Nationalism, Religion, and Ethics by Gregory Baum (review)

humanities 327 university of toronto quarterly, volume 72, number 1, winter 2002/3 and international political and cultural conflicts, the model provided meets a significant theoretical need to better comprehend the role of civil religion throughout the world. (MICHAEL T. HALLETT) Gregory Baum. Nationalism, Religion, and Ethics McGill-Queen=s University Press. 166. $65.00, $27.95 In January 1995 in Montreal I attended a pre-conference lecture given by Gregory Baum to the Canadian Association for Pastoral Practice and Education (CAPPE/ACPEP). The subject was Quebec, and Baum=s position enraged many visitors from across the country. He had been a Quebecker for less than nine years after twenty-eight years teaching at the University of Toronto (St Michael=s College), but he had already arrived at a position of support for sovereignty. He was clearly regarded as a traitor by those who accused the Parti Québécois of >wanting to break up the country.= In Nationalism, Religion, and Ethics, Baum develops an approach to nationalism which hinges on the tension between, on the one hand, the ancestral bonds to which a people point (such as ethnicity, language, religion, and historical experience) as identifying them as a nation, and, on the other, the aspirations and expectations of a people for equality and justice. Baum identifies the >Durkheimian principle=: we are constituted by the society into which we are born and our self-understanding is mediated by the symbols of that society. Against this is the universal reason of Enlightenment liberalism that dissolves the irrational bonds of family, tribe, and community through which people were tied to the feudal-aristocratic order. Nationalism is ethically justifiable if it pays equal attention to the bonds of cultural identity and the hope for equality and justice. While Baum is surprised by how little attention nationalism has received from Catholic authors, he is very impressed by the set of four ethical guidelines issued by Quebec=s Catholic bishops prior to the sovereignty referendum of 1980. Sovereignty, they suggested, is an ethical option if it aims at a more just and open society, if it respects the human rights of minorities, if it anticipates peace with other nations, and if the state is not identified as the highest good. Baum calls these >ethical provisos.= They become touchstones for the discussions of the book: a nation should not exist merely to preserve a culture but also for justice, equality, and human rights. The bulk of Nationalism, Religion, and Ethics is Baum=s treatment of four writers. He considers Martin Buber=s three speeches on Judaism given between 1909 and 1911, and his 1921 speech on Jewish nationalism at the Zionist Congress in Prague. Buber=s conclusion was that Jewish nationalism is justified if it identifies with the biblical prophetic tradition that aims at the reconciliation of all humanity, including a partnership with the Palestinians within a common state. 328 letters in canada 2001 university of toronto quarterly, volume 72, number 1, winter 2002/3 Mahatma Gandhi=s nationalistic pamphlet Hind Swaraj of 1909 and his debate with Rabindrath Tagore of 1921 reveal Gandhi=s radical critique of European >civilization= as diseased and even Satanic. Gandhi=s vision of Indian nationalism involved a return to indigenous languages, local subsistence economies, overcoming the caste system, and Hindu-Muslim partnership. In other words, he looked for a nation which would foster the inherited cultures of India and also create a new order of equality, human rights, and sustainable prosperity. Baum also turns to The Socialist Decision (1933) by Paul Tillich. This is the source of much of the theory about the dialectic of nationalism. Economic and political liberalism result in human reification which can only be overcome through recovery of the traditional bonds of meaning found in myths of origin. With Buber, Tillich also looks to a biblical utopianism that is the source of the demand for justice and equality. Finally, Baum comes to the two-volume 1970 work, Nationalisme et Religion, by the Quebec theologian Jacques Grand=Maison. In 1970 Grand=Maison was an enthusiastic supporter of the Parti Québécois and of Quebec sovereignty. The Quebec view of Confederation is the union of two nations...