What is a nation? As Wikipedia helpfully points out, "nation" comes ultimately from the Latin natio, to be born. People who were born in the same area, who shared a common language and who were subject to common laws, at least according to one medieval source, were a people who constituted a nation. A tribe would be a primitive nation; an example of a more advanced nation might be a somewhat autonomous ethnic group like the Basques.
Although we may speak of France and Italy as geographical areas in the middle ages, they weren't nations. Those regions were governed as small states in Italy, and by a complicated network of feudal allegiances in France. Medieval England, with its unusually strong monarchy, came closer to being a nation, in the modern sense, but even the English were divided among themselves by language -- English and Norman French -- and, in some parts of the kingdom, were ruled by local feudal rulers under only the nominal control of the king.
It wasn't until the eighteenth century that nationalism -- allegiance to a large geographical grouping of people under a common system of laws, as opposed to allegiance to a personal ruler or to a city-state -- became common.
The world is now carved up into nations -- as are even those parts of Africa that are still, de facto, tribal societies. But we still argue among ourselves about what exactly we mean when we use the term "nation."
These rambling thoughts were prompted by a story in today's New York Times about an ultra-conservative French journalist named Éric Zemmour. No cheese-eating surrender monkey this guy, Zemmour sounds more like the Glenn Beck sort of Frenchman. But I'm not interested so much in his many offensive (to me) specific proposals as I am in his basic concept of what constitutes the French "nation."
Essentially, Zemmour believes that the French nation consists of the French people -- people who speak French, share French civilization and customs, and adhere to French law. Although he would not bar immigration entirely -- he feels you can become French by assimilation, even if not fortunate enough to be born French -- he obviously is not enthusiastic about immigration. Interestingly enough, his own parents were actually Berber Jews, who themselves moved to France from Algeria. But his own family's experiences seem to have hardened his attitude toward other immigrants --clearly Gypsies deserve to be sent back to Romania, and most Muslims deserve to be sent back to some place in the Islamic world. If they haven't assimilated, they aren't French and shouldn't be living in France.
Without specifically disparaging the American model of nationhood -- a nation made great by the diversity of its people and of its values -- he insists that the American model is not appropriate for the French.
We believe that we have the best way of life in the world, the best culture, and that one must thus make an effort to acquire this culture. ... For me, France is civilization with a capital "C."
Although I like France, I don't necessarily agree that French civilization is the touchstone by which other cultures should be tested. But Zemmour's fulminations remind me again that every country is different, and that what works in Canada doesn't necessarily work in the Congo. Or vice versa.
Diversity of background is indeed one of the strengths of the American nation. Although we have at times had trouble swallowing certain large infusions of various ethnicities -- Irish in the mid-nineteenth century, Chinese in the late nineteenth century, Hispanics in recent years -- ultimately the members of each group made the necessary adjustments to function well in American society, and the United States took on new flavorings and ideas from its new immigrants.
Nowadays, we often forget that the Irish didn't come over on the Mayflower. And today -- unlike even 25 years ago -- you can buy fast food enchiladas or a bowl of phở virtually anywhere in the country. We've become a richer country for every new group of immigrants.
But Zemmour's attitudes regarding French civilization aren't necessarily invalid either. We are a nation of immigrants. The French aren't. The Romans laid an indelible Latin imprint on the indigenous Celtic occupants of Gaul two thousand years ago, and the population mix remained quite stable until very recently. The French language became standardized at a relatively early time, and the government still makes obsessive attempts to maintain its changeless purity. For many centuries, there have been unique and recognizable French idioms of architecture, painting, music, literature, and philosophy.
Just as no one would care to see Paris refashioned with modern skyscrapers, no one would care to see French civilization lose its unique characteristics and watered down to become part of a homogeneous global culture. While attempts to ban Muslim women from wearing scarves in public, and prosecutions of businesses for using English words in their advertising, seem both ludicrous and tyrannical to Americans, we should be able to appreciate the objective behind those regulations, even though it's an objective that is neither realistic nor desirable for ourselves, or one that would make much sense in view of our own history and civilization.
The French face serious problems in reconciling protection of human rights with their desire to protect their own "Frenchness," especially in the face of skeptical and hostile EC regulators in Brussels. Let's wish them well, perhaps reminding them tactfully that gradual change is also part of the French tradition. Construction of the Eiffel Tower was attacked as an abomination that would destroy the beauty of Paris -- but it still was built. And the Revolution of 1789 declared the "Rights of Man," not just the rights of the French. Universal justice for all mankind, everywhere, was the cry of the French Revolution, and protection of human rights is also an integral part of French civilization.
For our part, we can avoid our all too eager willingness to heap scorn on those who look at life differently from ourselves. One of our strengths as Americans is the cosmopolitan nature of our society. France's strength, at least as many French view it, is in their society's uniquely French character.
Chacun à son goût, as they like to say over there on the Continent.
No comments:
Post a Comment