Tag Archives: nation

An Alternative Europe

08 Sat Apr 2017

Posted by in Book Review

≈ Comments Off on An Alternative Europe

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Heart of EuropeWilson, Peter. The Heart of Europe: A History of the Holy Roman Empire. Cambridge: The Belknap Press, 2016. 1008 pp.

Perhaps the most widely known thing about the Holy Roman Empire is the one credited to French philosophe François-Marie Arouet, who quipped in 1761 that the Holy Roman Empire was neither Holy, nor Roman, nor Empire. The Frenchman was not alone in disparaging the Central European polity. James Madison, when looking for a model of a federal union for his republic in the New World, remarked upon the European sovereignty that it was a “nerveless body; incapable of regulating its own members; insecure against external dangers, and agitated with unceasing fermentation in its bowels. [Its history was simply a catalogue] of the licentiousness of the strong, and the oppression of the weak…of general imbecility, confusion, and misery.” Peter Wilson, Chichele Professor of the History of War at All Souls College, University of Oxford, pushes back against this entrenched negative impression of the Holy Roman Empire in his masterful new book, Heart of Europe: A History of the Holy Roman Empire.

Part of the prejudice may come from the fact that the demise of the Holy Roman Empire coincided with the rise of the nation-state. Ideologues then and historians since have written the European saga as one of progress towards the modern, centralised, ethnic nation-state and the Holy Roman Empire had no place in a world where every nation was supposed to have its own state. Thus, it achieved the reputation of a failed state for no doing of its own. Moreover, distortions have crept in as historians seeking to explain the character of modern Germany looked to the Holy Roman Empire – not to understand it on its own terms but to project later events into the past.

Wilson’s tale begins with the “surprise” coronation of Charlemagne by Pope Leo III on Christmas Day in 800 as the King of the Romans. The Frankish chieftain was seen as carrying on the legacy of Rome. This was important to medieval Christian theology which prophesised the arrival of the Kingdom of God after the fall of the fourth great empire – Babylonia, Medes-Persia, Greece, and Rome. It was not until 962, however, that an emperor – Otto I – was crowned specifically as the ruler of a Holy Roman Empire. His decisive victory over the pagan Magyars at the Battle of Lechfeld in 955 earned him a reputation as the saviour of Christendom.

A chronological history of the Holy Roman Empire would be a nightmare to write and even more challenging to understand. A mosaic of principalities, free cities, grand duchies, kingdoms, and even confederations, the imperial polity had no clear hierarchy of authority. Authority was not concentrated in an imperial capital but was diffuse in several of the major cities in the emperor’s domain – Augsburg, Milan, Antwerp, Prague, Leipzig, Hamburg, Vienna, and elsewhere. This befuddling framework governed by consensus of its parts rather than by coercion, the bewildering diversity of communities and practices protected by imperial decree rather than assimilated.

Instead, Wilson chooses to present a thematic analysis of the Holy Roman Empire and his book is divided into four parts: ideal, belonging, governance, and society. What is important for the author to tell his readers, in this book at least, is not what happened but how things worked. The past is a foreign country, as British novelist LP Hartley memorably opened his The Go-Between with in 1953, and Wilson endeavours to ensure that we comprehend its values, priorities, politics, relations, dynamics – in short, its entire weltanshauung.

Despite a political system that must appear unfathomable to the modern reader, the Holy Roman Empire proved adept at governance. It established the world’s first postal system in 1490 and the world’s first newspaper, a weekly, in 1605; the first imperial daily had to wait until 1635, still 67 years ahead of England’s Daily Courant. Almost every town had a lending library by the 18th century and there were over 200 publishers and 8,000 authors in the Holy Roman Empire – twice that of France which had a comparable population. There was relatively little censorship and even that was usually only at the local level. The Holy Roman Empire had 45 universities in its realm by 1800, while France had 22 and England just two.

This is not to say that such a decentralised system ran always ran smoothly or efficiently. Trade was particularly difficult given the shifting currencies and endless tolls; a pound of pepper, for example, could almost double in price simply by traversing from one end of the Holy Roman Empire to the other due to the taxes in each principality.

