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Chapter One Contested Ideas of Nationhood, – () In a recent book Citizenship and Nationhood in France and Germany Rogers Brubaker contrasts the way in which the French define citizenship (ius soli—the law of the soil) according to which those born on French territory are regarded as French, with the German definition which demands familial descent (ius sanguinis—the law of blood). Brubaker sees French citizenship as civic, German nationhood as tribal. The distinction is not merely an academic one since it affects the legal status of immigrants . French national identity encourages acculturation, so that, for example, M. Balladur born of Romanian parents, could be accepted as completely French and able to aspire to the Presidency of France. In contrast German national identity, with its emphasis upon German blood, makes it difficult if not impossible for third- or fourth-generation Turkish immigrants fully fluent in the German language to become German citizens , whereas ethnic Germans, emigrating from Russia and non-German speaking, run into no such difficulties.1 However, the contrast between France and Germany is not perhaps as sharp as Brubaker makes out. There are many in France who wish to define French national identity in religious terms. For these, Frenchness and Catholicism are inextricably intertwined. It is to this sense of religious identity that M. Le Pen appeals when he points to the dangers, as he sees them, presented by North African immigrants. Le Pen’s sense of French national identity may not be based upon ius sanguinis in a literal sense but it clearly appeals to a sense of ethno-cultural exclusiveness. This tension between civic and ethnic concepts of national identity in France is not merely a contemporary phenomenon. To take the most notorious example, the Dreyfus case at the end of the nineteenth century 59 revealed how bitterly France was divided upon the issue of anti-Semitism. The key question put by Action-Française was whether French Jews could ever be fully French. During those years the political nation split over whether Frenchness was civic or ethnic, and even within each category there was no agreement as to the necessary criteria (were the French a Celtic nation, for example?). The case for reclaiming German-speaking Alsace-Lorraine rested of course upon the assumption that French identity was civic not ethnic in character. But civic national identity also has its problems. In Brittany, for example, the use of Celtic first names is forbidden by law. In France generally, Muslim schoolgirls are forbidden by the state to cover their heads. French civic identity, in the eyes of the religiously committed, can appear aggressively secularist. Where have we, the inhabitants of these islands, stood in all this? In a famous article, “Nationality and Liberty,” Sir Lewis Namier argued that British national identity was unproblematic. He stated confidently The British and Swiss concepts of nationality are primarily territorial: it is the State which created nationality not vice versa... Liberty and self government have moulded the territorial nation of Britain and given content to its communal nationality. The political life of the British island community centres in its Parliament at Westminster, which represents men rooted in British soil. This is a territorial and not a tribal assembly.2 Namier, a Jewish immigrant from Poland, understandably stressed the civic character of British identity. More recently, however, Liah Greenfeld in Nationalism: Five Roads to Modernity and Linda Colley in Britons: The Forging of a Nation3 have stressed the importance of religion as the essential component of English/British national identity. From this point of view English/British national identity is ethno-cultural not territorial in character. In terms of a contrast between tribal and civic identity, their view suggests that England approximates more to a Le Pen French model than a French civic model. As with France and Germany there is more at stake here than terminology. After the end of World War II, the United Kingdom received a massive influx of immigrants from India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, the West Indies and not least the Republic of Ireland. It matters a great deal to the children of these newcomers in Bradford or Kilburn, what the basis of their nationality is to be, civic or ethnic or a workable compromise. Norman Tebbit’s view is ethnic. “The cricket test—which side do they cheer for? Are you still looking back to where you came from or where you are?”4 60 Contested Ideas of Nationhood, – [18.119.126.80] Project MUSE (2024-04-25...

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