Nationalism and Culture (99 page)

The great task facing us today is not a problem of a few large states, but co-ordinated cooperation of all national groups on equal conditions and equal rights. Such a federation is, however, only possible if it is no longer influenced by separate national interests, but sets forth as its aim the furthermg of general interests, and guarantees to every member of the federation the same right for its aspirations for political, economic and social development. Only a real federation of European peoples is today still able to bridge the hostile rivalries between European national groups, fostered and encouraged by a narrow-minded nationalism, detrimental to all civilization. A European federation is the first condition and

the only basis for a future world jederatiofiy which can never he attained without an organic union of European peoples.

It is very significant that up to now it happens to be Russia which most energetically opposes such a solution. Having established a new military and political power sphere in the eastern countries of Europe, extending already far into the central section of the continent, Russia greatly contributes to increase the internal cleavage of Europe, which for many centuries has been the perpetual cause of all hostilities.

Europe is, by its geographical situation, no separate continent like Africa, America or Australia, but a peninsula of the great Asiatic mainland from which it is not separated by any natural frontier. Therefore we are beginning to consider the enormous mass of land stretching from the Pacific to the Atlantic as a geographical unit, and we designate it as Eurasia. What made Europe in our imagination a separate continent were not geographical but political and social reasons. The tribes and peoples which in prehistoric times immigrated from Asia and Africa to Europe, gradually developed into separate peoples and later into nations after undergoing innumerable racial mixtures. In the course of time a common civilization established such close spiritual bonds that the history of no European nationality can be understood without the knowledge of the history of the other peoples. Thus developed a general European civilization, which later spread to North-and South America, to Australia and to parts of Africa. In the East of Europe the development of this civilization was for centuries affected by Mongol influences, while in the South strong Arabic and other influences prevailed. In general, however, this culture or civilization attained more or less uniform characteristics, with many variations and local shades, which are in many respects very different from the various forms of Asiatic civilizations. Among European peoples, however, the great affinity of a common civilization was never destroyed despite subsequent national antagonisms.

This can be ascribed to various historical causes, all of which tended to bring about the same results. The great expansion of the Roman empire over all Europe known at that time had a decisive influence on the cultural structure of the European continent and its various islands and archipelagos. This influence is still to be traced in the legislation of most European nations, and in many other fields. The spiritual heritage of Greece, Asia Minor and North Africa gradually amalgamated in Rome into a civilization formed by many different ingredients, and the continuous conquests of the Romans brought it about that their spiritual and material achievements were introduced wherever they went. To accomplish this was not very difficult since the sparse population of Europe at that time largely consisted of tribes whose primitive conditions of life could not offer any serious obstacle to Rome's civilizational influence, which gradu-

ally absorbed the conquered peoples. Though the later innumerable invasions by the so-called barbarians at the time of the great migrations of peoples seriously imperiled and affected Roman culture and civilization, it was inevitable that due to the continuous contact with the Roman world these tribes and peoples became gradually imbued with the Roman spirit.

A still greater influence on the spiritual and cultural development of Europe was exerted by the spread of Christianity in the form given it by the Catholic Church, which penetrated even into regions which were never invaded by the Roman legions. The Church not only took over the mode of Roman Caesarism, formulating its ideas for its own purpose, but it also inherited the widely ramified civilization concentrated for centuries in Rome, which it now was able to use extensively for the power aspirations of the Church. What the Roman State accomplished in the realm of political centralization and with the juridical conceptions resulting therefrom the Church continued in its own manner, by directing the thinking of Europeans into new paths for the purpose of enticing it into the fine meshes of theological dogmas. Its agents were no longer the proconsuls and procurators of the Roman Empire but priests and monks who served the same cause, penetrating into the most distant regions. This new power proved to be stronger than the power of the Caesars, based merely on military superiority, while the power of the Church was built on psychological influences, which reconciled men with their lot in this world, and convinced them that their fate depended on the will of a higher power, whose, benevolence could only be attained through the mediation of the Church. Thus, in the course of centuries, developed Europe's Christian civilization which, producing among the peoples of the continent an undeniable similarity of aspirations, brought them nearer to each other in their thoughts and actions.

This great community of faith, not limited by political frontiers, brought it about that in later periods, when currents and movements opposing the power of the Church and of secular rulers appeared, these new aspirations were also inspired by related or similar ideas. The same spiritual premises produced everywhere the same germs of thinking and led with surprising uniformity to similar results. The differences which appeared were merely differences of degree, caused by local conditions, but the essential relationship could not be denied. Though European culture is one of the most complicated products ever created by men, the spiritual oneness of its nature cannot be mistaken in any period of its history. Every important event recorded in any European country was always reflected more or less strongly in all other countries, and this made the innermost concatenations of the events even more intelligible.

All great currents of thought, which temporarily or permanently influenced the ideas and sentiments of the peoples of the continent, were

European and not national phenomena. Even the conception of nationalism itself is no exception, since it developed everywhere at a definite period in Europe's history from the same motives and premises. Every manifestation in the realm of religious or philosophical thinking, any new interpretation concerning the significance of political and social modes of life, any important change in the domain of economic possibilities, every new esthetic conception in the field of art and literature, every advance in science, every new phase in the understanding of natural phenomena, all large popular movements, the rise and decline of revolutionary or reactionary trends of thought—all these were reflected in the whole cultural orbit to which we belong, and from which v/e cannot escape. The external proceedings of these manifestations are not identical everywhere, and, due to local difl^erences, often assume different coloration, but their innermost core remained the same and can be easily recognized as such by any keen observer.