Foreign policy was no picnic either, with different regions of the Holy Roman Empire associating in leagues such as the Hanseatic League, Swabian League of Cities, the Lusatian League, the Alsatian Décapole, and the Lombard League. Some of these, such as the Hanseatic League, was a loose confederation of merchant guilds, who, at the zenith of their power, were strong enough to declare war on Denmark and Norway to extract trading concessions from King Valdemar IV and King Haakon VI. These semi-independent actions, needless to say, influenced imperial policy as well.

Other alliances, such as the Swabian League of Cities and the Alsatian Décapole were formed to ensure that their members do not lose their rights in the constant imperial power shuffles while others were created to defend local regions from the Emperor. The Lombard League, for example, was formed to defend Italy from the German Staufen dynasty which held the imperial reins then. Paradoxically, the papal-supported Lombard League did not wish to secede from the Christian empire.

Despite his thematic approach, Wilson does adhere to some semblance of chronology within his sections. He traces his core ideas through the Carolingian dynasty, followed by the Ottonians, Salians, Staufen, Luxembourgs, and finally the Habsburgs. Minor interruptions in dynastic succession such as the Wittelsbach, Welf, Supplinburg, Unruoching, Bosonid, or Widonid houses naturally get less of a mention. However, the author rejects the narrative of progress and nationhood as so many historians before him have told. As Prasenjit Duara, in his thought-provoking Rescuing History from the Nation: Questioning Narratives of Modern China, has argued, Wilson also resists the temptation to depict regionalism – whether due to religion, language, or ethnicity – as meaningless fratricide that diminishes from the unified national edifice. Imperial subjects had multiple identities within a complex framework of allegiances and hierarchies. A Münchner could be a Catholic, a burgher, a guildsman, a father, and a Bavarian. The Holy Roman Empire did not “fail” to evolve into a German nation because none of its imperial subjects felt the need for such a development.

Despite producing a thought-provoking and rich work on the history of one of Europe’s important yet less understood empires, Heart of Europe, at 1,008 pages, is likely to be a daunting read for most people. In all fairness, Wilson has done his best to minimise the length of this convoluted saga but unfortunately, it may only serve to confuse the average reader more. For example, even the average reader might be expected to know of Charles V, Stupor Mundi, the Golden Bull of 1356, the Battle of Bouvines in which the Holy Roman Empire fought on both sides, or the Seven Years’ War and use these events and personages as markers in the longer history of medieval Europe. However, Wilson gives most such major events and figures short shrift in his narrative with the result that only those with a solid background in European history would be able to appreciate the author’s mammoth effort. Even the non-academic prose of Heart of Europe does not redeem its readability for most.

Seen from a global perspective, the Holy Roman Empire was not as unique as it appeared in Europe. The Ottoman Empire, its close neighbour, was also socially diverse though politically more centralised. Some of the Holy Roman Empire’s Indian contemporaries were also comparable in their diversity and pluralism. For that matter, even the modern Indian republic is no less confounding. Compared to these empires, the Roman Empire was a far greater claimant to the label of modern with a genuine sense of civic nationalism.

Heart of Europe‘s publication at a critical juncture in the history of the European Union is bound to draw comparisons. Wilson himself points to the similarities between the two – permeable boundaries, multi-layered jurisdictions, a byzantine bureaucracy, consensus-driven policy. However, he is also the first to warn the reader that such similarities should not lead one to advocate a neo- Holy Roman Empire as a solution to the European Union’s difficulties. For one, modern sensibilities regarding equality cannot coexist with the hierarchical nature of the Holy Roman Empire’s domains to the emperor and to one another. Second, it remains to be seen if society can genuinely transcend its monotheistic fetish, whether expressed as nation or deity.

Wilson’s monograph is a substantial one in heft as well as content and deserves careful consideration. It is not for the casual reader nor is it amenable to yielding quick solutions to current problems in world affairs. Belying its chatty style is a rigorous academic tome that requires an equally rigorous and disciplined reader.

