Democratic Transition in Croatia: Value Transformation, Education, and Media

13. IS NATIONALISM REALLY THAT BAD? The Case of Croatia

13 IS NATIONALISM REALLY THAT BAD? The Case of Croatia Davorka Matić T he last three decades have witnessed a growing interest in the phenomena of nationalism and national conflicts. Countless scholars from throughout the world have devoted significant time and energy in an effort to grasp the origin, nature, and consequences of nationalism and its relations to modern-day politics. It is hardly an exaggeration to say that in the last quarter century the study of nationalism has occupied a central position within the social sciences, producing an immense body of literature and provoking fierce debate among scholars. What can we learn from this literature and concomitant debates? Two things immediately come to mind. First, the study of nationalism betrays what were (and still are) the major problems hampering the social sciences—the inability to reach a basic consensus about the nature, meaning, and functions of the phenomenon being studied and, most important, that the values, ideology, and taken-for-granted assumptions of individual social scientists play a prominent role in their analyses and profoundly shape the outcome of their study. Second, people of a liberal disposition are often inclined to view nationalism as an irrational, potentially harmful, and irredeemably illiberal doctrine, a brutal, uncivilized and destructive force. Nationalism, they tell us, may foster intolerance and may lead to violence, bloodshed, and wars.1 It was Elie Kedourie’s influential work Nationalism that gave the most consistent shape to this negative view of nationalism. According to him, nationalism is not just an incoherent and logically contradictory doctrine, IS NATIONALISM THAT BAD? 327 but above all, it is morally reproachable. In the name of national identity people are willing to give up their own rights and liberties and strip others of them. And on the international arena, the nationalist doctrine of selfdetermination did not bring peace and stability but, rather, “has created new conflicts, exacerbated tensions, and brought catastrophe to numberless people innocent of all politics. The history of Europe since 1919, in particular, has shown the disastrous possibilities inherent in nationalism.”2 Although it is quite easy to depict nationalism in such a way, this view is beset with serious flaws and shortcomings. Telling us just part of the story, it offers an incomplete and inaccurate picture of nationalism as a phenomenon . No doubt nationalism has been correctly associated with many ugly practices, and some of its manifestations are indeed morally repulsive. But the twentieth century witnessed many murderous and oppressive regimes and movements that were not inspired by nationalism. The traditional left is inclined to forget or downplay the crimes and killings committed in the name of “communist” utopia by revolutionary communist regimes throughout the world as well as those committed by some Latin American guerrillas . Michael Mann coined the term classicide to describe intended, and I would say in the case of Khmer Rouge widely achieved, mass killings of entire social classes by the extreme left. What is distinctive in this type of mass murder is that “the victim classes were considered to be irredeemable political rather than ethnic enemies.”3 Yael Tamir warns us that almost any political theory, if pushed to a logical extreme, can have malignant results that ultimately lead to the suffering of large segments of the population. Thus not only can nationalist and communist theory be perverted, but so can liberalism. Rigid adherence to free market libertarianism ignores the plight of the masses of poor in developing countries and ignores their legitimate pleas for more just economic and social policies.4 For Kedourie and others sharing his negative view, nationalism presents a serious problem that has to be opposed. But what is striking in this vocabulary of condemnation—its dangerously emotional, irrational and illiberal force—is that nationalism is regularly presented as a problem, to use Michael Billig’s words, that is projected onto “others,” that is the property of “them,” never of “us.”5 Hence Kedourie concluded his 1984 afterword to Nationalism with the claim that “Great Britain and the United States of America are precisely those areas where nationalism is unknown.”6 Others would talk about intrinsic differences between so-called Western, civic, and Eastern, ethnic nationalism.7 Civic or Western nationalism, the story goes, has its social base in civic institutions and is exercised by a group of 328 DAVORKA MATIĆ people who feel they belong to the same community and are governed...