Nobody with any discernment will question the existence of active connections in the life of the peoples of our cultural orbit. It is therefore not necessary to create the spiritual premises for a federated Europe, because every nation has these conditions already: time and again they have been emphasized by the best and most unprejudiced minds of all nations. What separates us today are mainly political and economic differences, which for centuries have been artificially promoted and nurtured by stupid pernicious influences of nationalist inspirations and greed for power, which have now become our nemesis.

Every national state, as soon as the growth of its population has enabled it to become a dominant power, has always attempted to hamper the economic development of other nations by establishing special spheres of power and interest, and in this process the weaker nations naturally became the first victims. This trend is one of the most important characteristics of any power politics, and if smaller states, due to their numerically inferior population, do not act in the same way, their alleged virtuous behavior is, as Bakunin once remarked, due mainly to their impotence. But whenever they succeed in gaining more influence and power due to the acquisition of more territory, they invariably follow the exam.ple of the dominant powers, as was clearly illustrated by the more or less recent history of Poland, Rumania and Serbia.

For centuries the system-of princely absolutism, by its stupid rules and regulations extending to all branches of industrial activity and commercial relations had obstructed artificially the natural progressive evolution of Europe's economy. In a similar way the national state, in the century of capitalism, became, due to its continuous interference in the economic life of the peoples, the eternal source of periodical convulsions of Europe's economic and political equilibrium. In most cases these disturbances wound

up in open warfare, with the sole result, that the vicious circle had to begin all over again with the same consequences as heretofore. Import and export duties, high tariffs, special favors or subsidies to certain branches of industry and agriculture at the expense of the general public, the uninterrupted struggle for markets and sources of raw materials, the relentless exploitation of colonial peoples, the practice of dumping and the development of large trusts and cartels favored by the governments, and innumerable other political and economic methods of pressure combined to cut up and to dismember the common economic sphere. Thus the foundation was laid for an unbridled policy of plunder which in its selfish obstinacy does not consider itself bound by any ethical considerations, with brute force as the point of departure for all aspirations.

But as no power can maintain itself by sheer force alone, it is always compelled to justify its ambitions by a certain ideology to disguise its real character. Thus nationalism was evolved into a political religion, for the purpose of replacing individual conceptions of right and wrong by the notion about right as preached by the national state, such as expressed in the sentence: "my country, right or wrong." The accident of the place of birth became the basis and starting point of national education, and human beings became mere vessels of the nation which for the ethical consciousness of right and wrong substituted empty formulas denying the validity of general human considerations. National egoism became the center of political thinking, which determined all relations with other peoples and declared its own nation to be the salt of the earth. It is therefore not astonishing if from the spiritual sterility of nationalist muddle-headedness grew out suchj^ubbish as the^idea of the Gerrnan "master race" (Herrenvolk) or of the Nordic super-race. The mere belief of being the salt of the earth is the seed of that arrogance which looks down upon all other nations. The consequences follow almost automatically, because it is in the nature of all power politics that its protagonists should not be just as well satisfied with the mere belief in their own superiority, but should always be inclined to make the others feel that imagined superiority.

Under these circumstances it was unavoidable that open and undeclared warfare should become a permanent condition of our public life. For though the essential sameness of our cultural orbit tended towards a federal association of the European peoples, the representatives of power politics and nationalism always knew how to find ways and means to prevent such a solution and to impede any peaceful settlement among the various national groups. Where this was bound to lead to was demonstrated by the devastation of whole countries, the barbarous destruction of old seats of culture, the cruel slaughter of millions of people in the flower of their youth, and the indescribable misery of other millions forcefully driven from their native soil, disasters of an immensity never before

witnessed in the world. Whoever, despite this terrible relapse into the most brutal barbarism, has not learned his lesson and does not do everything he can to help the people in attaining a life worthy of human beings and to protect future generations from these dangers which today have ruined a whole world, deserves indeed no better lot.

If the advocates of nationalism were at all able to recognize their mistakes, the history of the last hundred years should have convinced them that all their aspirations and ambitions are based on gross misjudgments of political and social facts. Particularly in the case of smaller nations such ambitions are nothing but empty bubbles. Of what value, indeed, is the dream of national sovereignty and so-called national independence in a century of boundless power politics of the dominant nations, which always attempt to include the smaller states in their spheres of power, and to use them as vassals serving their interests? Most of the smaller nationalities which, favored by a temporary shifting of power relations in Europe, obtained their imagined national independence, did no better than jumping from the frying pan into the fire. Their political sovereignty gave them hardly any protection against the ambitions of powerful nations, and made their situation often even more unbearable. National unification may well have benefited that social stratum which includes their new statesmen and professional politicians; but for the masses of the people the general situation has hardly improved.

Indeed who would maintain that the situation of the Polish people was more enviable under the rule of Pilsudski and the "colonels," than under the rule of Russia, Prussia or Austria? Who would claim that Hungary enjoyed greater freedom under Horthy than under the Hapsburg dynasty? Did national sovereignty of Yugoslavia and other Balkan states give their peoples more freedom and greater extension of their rights and liberties? In most cases the very opposite occurred, and quite often rule by compatriots have proved worse than the foreign yoke. However, there are people who cannot be convinced by the most obvious facts. One hundred years ago Heinrich Heine said that the Germans prefered to be lashed with their own whip rather than with a foreign one. But whoever is satisfied with so little should not be surprised if the whip never ceases to belabor his back.