Pro Patria aut Pro Natio?

23 Tue Feb 2016

Posted by in India, Opinion and Response, South Asia

≈ Comments Off on Pro Patria aut Pro Natio?

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , ,

On the sidelines of the greater debate about freedom of speech and limits to state power, there is a tango of polemics going on regarding patriotism and nationalism. This is a recurring exchange in India, the latest round of sonic warfare being sparked by the drama at Jawaharlal Nehru University; an earlier episode occurred when a junior minister was perceived as chest-thumping about an Indian incusion into Burma in pursuit of terrorists. The hanging of terrorists Ajmal Kasab and Afzal Guru in November 2012 and February 2013 also stirred this topic, albeit in the background of a debate on the death penalty.

In this rather boring dispute, the lazy thinking of one side is matched only by the inarticulate stumbling of the other. Patriotism, we are to understand, is the love of one’s country without harbouring ill-will or hatred against any other country. Nationalism, on the other hand, is an aggressive monster we should all know better than to indulge in after the horrific lessons of early 20th century Europe. The implicit re-verification of Godwin’s law not withstanding, this strikes as a rather restricted view. First, it assumes under patriotism, questionably, qualities of the nation in their milder and more positive manifestation, and second, it limits nationalism to only its extreme elements, making it easier to dismiss intellectually by making the fringe mainstream .

What does ‘love of one’s country’ mean? Strictly speaking, ‘country’ implies land or territory. With no additional implication of culture or bonding with other citizens in an imagined community, patriotism comes off as cold, impersonal, and somehow incomplete. What is there to love about a land without its people? Does an Italian patriot love the boot-shaped geography of his land or the words of Boccaccio and Dante, the wines of Piedmont, and the music of Verdi that bind him to that land incidentally? Furthermore, a loyalty to territory alone comes off as anachronistic in a globalised and multicultural world wherein international bodies, corporations and other non-governmental organisations increasingly exist fluidly across borders.

A phrase that is sometimes thrown up is constitutional patriotism. Coined by German philosopher Jürgen Habermas in the mid- to late 1980s, it essentially holds that people should form a political attachment to liberal democratic principles rather than to the cultural nation. Patriotism, understood thus, is not nationalism-lite: it is a political grouping of an entirely different dynamic, one that is not rooted in the historical specificity of a group but is an imposition of values marketed as universal.

Such ideas of civic nationalism are not new – the American Revolution and Revolutionary France were among the first to declare such ideals. However, practice was different from theory and the new universalism found few takers; Napoleon’s Jewish emancipation was reversed and the United States controlled immigration and maintained slavery. Today, it is only in the Americas that citizenship is by jus soli – place of birth – rather than jus sanguinis – bloodline. In this, they were aided by genocide and a whole new hemisphere in which to settle without the ties of the Old World to influence new beginnings. Most states, however liberal, have found cultural ties of language, faith, and ethnicity to be better bonds between citizens than abstract principles. Constitutional patriotism would take us further into abstraction to jus constitutio which is unlikely to find any subscribers.

Nationalism, on the other hand, is a feeling of group identity based on kinship, faith, language, or other cultural markers. These nebulous sentiments are made concrete not just via the cultural creation of the nation – the national anthem, the national flag, national epics, national heroes – but also mundane and quotidian acts such as the recitation of the Saraswati vandana in school, the casual display of the national flag on buildings and in offices, sporting events and national teams, and interactions with other shared symbols such as currency, stamps, and road names.

Nationalism has suffered from a negative reputation, perhaps a tad unfairly. Though the catastrophe of two world wars has been indelibly imprinted on the world’s psyche, the body count of other -isms, arguably far more horrendous, has received a generous wave off. There is no reason for the intellectual opprobrium towards nationalism alone given the nastier tendencies of other political and cultural movements. In the fear over its explosive divisiveness, the power of nationalism to bring people together is completely overlooked, a power so profound and overwhelming that it inspires solidarity among strangers and even sacrifice. It is doubtful if a modern state can be built on less.

