I.

Introduction

National Identity, the continuous reproduction and reinterpretation of the pattern of values, symbols, memories, myths, and traditions that compose the distinctive heritage of nations, and the identification of individuals with that pattern and heritage.

II.

A Brief History of National Identity

National identity is a concept that has acquired particular resonance in the past century, when, in a world of rapid change and mobility, questions of individual and collective consciousness and identity became salient and urgent. But such problems were not unknown in earlier centuries, even if they were couched in different terms. From the Old Testament’s witness of Jewish distinctiveness and Oedipus Tyrannus (Oedipus the King, Oedipus Rex in Latin) of Sophocles, in which King Oedipus learns to his cost “who he is”, down to the 18th-century preoccupation with “national character” and the “genius of the nation”, the issue of individual and collective identity has periodically surfaced in the historical record, albeit in different guises.

As a political phenomenon, the idea of a distinctive national identity gained momentum in Western Europe from the 16th century, notably in the Puritan Netherlands, Scotland, and England. In this period, it came to denote the particular religio-national character of a people, and the ethnopolitical roots of their conception of the “true religion”. Such ideas could also be found in Orthodox Russia and Catholic France. But it was only in the late 17th and 18th centuries that a more secular and politicized interpretation of national character gained acceptance across Europe. As professor of world history Aira Kemilainen demonstrated some 40 years ago, the concept of national character became widely accepted by the Enlightenment thinkers from Giovanni Battista Vico to Baron de Montesquieu and David Hume, and was applied to the ensemble of customs, laws, habits, and institutions characteristic of the established European nations.

In the later 18th century, the concept took on a more dynamic character. Through the theories of Jean-Jacques Rousseau about the general will and of Johann Gottfried von Herder in respect of language and national culture, the “national self” acquired deeper and darker qualities. Instead of being plainly visible, the national self had now to be plumbed in order to reach its authentic roots and to be cultivated and liberated so that it could express its deepest aspirations freely and genuinely. In the hands of the Romantics, the collective self was propelled along the arduous road of self-realization through national self-determination. To this end, every member of the designated nation was enjoined to acquire national consciousness, which was to be instilled through a programme of mass, standardized, compulsory, public literate education, which, as the British philosopher Ernest Gellner argued, would ensure the production of modern citizens and “acceptable specimens of humanity”.

A more sceptical, restless 20th century, while questioning earlier conceptions, was even more preoccupied with the question of national identity. The vast scale and horrifying consequences of two world wars, the massive increase in migrants and refugees, and the consequent mingling of peoples and cultures, as well as the rapid emergence of a host of new states in Africa and Asia, forced many people to rethink traditional concepts of national identity, particularly in the West. Here, the decline of mobilized (but not of banal) nationalism and the transition to a more multicultural type of nation, notably in immigrant societies, has eroded received narratives and myths of nationhood. But, to date, it has not ushered in a non-national type of society, nor, despite a shift in its functions and powers, has it seriously undermined the hold of the national state. Instead, we are witnessing intense debates over the strength and meanings of national identity, and a more reflective assessment of its purposes and functions.

III.

Definitions of National Identity

Here we need to distinguish, from the outset, two quite different usages of the term “national identity”. On the one hand, it denotes one of the main ideals of nationalism, along with national unity and national autonomy. This is what Rousseau had in mind when he affirmed that: “The first rule that we have to follow is that of national character: every people has, or must have, a character; if it lacks one, we must start by endowing it with one.” And in his advice to the Poles who were losing their kingdom, he suggested what cultural measures (festivals, customs, education) were needed to ensure the retention of a Polish character. It is also what Herder felt when he asserted that we must “follow our own path”, and what Edward Blyden, the great African educator (see Pan-Africanism), sought when he urged: “But the duty of every man, of every race, is to contend for its individuality—to keep and develop it.” Identity here is bound up with nationalism’s cult of authenticity, the quest for originality and roots.

