Tag Archives: nationalism

On Iran

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The ongoing protests against the election process (not to mention Ahmadinejad’s victory) are rather harrowing, given the past treatment of internal dissent by the militant forces of the Islamic Republic….

well, the treatment does continue to happen, but apparently there’s less tolerance in the opposition commons for that sort of thing:

(courtesy of Gary Sick)

Also, in relation to Netanyahu’s speech, I think its time that he whips out the long-neglected Lieberman Plan: "land for land, peace for peace". This would turn over Arab majority areas in the North District to Arab independent rule in return for gaining most of Jerusalem and Judea, thus recognizing a long-standing reality on the ground that

  • the majority-Muslim Arabs of the North District have stayed in the majority in that district for the longest and are unable to be unseated from that position anytime soon, hence making them a liability for a majority-Jewish state
  • The best that the Israelis can accomplish with its own population and growth rate is to win the key religio-demographic battle over Jerusalem and Judea (the southern, smaller lobe of the West Bank); the other possibility being something like giving the Arabs Judea, Jerusalem and most of the Negev so as to unify Gaza with the rest of the Arab population in a majority-Arab state while getting Samaria and the north in return (since the Tel Aviv metro area directly borders Samaria), but resulting in far more of an impetus of driving out the Arab towns in the North District.
  • If the Arab state is to get the North District, then the new Arab state would have to deal with Lebanon, Syria, and their own mutual border disputes, a situation that would be exacerbated extensively by the return and absorption of Palestinian refugees.

Celtic Reconstructionism and Pan-Celticism

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 For all this talk about returning to Celtic roots by both Celtic Reconstructionist Pagans and Pan-Celticist cultural nationalists, I’m surprised that there has been no serious effort to make Celtic Reconstructionism a part of Pan-Celtic cultural identity or to even establish and concentrate Celtic Reconstructionism in the Celtic nations. 

I imagine Celtic Reconstructionism as being useful in the revival of the Celtic languages from within a religious-national context. However, this would be an initially-subsidiary role played by Celtic Reconstructionist Paganism, similar to how it took a long time for Israeli Judaism (the religion) to catch up with Zionism (the cultural and ethnic nationalism) in terms of enforcing and promoting the Hebrew language as a language of both national and religious identity in Israel, resulting in the comparatively-late blooming of Religious Zionist kibbutz long after the Labor Zionist kibbutz movements had come, played their role and eventually declined in productivity and attraction.

Combining CR with Pan-Celticism would also help in defining a Celtic-centric worldview through terminologies which can only be found within the Celtic languages.

Jerusalem and Greater Israel

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 The Jabotinskyists were set on Transjordan. The Kahanists were set on the "Nile-to-the-Euphrates". 

But to me, the most likely scenario seems to be the Halakhist securing of Jerusalem and the West Bank.

At the current rate, it seems that the Religious settlements will gain a greater degree of demographic power in the West Bank within the next 60 years. The West Bank will be consolidated as Judea District and Samaria District, with an expanded Jerusalem Metropolitan District, and the Third Temple, or at least investigatory archaeological excavations within the former edifice (currently occupied by the Dome of the Rock and the al-Aqsa Mosque), will be the icing on the cake.

I think that’s the best that I can see happening with Israel consolidating its borders.

But I wonder if those who support the institution of Halakhic law into the Israeli government would conflict with the Revisionists who want to cross the Jordan River or the Kahanists who want to go much, much further.

I wonder this because I think that expanding any further in terms of Israel’s borders would be an unfeasible enterprise for the religious Zionists to support, given that

  • Israel’s capital is in Jerusalem, which would make Jordan/East Bank an unwieldy territory to govern so remotely; this would necessitate a move of the capital from Jerusalem to somewhere more easterly and centric to the expanded territory.
  • Expanding so far would take the focus and emphasis from off of Jerusalem as the center of the Jewish people; as noted above, the center would move somewhere else.
  • Israel doesn’t have the adequate population to support the settlement of the territory
  • even the ancient Kingdom of the Davidic line, which had a thin tribal presence in the immediate East Bank, was almost always hemmed in by other rival kingdoms and vulnerable to attack from the semi-desert region that dominates Jordan.
  • the agriculture already sucks in Jordan; most of it takes place on the river valley, while the rest of the country is short of rainfall and prone to drought
  • Crossing over Jordan would seem less like recovering Zion and saving Jewry and the Jewish people from an antagonistic world and more like a gradual migration into the useless Arabian desert (Israel, so it seems, already has trouble with settling the Negev).
  • Agriculture in the East of Jordan would require non-Jewish labor.