Historically, a community of ideas has not been able to wrest belonging from the nation. Lenin famously claimed that he was betrayed by European communists on the eve of World War I as they gathered under nationalist banners. Mao had a similar grievance with Soviet communism post Stalin, that Moscow’s belief in its leadership of the Communist movement stemmed from Russian nationalism rather than any true internationalism. Today, the European Union struggles to fashion Europeans out of Englishmen, Netherlanders, and Czechs. Interestingly, the EU is also an example of how it has been easier to share sovereignty than dilute national identity – despite repeated rumours of its demise, the supranational grouping has clung on as an important yet secondary identity, perhaps bound by common history and faith more than the memoranda out of Brussels.

In India, the Leftist fear of nationalism is that the country’s overwhelmingly Hindu past would have to be conceded. For a state that has so far extended special privileges to select communities in the guise of minority rights, this would fundamentally alter the idea of India, so much so that it might even be called the birth of the Second Republic. Though it is stated with pride that multiple nations reside within the Indian state, it ought to be considered how many such experiments have been successful in the past – none come to mind. Perhaps the weakness of Indian democracy lies in the inevitable and constant pandering to these national identities?

Instead of trying to be fashionably post-national, it is better to harness the communitarian nature of nationalism to forge a more stable union wherein no group is threatened but neither is any given special dispensation. A confident nation will be a mature state, one which may not only see better governance at home but also be a more valuable member of the international community. As for the excesses of nationalism in the past, what idea have men not abused? Perchance the fault is not in our stars or ideas, dear Brutus, but in ourselves.

This post appeared on FirstPost on February 25, 2016.

Riflessioni: Modernity And Its Parochialism

14 Wed May 2014

Posted by in India, South Asia, Theory & Philosophy

≈ 8 Comments

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

One of the fundamental questions many scholars of 19th and 20th century Europe and Empire ponder about is if the nature of modernity might have been different without the ascent of European imperialism. Not just the structure but even the vocabulary of modernity compromises the scope of inquiry by privileging and normatising forms of experiential knowledge peculiar to the European history. Measured against a European norm, other regions of the globe often appear to be lacking, incomplete, or failed, further propagating the idea of “first in the West, then the Rest.”

In Europe, modernity has meant a transition from a period of feudalism, “divine right of kings,” and the central role of religion in public life to an era of capitalism, the nation-state, and rationality. In essence, it has meant the spread of doubt made easy by improvements in communication; first came the printing press and the birth of newspapers, then the telegraph, and finally the internet. The sureties of religion were steadily eroded via the Renaissance, the Reformation, the Enlightenment, the Industrial Revolution, and the Age of Physics. The authority of the Church in royal succession, law, inter-state relations, education, and of course, spirituality, was challenged by old ideas resurfacing during the Renaissance and new ideas on the administration of the faith itself during the Reformation. An investigative spirit, combined with material advancement that could advance curiosity and scepticism, moved society out of the grasp of the Church and its traditions.

Despite its claims to universalism, the recession of the sacred in public life is a historical particularity of medieval Europe. Unlike Europe, large parts of the Orient escaped domination by exclusivist, monotheistic cults. In Japan, Shintoism held sway and India saw the flowering of dharmic faiths like Hinduism, Jainism, and Sikhism despite invasions and aggressive missionary activity from foreign lands. Though, from a modern perspective, Asian non-exclusive belief systems did have their own grotesque social problems, they did not claim a monopoly on interpretation of the world and the battles between theology and science were largely avoided; for example, Ramanujan’s belief in astrology or CV Raman’s fear of the occult powers of a solar eclipse did not interfere in their practice of the rational sciences.

The lack of a central authority in dharmic religions gave an institutional guarantee against widespread zealotry. As a result, an official profession of faith by a state did not give rise to inter-state strife; in India, the notion of advaitins going to war against dvaitins, or Shaivites against Vaishnavites, over theological differences would seem absurd.

