Billig, M. (1995). Banal Nationalism. Springer.
Introduction
- societies that maintain armies – belief that some things are more valuable than life itself.
- What is valued – changes in times.
- Sometimes, these causes, after time has passed, seem trivial.
- This reflects a shifting balance of priorities.
- Great causes today – different. So is the scale of the bloodshed.
- Much of this bloodshed – in the name of a nation – national independence, defence, protect the idea of nationhood.
- Eve of battle rhetoric – leaders remind the followers why they must die – most supreme of all sacrifices.
- Bush – spoke about ‘nations’ being raped/ pillaged – not people.
- Moral order of Bush – evoking an order of nations.
- Nations – protected from neighbours (also nations).
- Bush – no justification why nationhood was so important.
- War – necessary to affirm the sacred principle of nationhood.
- Often linked to increased support at home – approval rating.
- Kuwait demonstrates the speed with which western publics can be mobilised for flag waving warfare in the name of nationhood.
- Earlier run through – Falklands.
- Press – both cases – uncritically supported the government.
- Not about god or political ideology – rightful nationhood.
- Crime of national invasion.
- New wold order – protect nations from aggressive neighbours.
- Nothing about protecting citizens from the crimes of their own governments,.
The parallels are instructive. The Second World War had not been prompted by the German government’s mistreatment of its own citizens: no foreign government had committed its soldiery to rescue German Jewry. But once the German government started making national flags, rather than individual citizens, disappear, then war became inevitable.
- Not about territorial ambitions – that has existed since before the rise of nation states
- Force of nationalism within political thinking of the twentieth century.
- Assumptions of this nationalism – not so much revealed by the actions of the ruling clues.
- Instead the action of established and powerful nation staes -w Hickmans will ready fight, with mass support, to prevent or reverse such annexations.
- Assumptions – leaders can cite a world morality of national integrity.
- Aura attached to the idea of nationhood.
- But this operates within contexts of power.
- Role of god is interesting -> god is there to serve the order of nations.
- God asked to continue serving the national order.
- Not, as in the past, acting on behalf of good.
- Ideological consciousness of nationhood can be seen to be at work.
- Embraces of complex set of themes about ‘us’, homeland, nations.
Nationalism and Established Nations
- nationalism – often connected with far right politics
- Or emerging nation states.
- We often look outward, rather than inward.
- Nationalism in this sense – located on the periphery.
- Nationalism – seen as a peripheral and exotic.
- Overlooks the nationalism of the west’s nation states.
- Cannot be confined to the peripheries in a world of nation states.
- okay, but then only on special occasions?
- Is it only a temporary mood? No – these crises depend on ideological foundations.
- Crises do not create nation states as nation states.
- Daily, they are produced as nation sates.
- No readily available term to describe the collection of ideological habits.
It is as if the term ‘nationalism’ only comes in small sizes and bright colours. The word is comfortably wrapped around social movements, which seek to re-draw existing territorial boundaries, and which, thereby, threaten the existing national status quo. With some room for growth, the word can be stretched over moments of eccentricity, such as Thatcher’s remarks about the Falklanders being of ‘British stock’. But, if one tries to dress the whole ‘normal’, national status quo in the term, the garment appears to fall apart; the stitching splits; the buttons pop; the customers complain ‘this isn’t how it normally looks’.
- Nationalism – becomes identified as a problem.
- Restricted to small sizes, exotic colours.
- Habits – unnamed, hence unnoticed.
- Stretching the term nationalism – covers the ideological means by which nation states are reproduced.
- Banal nationalism – ideological habits which enable the established nations of the west to be reproduced.
- Nationalism – endemic condition.
- Banal – does not imply being.
- In the past, some forms of nationalism – been classed as positive.
- Banality – hardly innocent.
Identity and Ideology
- Cant’ understand the reaction of support for Gulf War in the time of crisis.
- Bana preparation – must have taken place.
- Easy to think of these things in terms of identity.
- This notion – does not take the argument very far.
- What is an identity? Primordial ties?
- Can’t find identity within the body or mind of the individual.
- Nationality is concerned – need to look into groups.
- People – know what a nation is, why it is precious.
- In est. nations, there is the continual flagging or reminding of nationhood.
- Established nations – those that have confidence in their own continuity.
- Citizenry are daily reminded of their national place in a world of nations.
However, this reminding is so familiar, so continual, that it is not consciously registered as reminding. The metonymic image of banal nationalism is not a flag which is being consciously waved with fervent passion; it is the flag hanging unnoticed on the public building.
- Identity – embodied in the habits of social life.
- Habits – include those of thinking and using language.
- Critical study- gaps in language – gaps in theoretical discourse.
- Social sciences – used habits of thinking which enable our nationalism to pass by unnoticed.
Nations and Languages
- Language speakers – wanting their own state – not mysterious today.
- Messages – bout about them (Flemish Belgians intros case) and Us, the British.
We do not need to be told why communities speaking a particular language might wish to establish their own nation-state. We do not need to be told what a state is; nor what a language is. All this is common sense, or, rather, ‘we’ are assumed to possess such common-sense ideas about nations.
- Assume people who speak the same language are drawn together.
- Nations of different linguistic groups – fragile?
- But where does this sense of ‘obviousness’ come from?
- Hobsbawm (1992) – myths of nationalism
Studying Nationalism as an Ideology
- easier to recognise nationalism in others than in themselves.
- Nationalists – identified as extremists.
- Can see nationalism almost everywhere but here.
- Two types of nationalism – projecting theories – restricted sense, naturalising theories of nationalism – loyalty is psychological, endemic to the human condition.
An ideological analysis of psychological states stresses that the acts, and, indeed, the motives of the individuals, are constituted through socio-historical processes, rather than vice versa. This necessitates reversing the theoretical frameworks of many conventional theories of social psychology, which presume that psychological variables are universal, rather than historically created (for criticisms of the individualism in most orthodox approaches to social psychology, see, for example: Gergen, 1982, 1985, 1989; Moscovici, 1983; Sampson, 1993; Shotter 1993a and 1993b).
- Language – plays a vital role in the operation of ideology and in the framing of ideological consciousness.