This is why I don’t think that Crossing Jordan, as advocated by the Revisionists or the Kahanists (or the Christians here in the U.S.) is an ideal that most Religious Zionists would support.

At best, it is more of a secular ethnonationalist ideal. No, scratch that. Make it a secular irredentist ideal. 

It would require a long-term selling of the idea that Israel must ensure its security by retreating and entrenching further inland rather than remain a primarily coastal state prone to Arab, Sunni Muslim onslaught. Those who would support this idea might use ancient Davidic Israel as a class example on how not to define the borders of the Israeli nation-state, and would support expansion through primarily civil settlement, albeit with less (or more, if need be) religious overtones.

At the point of crossing Jordan, it becomes less about the Jewish people’s interests and more about the Israeli people’s interests. It becomes a final negation of the diaspora – and the hopes, dreams and fears which it brought back to Israel through Aliyah – and a first confirmation of the post-Aliyah state.

This state, which has restored Judaism to the land and its former edifices, will no longer be tied to the Jewish diaspora’s aliyah, but will instead see itself as an unevolved state that has not moved or matured out of the settlement mentality that brought so many of their ancestors to the state.

This Israel will envision itself as needing to establish a larger, less minute, less prone geopoltical presence in the region, one that is less concerned with religious or ethnic concerns outside its borders and more concerned with native security and stability. This Israel will seek to center itself beyond ethnic (Tel Aviv) or religious (Jerusalem) concerns, with nationalism being an exclusively government-centric ideology; the government of this Israel will become bigger as well, with a government-derived pseudo-republican nobility.

I see this happening in Israel’s future.

Union herrenvolk

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No, not a Wikipedia entry this time. Instead, this is something that I’ve noticed from supporters and hardcore members of trade/labor unions.

I’m not necessarily anti-union (workers and CEOs will always step on each other’s toes in mutual fashion), but why is it that the trade union supporters tend to voice the same reasons for the existence of unions and the need for unions in *all* business corporations?

Or rather, why is it that the trade union supporters (in all countries, I think) often use the terms “brothers”/”sisters” and “viva” as a form of exhorting exclamation, and possess a special dislike utter hate for “scabs” (or strike breakers)?

And finally, why is it that union supporters tend to voice expressions of a siege mentality against the owners and managers of corporations (who are, most likely, not that fond of unionization) and those who ally with them to push back against unionization? I mean, not as in “we must maintain the balance between the unions and the CEOs” but as “we must protect our jobs against the greedy CEOs”.

I don’t necessarily see unionization as socialism (or maybe it is, who knows), but the resulting split between the unions and the CEOs (often resulting in strikes and pickets) tends to offer a glimpse into what I call “union nationalism”.

For those who join the unions, doing such things as crossing the picket line to clock in is a definite “NO”, and those who do so are harangued to the public as “scabs” with no further delay after the strike; the reason for such is that the line-crossers are “scabbing” off of previous victories for worker’s rights by the unions and are being selfish to their co-workers. This is compounded by the fact that, in several corporations in several jurisdictions, unionization is mandated by law upon employment.

So when you have such things as the “right to work” laws to expand the number of “open shops”, the unions display fear against such laws and their supporters (Rick Berman, for one, is a perennial enemy of the unions); for the workers, the benefit of the “right to work” is no mandatory membership payments to unions, although this may (in the union’s POV) deprive the non-union workers of negotiating power for wages and benefits.

This has only served to redefine the conflict between trade unions and corporations by adding a new party – public relations firms and think tanks – to the corporations’ arsenal.

My personal opinion about this new conflict is that, because unions already have a poor reputation in the US and other countries, it doesn’t seem like the unions are winning with the current arsenal of well-used antagonistic, demagogic rhetoric to shame the corporations into fulfilling their wishes. The enlisting of PR and think-tanks by those who “want the extra penny” only further muddles matters for the unions, since this will give the corporations a stronger way to appeal to the emotions of those who dislike any socially-imposed restrictions (including libertarians and those who may be inconvenienced by strikes).