The second usage is analytic. We have defined national identity as “the continuous reproduction and reinterpretation of the pattern of values, symbols, memories, myths, and traditions that compose the distinctive heritage of nations, and the identification of individuals with that pattern and heritage”. This is, of course, a working definition, and it seeks to capture both the strength and the shifting quality of the concept. On the one hand, national identities constitute only one set among several kinds of collective identity, competing with class, gender, regional, religious, and other types, and as far as the individual is concerned, varying in pervasiveness and salience with circumstances. Moreover, national identities are never static. There is no fixed essence which, like the nationalists, we must somehow discover and pin down. National identities are being continually modified as succeeding generations re-examine and reinterpret the contents and significance of their different elements (values, myths, and so on). Nor can we usually speak of singular national identities: we often find rival interpretations and traditions of national identity within a given nation, such as the 19th-century classical Hellenic and medieval Orthodox Byzantine interpretations of Greek identity, both of them held with equal fervour.

On the other hand, the concept of national identity, as defined above, reveals strength and continuity. Not only do we observe processes, official and popular, of reproduction of both received and rival versions of national identity. Through the changes of interpretation, there is a line of continuity in the affirmation of individuality, of self versus others, and of the historic elements that constitute that collective self. But, even more, at the collective level, there is a durability of the community of shared myths, symbols, traditions and memories, such that individual defections from that community rarely endanger its continuity, or even its strength; one thinks of the massive emigration of the Irish after the great famine. The reason appears to be that the cultural components of national identities tend to be more persistent, binding, and mutually reinforcing, even (perhaps especially) in times of great danger and persecution—though never wholly. Indeed, in extreme cases, a completely new interpretation may seek to replace traditional versions, as in the Russian or Chinese revolutions—only to be reconsidered and revised by succeeding generations. But even in these radical cases, it was still a “Russian” and a “Chinese” national identity that was the unchanged object of the revolutionary reinterpretation.

This suggests that we should be sceptical about the claims of those theorists of globalization who proclaim the end of nations and nationalisms, and with them, of national identities. Not only is this premature in light of the current spate of nationalisms in many parts of the world. It fails to grasp the continuing role of nations and national identities, as well as the functions the latter perform for individuals. Eric Hobsbawm regards the recent return to ethnicity and religion in a globalizing world as a sign of fear and anxiety in the face of massive economic, demographic, and political change, a regression after the failure of socialism. But this is rather too negative a view. National identities are closely bound up with the popular and democratic movements that he regards as progressive. For, if the “people” are sovereign, we have to ask, “who are the people?”, acknowledging that “the people” are also always “a people”, a historic and culturally distinct segment of humanity, possessed of a growing consciousness of their history and individuality.

Moreover, the idea that national identities are becoming so “hybrid” as a result of an influx of migrants, asylum seekers, Gastarbeiters (immigrant workers), and the like, that they will fragment into their sub-national cultural segments, fails to grasp the deep structure of many nation-states and the imperatives of nationalism. Not only does it assume a mythical homogeneous national past, it underestimates the dynamism of dominant ethnies (ethnic communities) and their continuing hold on social and political resources, even in some immigrant societies like Australia and the United States. It is true that individualism and liberalism have made deep inroads into ethnic cultures and narratives, but the potentialities of popular backlashes and right-wing revivals should not be underestimated. Nor should the problems of creating solidarity and community in a multicultural nation with a “civic” or “plural” national identity. Even in the latter, citizens are required to know the national language, the national laws, and the national history, and to educate their children in this heritage of values, symbols, and memories, alongside their own ethnic heritages.

As for nationalism, the blueprint that it provides for self-determining national communities as well as national states continues to inspire more and more candidates for the status of nationhood to cultivate their national identities. Unable for the moment to achieve outright independence, these stateless nations must perforce concentrate on their inner cultural and social resources, as in Catalonia, Scotland, and Quebec. But the logic of their situation requires them to join a plural international society composed of national states legitimated by nationalism and committed to the ideals of unity, autonomy, and national identity. It is a logic that underpins even attempts at wider continental projects of association like the European Union with its motto of unity in (national) diversity and its formulae for reconciling the different interests and conceptions of its member national states.