the best efforts of the enforcers of political correctness, it will never be possible for any of the current generations of Englishmen or women (or many other Europeans, for that matter) to dissociate the sound from the nation’s still unpleasantly recent past.
Certainly, it’s not the Horst Wessel Lied, and the anthem’s words (“Bloom, in the glow of happiness, Bloom, German fatherland!”) are almost bathetically bucolic by comparison with the old, troublingly blunter: “Germany, Germany, above everything in the world!” But there’s something about the sight of muscular Aryans and blonde-plaited Fräulein belting out the familiar tune that prompts some to reach instinctively for the tin helmet and the map of Poland.
But to others, me included, the development is a welcome one. It marks another small, symbolic victory in the unending struggle of people everywhere to preserve their national sovereignty. It says much, too, about the enduring nature of national identity. Despite centuries of efforts to extinguish it, the nation remains the unit in which most peoples, especially those in Europe, invest their loyalties. You can read too much into the behaviour of football fans, as we English know only too well. But the guiltless embrace of patriotism by football-loving Germans fits with a general perception in recent years that Germany is close to being a normal nation again.
Nationalism, of course, has long been a dirty word. It is generally deemed to have consigned Europe to almost continuous war between the early 19th century and the mid-20th century. And so it did.
But as with so many attempts to extirpate evil, the desire to crush its baleful consequences overreached. It was not just nationalism, but patriotism that was suppressed. The idea that your country can stand for something benign became unsayable, even with nations whose past fully entitled them to make such a claim.
The conviction took hold, in the governing and opinion-forming classes in the West, that the nation state itself was somehow an abomination, an intrinsic threat to peace and stability. So for half a century, emboldened political leaders in Europe made larger and larger efforts to snuff it out.
But while you can submerge nationhood in a tight web of supranational institutions, you can’t destroy the basic allegiances that animate the hearts of men. You can take the soul out of a country but you can’t take a country out of the soul. And the risk has always been that the more you attempt to suppress the idea of a nation, the more you will foster resentment and the very sort of indignant nationalism that has proved so tragically costly.
The European Union, of course, is not alone. The post-Second World War multilateral settlements designed to promote international co-operation between sovereign nations have become, in the dreams of many, an even larger opportunity to suppress the nation itself. There are political and cultural elites everywhere who regard the nation state as an unhealthy anachronism, who want to bury national pride and identity beneath an avalanche of deracinated, brotherhood-of-man, why-can’t-we-all-just-get-along-together mush. It is a conviction founded on a moral relativism, of course — no one nation is any better than any other — and promulgated by diplomats, business leaders and entertainers who have long since shaken off the irritating shackles of their own nationhood to play on a much larger global stage. To these people the United Nations is the highest achievement of humanity, and they would happily subjugate the will of peoples everywhere to its rule.
What is so striking about this effort to extinguish national identity and the popular will is that it is persistent, and through history repeatedly reveals itself in different ways. Marx regarded the nation as a capitalist construct, another manifestation of false consciousness to distract alienated labour from its true plight. The Soviets certainly did their bit to eliminate national boundaries, but the vigorous and renewed national pride in Eastern Europe is testament to the enduring failure of global communism.
Radical Islam wants the umma to replace national communities — and is willing to eliminate nations by violence. And I suppose, for reasons of absolute fairness, and as a Catholic, that I should also acknowledge that the Church has had a long history of adopting a bluntly political interpretation of its universalist claim, though today it has, fortunately come to happier terms with the nation state.
In some parts of the world, of course, popular allegiance is paid to even smaller units of society — tribes and ethnic groups. Indeed in places like Iraq, we should wish there were a stronger nationalism.
But the principle remains that voluntary loyalty to one’s own group is the most powerful popular coagulant. Belief in the supremacy of national sovereignty is not at all, as its critics claim, an inevitable driver of racism or nationalism. Even if, like the Dixie Chicks, you claim not to be able to understand the very idea of patriotism, you should at least acknowledge that, for most people, the nation is the primary political unit, the one that legitimises the governing of their nation.
Nor is support for the principle of a world of free sovereign nations consonant with economic isolationism. Globalisation has worked (and it has been the greatest antidote to poverty the world has ever seen) because it has been driven by consumer choices, individuals acting freely to promote their own welfare, not by elites.
Indeed, economic integration remains the best way to promote global co-operation and genuine prospects for peace. It gives people a tangible stake in each other’s futures in a way no supranational ideal or multilateral institution ever could.
