The prejudice of the nation state and the future of the EU
One of the most eye-opening courses I took as an undergraduate was folklore of the Low Countries (Belgium and The Netherlands). I learned that the past is a foreign country indeed, and that people do things very differently there. For instance, for anyone but the upper class, marrying outside of your immediate geographical sphere was socially unacceptable. Suppose you lived in a town like Aalst and you would have a girlfriend or boyfriend from a neighboring town like Dendermonde. This would likely elicit staunch disapproval. People might put a straw men in front of your house to symbolize that your union would not be a fruitful one. They might come and bang kettles, scream, and whip at your door in a mock serenade to voice their disapproval. Even going out with a girl from the wrong side of town was enough to anger parents and neighbors. The people involved in this were all Belgians (Belgium being a nation state since 1830), but geographic prejudices did not privilege the nation state. The cultural divide between one little town and the next was as vast as between one country and the next?
So why is the nation state so important now? Why is it OK to move from Manchester to London, but do many people disapprove of someone born in Kraków moving to London? Why are nationalists across Europe gaining ground? The reason for this, is in part, prejudice (in the Burkean sense I will explain below), resulting from mass state propaganda.
Efforts to unite geographic chunks of Europe into nation states go back to the Middle Ages and continued into the 20th century, with unifiers such as Philip II of France in the 13th century and Otto von Bismarck in Prussia/Germany in the 19th century. In order for the public to accept the idea of a nation state, for them to be willing to fight for it, send their sons off to war to die, and to pay taxes to it, the nation states invested massively in propaganda to instil the idea of a shared, national identity. The Cinquantenaire (photo) is a good example of expensive state propaganda. This enormous park with museums and a triumphal arc was commissioned by Leopold II of Belgium to commemorate 50 years of Belgian independence in 1880. National anthems were composed, patriotic compositions that eulogize the country. History lessons were another occasion to promote the idea of the nation state. For instance, as a child I learned, at least every year, that Julius Caesar wrote that the "Belgians were the bravest of the Gauls", a quote lifted out of its context (he badly screwed up in his military campaigns, and wanted more money to campaign in Gaul). Ambiorix, leader of the Belgic tribe, was an obscure figure until he was dug up in the 19th century by historians as a plausible national hero for Belgium. He got a poem and a statue (photo).
Whatever we, 20th century schoolchildren, had in common with the Gauls 2000 years ago is unclear, but somehow that bravery still rubbed off on Belgians today. Inevitably, the nationalist idea became warped in ethnic identity. When I learned about our ancestors, the Gauls, I was all too keenly aware that one half of my family tree was not Belgian but Malaysian. And so I could never be a true Belgian, in spite of being born there and having the nationality.
National identity was carefully engineered by builders of nation states in the form of statues, parks, epic poems, history lessons, and as a result, it has become deeply ingrained. It has become a prejudice in the Burkean sense. The conservative thinker Edmund Burke wrote in his Reflections on the revolution in France (1790) “The individual is foolish, but the species is wise”. Like other conservatives, he was very skeptical of people’s individual rational capacities. Conservatives see society as working thanks to many tried and tested habits, social arrangements and structures: society is a bit like a living organism where all the bits work harmoniously together. Being skeptical of human reason, Burke thought it was wise to stick to prejudices, the “untaught feelings” that people have, stemming from an accumulated body of habits, customs, and traditions. (note: Prejudice now has a negative connotation, but in Burke’s time it had a neutral meaning, namely “Pre-judgment: rendering judgment without or prior to exact knowledge of what is being judged”.)
This is what is at work in the nationalist sentiments that plague Europe. I do not share the conservative belief in traditions and habits. For one thing, why should we trust traditions that are carefully engineered to give a sense of national unity? Maybe Burke was onto something in his psychological claim that people tend to stick to prejudices, and cherish them without critical examination:
"You see, Sir, that in this enlightened age I am bold enough to confess that we are generally men of untaught feelings: that, instead of casting away all our old prejudices, we cherish them to a very considerable degree; and, to take more shame to ourselves, we cherish them because they are prejudices; and the longer they have lasted, and the more generally they have prevailed, the more we cherish them" (Reflections, 558)
It is very clear that the Brexit vote was inspired by these sorts of "untaught feelings", the longing for, and identification with, an idealized nation state. Leave voters generally felt more English, Welsh, or British, than Remain voters. But these feelings of nationalism are, I would argue, not a reflection of gradually accumulated collective wisdom, but of carefully engineered state propaganda.
Maybe people don't need a geographic identity. As Charles Foran argued, Canada might be the first post-nationalist country, unlike other nations, open to immigrants (who account for almost all its population growth), not obsessed with blood and soil like other countries. However, as long as there are nationalist narratives, carefully fed at schools and in our public spaces, the EU will need to compete with nationalism if it is to survive, precisely because people don't usually examine their prejudices.
The EU's continued existence, then, crucially depends on providing a convincing counter-narrative against these nationalist narratives. What might this narrative be? What does it mean to be a European? These are questions the EU urgently needs to find an answer to. Perhaps one key answer can be found in the groups of Remain voters in the UK who refuse to accept the referendum result, going by names such as the 48% or Scientists for EU. As I previously detailed in a survey among one such group, many members feel European or as citizens of the world, and they feel more European since the Referendum result. Ironically, as their European identity is threatened to be removed, these 48%-ers feel more European than ever before. Europe has to be a key part of people's identity if the EU is to survive long-term. Economic concerns alone aren't going to do it. The architects of the nation states understood this as they carefully crafted national identities.
To some extent, the EU realizes this. The House of European History in Brussels, due to open in 2017, is almost architecturally pleasing and would give a sense of European shared history, a crucial part of shaping identity. But the task to make people prejudiced to feel European remains a daunting one.