Sticking to the old union nationalism (that is, the celebration of the union and its struggles – and views both the non-unioner and the corporation owner as a worthless parasitic individual – in a similar fashion to how a nationalist celebrates the nation-state and its struggles – and denigrates the foreigner and the rich as dangers to the sovereignty, integrity and security of the nation-state) only makes things worse.

Why Hawaii should be an independent country

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I wrote this when I was way more enthused an independent Hawaii, and secessionist movements in various areas of the world. Now I’m more tempered about nationalism as an ideology. I am less enthused, more curious, and sometimes weirded out by nationalist movements and their excesses; to me, they’re not inherently “progressive”. 

Harry Underwood
03/10/2008
ENG 191
Argument – rewrite

Why Hawaii should be an independent country

In 2008, the autonomous republic of Kosovo unilaterally declared independence from Serbia, from which it had been seeking independence since 1999. The declaration was welcomed in other regions both within and without Europe as a sign of hope for other political secessionist movements. There is a number of political secessionist movements within the current expanse of the United States, such as those of Vermont, California and Lakota Country. However, for historical, cultural, social and political reasons, the Hawaiian Islands should and ought to obtain independence from the United States.

Hawai’i was an independent, sovereign entity from 1795-1893, ruled by a series of constitutional monarchs. However, the monarchy was overthrown in January 1893 through the support of American-descended planters and businessmen with the help of U.S. troops stationed on the U.S.S. Boston. The country was then, in 1900, handed over to the United States as a territory where, until the 1960s and 70s, people of partial or full Hawaiian ancestry would be mostly relegated to second-class sociocultural status within their own former home country.

Hawai’i also retains a number of cultural distinctions which would better suit the stature of an independent country. Out of the 50 states, Hawai’i is the only state in which no ethnic group – neither White American, nor Japanese American, nor native Hawaiian American – possesses an outright majority; however, it is also one of the most ethnically and culturally amalgamated regions of the current United States. It is an affront to such American institutions as the “one-drop rule,” considering that the majority of Hawaiians are proud of their extremely-mixed ancestries but consider it lucky if they possess partial Native Hawaiian backgrounds. Finally, those who are of native Hawaiian ancestry – partial or full – are becoming much more politically and socially aware within the last 30 years of the “Hawaiian renaissance,” which also accompanied a growing demand for the secession of the islands from the United States. However, this growing cultural awareness has economically benefitted the other major ethnicities of the state by strengthening the cultural brand that makes Hawai’i unique among tourist destinations.

Also, being an independent country could also influence Hawai’i’s own social mores and policy. The citizens could press for a further expansion of civil rights for the same-sex, transgender and bisexual minorities, which already enjoy a number of rights by the current state government. An independent government for the islands is likely to also employ other socially progressive measures, including free universal healthcare for all citizens, improvement of technological literacy, and environmental stability protection. Such sweeping measures for social empowerment are barely feasible under the current U.S. rule of the islands, as the debate over such measures is ongoing.

Finally, Hawai’i would continue to retain its position (and probably increase its status) as the “Crossroads of the Pacific” in terms of trans-Pacific relations. It currently serves as a point of communication, trade and diplomatic negotiation between the United States and Japan; with independence, Hawai’i could also serve as a completely unbiased entrepot of trade and communication between other powers in the Pacific Ocean, such as Russia, Canada, New Zealand or Chile. In the case of diplomatic tension between any power in the Pacific Ocean, Hawai’i is likely to be a neutral state, thus ensuring that no one state can lay a long-lasting, imperialistic claim over the islands without arousing the ire of another state. Hawai’i would also be able to govern itself effectively under such pressure. It would likely install a parliamentary system of government similar to the government under the former monarchy which governed the islands during the 19th century, while inheriting a presidential-republican system from the United States. Furthermore, a draft independence constitution was created in 1995 detailing such a system of governance and is likely to be used in a modified form by an independent government (Hawai’i Independent & Sovereign 1995).

In conclusion, Hawai’i has a lot to gain from becoming an independent nation-state. Historical discrepancies can be rectified, sociocultural institutions could be geared toward further multi-racial recognition, and political institutions would be further reformed for the granting of civil rights to social minorities within the Hawaiian population. Therefore, Hawai’i should join the international community as a sovereign, independent member.

References:

“HAWAI`I CONSTITUTION”. January 16, 1995. Hawai’i Independent & Sovereign. March 10, 2008. <http://www.hawaii-nation.org/constitution.htm&gt;