Summary:
White people who behave unapologetically are intolerable, even if they've been bending over backwards to appease the professional victim classes for decades.
the Dipstick Chicks
The author is a moron. There were very few European wars between 1815 and 1914.
Lots of posturing and threatening, and massive expenditures on the military, especially towards the end of this period, but only a few actual wars between nations.
Certainly there were a lot fewer European wars than in the 18th or 17th centuries, when warfare was indeed almost continuous, but unfortunately for the writer's theory is generally considered to be pre-nationalism.
And there were only two major European wars in the 20th century, both fought in a 30 year period. To be fair, they were very large wars, but there were only two of them. (If you discount various squabbles that were essentially after-shocks of WWI.)
"Claim"? It's a fact: that word is way too long for those three twits to understand.
Seriously. Three syllables too long.
Even stretching the definition, I can come up with only eight wars between European states between 1815 and 1914.
Every one, with the exception of the Crimean War, grew out of the German and Italian struggles for unification.
There were many wars during this period, but only a few in Europe.
There were many small scale wars in Europe between 1815 and 1914. They mostly had to do with German or Italian unification or nationalism if you prefer. But they didn't last longer than a few months at a time, much unlike previous decade long wars between France and England and Spain.
See post 6.
I come up with:
Three Italian wars of independence against Austria, in the last case allied with France.
Two Danish-German wars over Schleswig. (Not the best idea the Danes ever had!)
The Crimean War: Britain, France and Sardinia vs. Russia.
The Austro-Prussian War.
The Franco-Prussian War.
The Prussians were thus involved in four of the eight wars.
I haven't really compared this to other centuries in detail, but I seriously doubt there is another 100 year period in European history with fewer wars.
Voila, only 8 wars.
Deutsche Frauen, deutsche Treue
Deutscher Wein und deutscher Sang
Sollen in der Welt behalten
Ihren schönenalten Klang
Uns zu edler Tat begeistern
Unser ganzes Leben lang
Deutsche Frauen, deutsche Treue
Deutscher Wein und deutscher Sang
Einigkeit und Recht und Freiheit
Für das deutsche Vaterland!
Danach laßt uns alle streben
Brüderlich mit Herz und Hand!
Einigkeit und Recht und Freiheit
Sind des Glückes Unterpfand -
Blüh im Glanze dieses Glückes,
Blühe, deutsches Vaterland
Heinrich Hoffmann, 1841
Yeah, that sounds about right. It depends if you want to classify attempted revolts and revolutions as "wars". I think the Hungarians tried one against the Austrians that the Russians helped put down. The 18th century was much more violent than the 19th, at least as Europe proper is concerned.
I counted only wars that more or less fit the original author's criteria, ones that were, or could have been, "caused" by the plague of nationalism in Europe leading to a war between two or more nationalistic European states.
Wars by submerged nationalities against the Ottoman Empire, a non-nationalistic (and mostly non-European) state for most of this period, didn't seem to fit.
Civil wars, such as in Spain, don't fit the criteria either.
Neither did wars of conquest by Russia against tribes in Caucasia or Central Asia or various revolts against Austria, Russia, etc. These wars weren't caused by nationalistic excesses between conflicting European nation-states. Although some of those revolting (Hungarians, Poles) wanted to get their own nation-states so they could themselves engage in nationalistic enterprises.
FWIW, for most of this period Russia was itself a pre-nationalistic state.
As far as the Balkans being primarily non-European, the Greeks, Serbs, Croats, Albanians and others who live there would certainly dispute you on that!
The only way you can arrive at Europe having only 8 wars in the 19th century is if you count Southern and Eastern European countries as being not quite European!
Almost forgot, France v. Mexico!!!! That's the one behind "Cinco de Mayo".
btxy
It isn't widely remembered, but the Balkans were the "Near East" for most of this period. They were considered only marginally European at the time by "real" Europeans such as the French and British. A famous French saying of the time was that "Africa starts at the Pyrenees." Ahh, for the good old days of true non-PC-ness!
European countries, as you point out, fought a great many wars during the 19th century. Only a few of those were fought on the continent of Europe between nationalistic European states. The original author's contention was that Europe was in almost constant war during this period due to nationalism. I merely pointed out that this is hooey.
Last time I checked the atlas, Mexico isn't in Europe.
The author is a moron. There were very few European wars between 1815 and 1914.
He said up to the mid-20th century. That includes WWI and WWII.
Say what you want about how it embodies 'nationalism,' it is every bit as stirring a song as the Marseillaise, and a hell of a lot less overtly warlike than that song. Which is not at all surprising, since the words were written by a German republican in exile for his ideals.
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