It's no secret that anarchists
don't like states.
In fact, we anarchists
are generally defined by our rejection of,
and opposition to state institutions,
such as governments, police, and prisons.
But while opposing these
physical manifestations of the state
is certainly an important part
of anarchist practice,
anarchist critiques of the state
go much further, and include
the underlying social relationships
and ideologies that have historically
been used to create states,
and to uphold their authority.
One of the most important
of these concepts is nationalism.
So what is it, exactly?
And what do anarchists have against it?
Well... basically
nationalism is a kind of social glue
that holds together people
of different ethnic, tribal, linguistic,
religious and cultural groupings
into a single defined population
linked to a specific geographic territory.
The problem with nationalism is not
necessarily that it it’s a glue -
there are plenty of examples
of organic nationalism, based on
shared culture, language and history,
and in fact, many anarchists have been
heavily influenced by,
and have even participated in
struggles motivated by nationalism,
such as the resistance waged
by Indigenous nations
against their colonial oppressors,
or the establishment, in 1929,
of the Shinmin Autonomous Zone
by Chinese, Korean and Japanese anarchists
fighting against Japanese imperialism.
The problem with nationalism lies in its
tendency to mask social contradictions
among a population,
thereby allowing for the reproduction
of hierarchies,
which in turn end up producing
a new state structure.
Which is another way of saying that
nationalism is a force
that groups people together in a way
that tends to maintain the division
of the human race into competing states.
In countries with strong
state institutions,
nationalism is more commonly referred to
as patriotism
and everyone is conditioned
from a young age to believe
that loving your country is one of the
most important, natural things you can do.
In school we are forced to stand
every morning for the national anthem
and taught a heavily sanitized version
of our nation's history.
We even celebrate its birthday every year.
...with fireworks, no less.
Because nationalism is so ingrained
into our lives, customs and beliefs,
many people would be surprised to learn
that it is a relatively new thing.
While some countries, such as China,
have existed as a more or less
unified territory for thousands of years,
others, such as Italy,
have been around for less than 150.
And lots of states are even younger
than that.
For most of human history
nation states simply did not exist.
Instead, the world was split up
into city-states, ruled by kingdoms
and empires, whose borders
were in a constant state of flux.
Back then, most people lived simple lives
as farmers, and had very little contact
with what we now understand as the state.
And because languages were mostly
passed on orally,
many different dialects flourished
and existed side by side.
Although nationalism emerged
in different parts of the world
at different times,
the development of the modern nation-state
is often associated with
the early development of capitalism
and European colonial expansion
beginning in the 16th century.
The race to plunder the world of its land
and resources kicked off
an intense competition between
kingdoms in Europe,
leading to the proliferation
and gradual consolidation of states
with clearly defined borders.
In the so-called “New World”, settlers
from a variety of European nations
forged new collective national identities
born of the shared experience
of racial domination over
Indigenous nations
and enslaved Africans.
During the mid-19th century
many states first began introducing
centralized education systems,
further facilitating nationalist
indoctrination, and helping to
eliminate remaining linguistic
and cultural differences.
In extreme cases
such as the Residential Schools system
in so-called Canada,
this practice amounted to
full fledged genocide.
Not content with their pillage
of the Americas,
European colonialists carved up Africa
and the former Ottoman Empire
into arbitrarily defined states,
which in turn produced
nationalist strong-men
who brutally massacred linguistic
and ethnic minorities, such as
the Armenians and the Kurds
in the Middle East.
Nationalism relies on grand, unifying
narratives to bind populations together
in pursuit of a common destiny.
Whether this assumes the form
of the individualistic pursuit
of the so-called American Dream,
or the Nazis' pursuit of the Third Reich;
whether the heavily militarized
ethno-religious protectionism of Israel,
or the totalitarian self-reliance
of North Korea's Juche,
nationalism provides
an ideological framework
for the manipulation and social control
of large groups of people.
It provides a sense of
collective belonging
and unity of purpose,
while simultaneously helping to justify
the massive application of state violence
towards perceived “others”.
Human history is awash in blood
justified in the name of nationalism,
from ethnic cleansing and genocide,
to aggressive wars
launched in defense of abstract,
emotion-laden concepts
such as freedom
or the glory of the fatherland.
Rather than limiting ourselves
to the narrow perspective of nationalism,
anarchists put forward
the competing concept of internationalism.
This flows from the realization that
borders and nations
are artificial constructs
meant to divide us
and that struggles for freedom and dignity
waged anywhere in the world
are deserving of our solidarity
and support.
That rather than fighting
and dying in wars for the sake
of the rich and powerful,
oppressed people should unite
to wage war against our common oppressors.
And finally, that for
humanity to reach its full potential
and come together to confront the problems
that we face as a species
...we require nothing less
than a global revolution.