On Nationalism

Theatre, Nationalism, and Disintegration of the Former Yugoslavia

First of all, nationalism is paranoia—collective and individual paranoia. As a collective paranoia, nationalism is born out of fear and envy. But above all, it appears as a result of an individual’s lost consciousness. Therefore, collective paranoia is nothing else but a summary of many individual paranoias brought together to a level of paroxysm. If an individual is not able to “express” himself within the framework of his given society, or if that given society does not stimulate him as an individual, or if disqualifies him—that is, if the society does not allow him to discover his own entity—then that individual is forced to look for his entity outside the society’s identity and outside society’s social structures. In so doing, the individual becomes a member of a clandestine group whose goal and task is, or seems to be, to solve problems of monumental importance: a survival and prestige of that group’s nation. It seeks to preserve its national tradition, values, and relics, its national folklore, philosophy, ethics, literature, etc. Obsessed with that secret, semi-public or public mission, our Mr. X becomes a man of action, a national tribune, a pseudo-individual. And now, when he is brought down to earth, to his own size, when he is isolated from the faceless crowd and removed from the post where he has placed himself, or where others have placed him, we have before our eyes an individual without individuality, a nationalist, Cousin Jules. He is the same Jules Sartre wrote about, Jules who is no one in the family, a nil, and whose only virtue is to turn red whenever the word “Englishmen” is mentioned. That pale face, that fever, that “secret” of his to know how to become pale when Englishmen are mentioned, that is his only social entity. It makes him important and proves his existence.

For god’s sake don’t mention English tea before him. Immediately all of the people at the table will start to give you signals, to kick you under the table because Cousin Jules is very sensitive about the Englishmen. They all know Cousin Jules hates Englishmen. He loves his own, the Frenchmen. As a matter of fact, Jules becomes individual, someone, thanks to English tea.

This picture could be an accurate portrait of all nationalists and could be defined as follows: a nationalist, almost by rule, as a social being and individual, is a negative figure—a nothingness. That is, by definition, he is a cipher. Actually, he has neglected his home and family, his job (usually he is a bureaucrat), his literature (if he is a writer at all), his community service and public responsibilities, because all these things are insignificant in comparison to his messianism. Needless to say, he is an ascetic by choice, a potential warrior who awaits his moment. Nationalism is, as Sartre would put it arguing about anti-Semitism, “a total and free choice, a global stand that one has not only toward other nations, but toward people in general, and toward history and society as well. It is simultaneously both a passion and a world view.” A nationalist is, by definition, an ignorant. Nationalism is therefore a stage of spiritual laziness and conformity.

For a nationalist everything is easy because he knows, or he thinks that he knows, his qualities, values, and abilities. That is, he knows the qualities of his nation, he knows his nation’s ethical and political values. And of course he is not interested in and does not care about the others. The others are hell (other nations, other tribes). And he does not need any information about them. The nationalist sees and recognizes in the others only himself—the nationalist. As we said earlier, it is a very comfortable situation. Fear and Envy. According to the national matrix, the nationalist believes that not only the others are hell, but everything which is not his (Serbian, Croatian, French . . .) is alien to him.

Nationalism is an ideology of banality. Nationalism, therefore, is a totalitarian ideology. Nationalism, in fact, is not...