Entwined Freedoms

According to contemporary political theory nationalism and anarchism are two ideologies in opposition. Practically each other’s antithesis! Ask any scholar in political science and he will tell you that anarchism and nationalism are like oil and water: they do not mix. This view is also wide spread in the general population. Those who know nothing of politics as well as those with immense political schooling agree: anarchism is far from nationalism. Amongst nationalists and anarchists this view is particularly accepted. All the two groups can agree on is that they have nothing in common. But is this true? Is there no common ground between nationalism and anarchism but mutual hatred? Surely there is ...

When looking at nationalism and anarchism objectively the two ideologies have quite a lot in common. Surely their history is different (and this is probably why they are seen as in opposition to each other), but, none the less, there are similarities.

Above all anarchism and nationalism share a fundamental concern for the love of freedom. While anarchism concerns itself with individual freedom nationalism focuses on the freedom of the nation. Any discussion of the compatibility of nationalism and anarchism must therefore be a question of whether national freedom and individual freedom are compatible. I most surely believe they are. More so I regards them as being each other’s preconditions. A group (be it national, religious, racial or whatever) cannot be free as a whole unless its members are generally free as individuals since no individual who feel truly connected to a group can feel free unless the whole of the group is free to control its own destiny.

This theory of synthesis between national and individual freedom can easily be observed in reality. One can just look on national freedom movements such as, for instance, the Irish Republican Army (IRA). Why does the Gael fight the British army presence in Northern Ireland? What difference does it make whether the Brits control Northern Ireland? The answer is that what ever little difference it makes whether Northern Ireland is part if the republic of Eire or some British federation it makes this one difference to that Gaelic citizen of Northern Ireland: If the first is the case then he is free himself, if the latter is then he is not. That is the very key to understanding nationalism: the nationalist is not able to feel free, as a person if his/her people are not free.

This leads some to say that nationalism is unproductive. Fighting over whether an ethnic group should belong under the jurisdiction of one state or the other or have its own state when it makes no difference in regards to the peoples economical and social welfare is madness, they say. This would in deed be true if the only connection between nationalism and freedom was only that the nationalist is not free unless his entire nation is free, but there is more to it than that… it works the other way around as well: The well being of the entire nation is also dependent upon the welfare of the single persons who forms it.

Of course not every person who forms part of a nation need be free and happy for the nation to be free, but, at least, the large majority must be free in order for the nation to maintain its strength and freedom. I cannot easily explain why I say that it is so. It is a logic thing, it seems to me, that a nations overall health is based upon the general well being of its citizens.

The necessity for a majority of a nations members to be free as individuals before the whole of the nation can be free can be observed by the fact that humans throughout time has enslaved aliens but almost never members of their own people. The reason for this is of course(as humans are generally selfish beings) that people have instinctively felt that it was for their own good to keep members of their own nation free from harm.

So the conclusion must be: That individual freedom and prosperity is inevitably linked to national freedom and prosperity. That the overall freedom of the people and the freedom of its single citizens are each other’s preconditions.

Therefore nationalism and anarchism are not just compatible, but inseparable.