The parochialism of modernity is not necessarily a function of geography but of time; Asia has a few examples of societies that did not need secularisation to modernise but examples exist closer to home too; this is not a tale of East vs. West.  The Ancient Greeks and the Roman Empire exhibited a similar pluralism of faith and tolerance to doubt as Shintoism or the dharmic faiths of India did. The ruins of several Roman temples to the gods of their conquered subjects stand testimony around the Mediterranean. The Kızıl Avlu in Bergama, for example, was built by Emperor Hadrian in the early 2nd century in honour of the Egyptian goddess Isis and the Graeco-Egyptian god Serapis. The very creation of Serapis in the 3rd century BCE by Ptolemy I also speaks to the relative religious harmony in ancient Europe.

The link between modernity and secularism is, outside a defined bubble of time and space, tenuous at best. Yet the vehemence with which secularism is peddled in societies it is alien to leads one to wonder whether the formal process and the content have been conflated with Europe standing in as the universal. Secularism was a solution to Europe’s problem with missionary zeal and the lack of freedom of inquiry; outside these parameters, its usefulness as a feature of modernity is questionable.

One defence of secularism might be to cite the social problems in religious societies, particularly the subjugation of women and the control over sexual functions and orientation. In a theocratic state, who will lend voice to the subaltern? Strictly speaking, this is not a problem of secularism but of orthodox customs that have accreted in communities over time. Such dilemma exist even in a liberal state that allows freedom of religion; for example, would a secular, liberal state remain neutral and allow girls that have attained puberty to be married off as per religious customs or would it insist that a “modern morality” prohibits marriage before attaining adulthood?

These problems cannot be escaped by professing faith in a legal abstraction like secularism. What is necessary is an ability to reflect upon custom critically and maintain, modify, or abandon them. This is not easy in systems that are based upon revelation but more open systems of inquiry are not affronted at the mention of reform. As Adi Shankaracharya argues, if experience differs from shruti, then the shruti must be discarded. In fact, Hinduism views dharma as a function of kaala, desha and paristhiti – this is the true content of secularism and not the legalistic, contractual understanding citizens have with the modern state.

Unfortunately, the Raj seeded the idea of a consolidated Hinduism akin to the Abrahamic faiths. The rationalisation and ordering of knowledge – another modern phenomenon – could not grasp the plurality of Indic religions and customs within an Abrahamic template. Yet the projected similarity has falsified many analyses of religion and politics in society when comparing Europe with other societies.

One might argue that a principle that does not fit with India’s past may be well suited to its present reality – the country today harbours not just Indic faiths but Abrahamic ones too. However, India remains a nation-state with an undisputedly Indic identity. To acknowledge this would only be as sectarian as Christmas being a national holiday in several Western states – secular or otherwise, Europe and the western hemisphere have strong Judaeo-Christian roots that cannot be denied any more than India’s links to its past.

To argue that rejecting secularism would transform India into a Hindu theocracy again makes the mistake of grafting a concept foreign to the Indian experience onto its landscape. The decentralised nature of the religion, not to mention the diversity of the faith itself, makes it virtually impossible to develop a strong and centralised theocracy. Furthermore, the role of Hindu priests was never as overarching as that of a Pope or Caliph; even though Hinduism put the priestly class at the top of the social order, actual political and financial power rested with other groups.

Even when implemented with textbook perfection, secularism remains an unwise idea for several Asian societies. In a secular state, the relationship between faiths that practice proselytism and those that do not would be the same as that of a fox on the jury at a goose’s trial. Both sides assert the same right of religious freedom albeit expressed in a manner antithetical to the other and any position the state takes will advantage one over the other.

The question is if a non-secular – in the formal sense – modernity can give us meaning and a humane existence without losing freedom or truth. Can modernity escape becoming, as David Kolb describes it in The Critique of Pure Modernity, a dilemma of rootless freedom versus oppressive tradition? Is there place for tradition and rational inquiry in the same pantheon? Ramanujan and Raman certainly thought so.

This post appeared on FirstPost on May 27, 2014.