1. Nationalisms South Africa, Middle East, Africa
Grade 11: Term 3
(Topic 4)

2. Background and Focus “The origins of nationalism lie in Europe”
“Nationalism needs to be studied as a phenomenon that changed form in WWII.”
“The focus should be on understanding where nationalism comes from.”
(DBE, History CAPS p22)

3. Write down 5 words to describe a ‘nation’.
What is a Nation?
Write down 5 words to describe a ‘nation’.
Ask the group to write down no more than 5 words that for them describe the idea of a ‘Nation’: Discuss Key idea and put them onto a flipchart. Return to these later in the presentation.

4. What existed before Nations?
Religious Communities
Dynastic Realms

5. What factors caused the rise of Nationalism in Europe?

6. A Common Language / literacy
15th Century: invention of The Printing Press
Newspapers , pamphlets, books , spread of IDEAS not controlled by the church.
Standardised language forms emerged.
16th Century: Reformation (Lutheranism)
Use of vernacular language (not all Latin)
18th century: Mass Education
Growth in literacy

7. Growth of the Middle Class
16th – 17th century new urban based merchant class emerged in Europe. (Middle Class)
Middle classes wanted power to control the terms of their trade and business.
Needed to unite with the masses (peasants, serfs) to overthrow the existing political structures ie the Kings and Queens.
The middle class encouraged a sense of common grievance, a shared identity, the idea that they all belonging to something.

8. Industrial Revolution
Urbanisation destroyed the old bonds (feudalism, village identity)
New identities forged in towns and cities (the ‘citizen’ / sans culottes / working class)
Railways made ‘national’ travel and communication possible.
Industrialisation created new national wealth and was instrumental in European colonisation (Late 19th C ‘Scramble for Africa’)
FA cup final

9. The creation of the ‘Nation’ state in late 18th Century.
1776: The American Revolution
1789: French Revolution
Before the 18th century Europe had been dominated by large multi-ethnic empires. New ideas of the will of the majority
‘All men are born equal’ , ‘declaration of the rights of men’, ‘We the People’. New symbols – flags, marsailles (anthem)
Washington crossing the Delaware – Emmanuel Leutze
Lady Liberty leading the people – Eugene de la Croix
Nationalism is one of the most important consequences of the French Revolution. Napoleons imperial control gave rise to local ‘national opposition’
Black man in red shirt who was her ‘prince whipple?’a slave owned by one of three men to sign declaration of independence

10. Napoleon and Beyond
Napoleon built a great empire and extended French rule across Europe.
He also established a state bureaucracy.
BUT challenged by nationalist, patriotic armies.
1815: Napoleon defeated at Waterloo and empire collapsed.
19th century: the map of Europe was re-drawn, new nation-states emerged
- Unification of Germany (1870) and Italy (1861).
Show the scene from Sarafina when Woopie Goldberg asks the class ‘What stopped Napoleon at St Petersberg? The winter? no! the people!’ etc
NB: Revolutions of 1830 and 1848.

11. Elements of a Nation A shared History A shared culture and traditions
A shared language
A shared religion
A shared geographical, sovereign nation-state
NB: Clearly not all ‘Nations’ share these characteristics so nations have to be created in our imaginations.
“What the eye is to the lover… language is to the patriot. Through that language, encountered at mother’s knee and parted with only at the grave, pasts are restored, fellowships are imagined and futures are dreamed’ (B. Anderson)

12. ‘Imagined’ Communities
“Imagined communities” are a concept coined by Benedict Anderson. He believes that a nation is a community socially constructed, imagined by the people who perceive themselves as part of that group.
This is in opposition to the idea that the elements of a nation are long-standing and natural.

13. Why does Anderson say that nations are ‘imagined’ communities?
“because the members of even the smallest nation will never know most of their fellow-members, meet them, or even hear of them, yet in the mind of each lives the image of their communion”

14. “An imagined political community that is both limited and sovereign”
Definition of Nation
“An imagined political community that is both limited and sovereign”
Imagined because members cannot all know each other
Community because a nation is conceived of as a horizontal comradeship of equals
Limited because no nation encompasses all of mankind, nor even aspires to
Sovereign because nations came into being during Enlightenment and strive for freedom

15. An imaged community?

16. A common language
“What the eye is to the lover… language is to the patriot. Through that language, encountered at mother’s knee and parted with only at the grave, pasts are restored, fellowships are imagined and futures are dreamed’ (B. Anderson)
Poems, songs, national anthems
How do you create a sense of nation when there are so many languages?
Is language enough? Apartheid government did its best with ‘bantustans’ to create nations on language (although not English and Afrikaans)

17. An Imagined Community?

18. Something to live for or die for?

19. What can a positive nationalism be built on?
A sovereign political state guaranteeing full rights to all citizens.
A shared constitution.
Responsibility for our fellow citizens.
Respect for cultural and linguistic diversity.
Respect for the sacred memories of others.

20. Alternative definitions of Nationalism
Hugh Seton-Watson “I am driven to the conclusion that no ‘scientific definition’ of the nation can be derived; yet the phenomenon has existed and exists’
Tom Nairn “The theory of nationalism represents Marxism’s greatest historical failure”

21. Contexts in which ‘National’ Identities are ‘Created’
Grade 11 Case Studies
Afrikaner Nationalism – South Africa
African Nationalism – South Africa
African Nationalism – Ghana
Jewish Nationalism – Middle East
Palestinian Nationalism – Middle East