Catalan Nationalism

Francoism, Transition and Democracy

Montserrat Guibernau

• Editorial: Routledge
• Año: 2004
• ISBN:
  9781134353255
• Edición: 1
• Categoría: History
• Categoría: World History

Are the Catalans content with the outcome of the Spanish transition to democracy? Is there a future for Catalan nationalism within the EU? How does globalization impact upon the survival and development of nations without states such as Catalonia? Will increasing numbers of immigrants transform regional identities? Has devolution fostered secessionism in Catalonia? These are some of the key questions discussed in this book.
Catalan Nationalism considers whether a nation without a state, such as Catalonia, is able to survive within larger political institutions such as Spain and the European Union. The author examines the different 'images' of Catalonia presented by the main Catalan political parties. The book also provides a study of the role of intellectuals in the construction of nationalism and national identity in nations without states in the global era.
The key questions addressed in this book are highly relevant for the study of devolution and its consequences, transitions to democracy and globalization and national identity. Based on a successful combination of theory and innovative empirical research, the scope and depth of the book's analysis will make it essential reading for students and academics in the fields of history and politics.

1 Nationalism and intellectuals in nations without states

The Catalan case

The aim of this chapter is to provide a theoretical framework for the study of the relationship between intellectuals and nationalism in Western nations without states. In particular, it focuses on the role of intellectuals in the re-emergence of Catalan nationalism during Franco’s dictatorship.

The chapter is divided into two parts. The first part analyses how the relationship between intellectuals and nationalism is tackled in the work of Elie Kedourie, Tom Nairn, John Breuilly and Anthony D. Smith. The second part considers the specific context within which intellectuals operate in nations without states. It concentrates on the study of the role of Catalan intellectuals in protecting their vernacular language and culture during Franco’s regime together with the processes which, in the 1960s and 1970s, turned Catalan nationalism from an elite into a mass movement. In this part I also discuss the reasons why many intellectuals felt attracted to nationalism, and some of the rational and emotional arguments often employed as mobilizing agents within Catalan nationalism.

Intellectuals and nationalism

When considering the relationship between intellectuals and nationalism, I shall be following Anthony D. Smith’s definition of intellectuals as those who create artistic works and produce ideas. In so doing, I shall distinguish them from the ‘wider intelligentsia or professionals who transmit and disseminate those ideas and creations and from a still wider educated public that “consumes” ideas and works of art’,¹ although in practice, the same individual may fulfil all these different roles.

I will begin this part with a review of the theories of Kedourie, Nairn, Breuilly and Smith, since they have all devoted some sections of their work to the analysis of the relationship between nationalism and intellectuals. But it should be stressed that their theories do not address the specific role of intellectuals in nations without states. On the contrary, they neglect the need to establish a clear-cut distinction between those intellectuals operating within the nation-state and contributing to the creation of ‘state nationalism’, and those evolving within nations lacking a state of their own. An exception to this is represented by Kedourie’s analysis of intellectuals in colonial societies.

Elie Kedourie: on ‘marginalized men’

I began to rebel against the glory I could not be associated with.

(E. Kedourie, Nationalism in Asia and Africa, p. 88)

Kedourie sustains a hostile attitude towards nationalism and defines it as a sort of politics which is not concerned with reality; rather, ‘its solitary object is an inner world and its end is the abolition of all politics’.² He sees nationalism as a disease which originated in the West and then spread to other parts of the world. In his view, intellectuals are to be blamed for the generation of a doctrine based on the assumption that nations are obvious and natural divisions of the human race as history, anthropology and linguistics prove.

According to Kedourie, alienated and restless intellectuals marginalized from politics under the impact of Enlightenment rationalism turned to Romanticism and generated nationalism as a doctrine that would have the capacity to grant them a major role within society.³ Kedourie is extremely critical of Romantic intellectuals, such as Johann Gottfried von Herder and Johann Gottlieb Fichte, and fully identifies nationalism with Romanticism. Kedourie focuses on the role of intellectuals in colonial societies. He describes how some Western-educated indigenous people became completely alienated from their traditional societies and identified with the culture and manners of the colonizers, only to discover that indigenous elites were excluded from positions of honour and responsibility reserved for the white colonizers. Kedourie writes:

An Indian could be admitted to the civil service only if he had become so completely Europeanized as to be really and practically on the footing and imbued with the character of an English highly educated gentleman. But it did not prove to be the case that an Indian who had become ‘imbued’ with such a character would be easily or automatically treated like an English gentleman.⁴

In fact, what Kedourie writes about indigenous elites in colonial societies is highly relevant to the analysis of some indigenous elites in nations without states, specially where some specific regional affiliation acts as a barrier for promotion within the state’s socio-political and economic structure.

One of the main objections to Kedourie’s theory is that it fails to account for the nationalism defended and generated by ‘official’ intellectuals who have already secured honour and status within the state. In so doing, he ignores the nationalism espoused by the colonizers, which included their own intellectuals and political leaders. It could be argued that the colonizers’ nationalism was to be blamed for the exclusion experienced by indigenous elites who, in spite of being culturally homogenized and integrated, were never viewed as ‘belonging’ to the colonizer’s nation.

Kedourie’s theory presumes a wide gap between active intellectual elites and inert and disoriented masses. In his view, the only way to persuade the people to support the nationalist movement is through propaganda and control over education. To mobilize the people, elites must

appeal to the indigenous beliefs and practices, invoke the dark gods and their rites, and transform purely religious motifs and figures into political and national symbols and heroes – which is all part of the ‘ethnicization’ and nationalization of previously universal and transhistorical religions.⁵

Kedourie concedes that an elite of intellectuals captures the main injustices endured by the mass of the population and constructs a nationalist doctrine whose aim is to eliminate the unjust situation shared by all those belonging to the same nation, thus uniting elites and masses under a single banner. But, for him, the objective of these intellectuals goes well beyond the wish to end the unjust situation that their fellow countrymen and women are enduring. The intellectuals’ objective is to gain power in society and halt their alienation and exclusion from positions of honour and privilege.

Tom Nairn: the people’s mobilizers

The new middle-class intelligentsia of nationalism had to invite the masses into history; and the invitation-card had to be written in a language they understood.

(T. Nairn, The break-up of Britain, p. 340)

Nairn approaches the study of nationalism from a Marxist perspective. He considers nationalism as a bourgeois phenomenon, which can be derived from the class consequences of the uneven diffusion of capitalism.⁶ Nationalism generates and, at the same time, requires the exploitation of peripheries whose deprived elites have no alternative but to turn to the masses and engage them in the nationalist project. In this context, nationalism’s main objective is to fight against a concrete form of ‘progress’ promoted by the colonial capitalist, while at the same time embracing a distinctive idea of progress generated by the intellectuals capable of leading the struggle against capitalist oppression.⁷

Nairn explains the emergence of nationalism in deprived areas as a reaction against the uneven spread of capitalism. But he also acknowledges the existence of some exceptions to the connection he establishes between nationalism, backwardness and periphery.

To mobilize the masses and gain their support for the nationalist cause, the new intellectual elites have to work towards the construction of a ‘militant inter-class community’ sharing a common identity even if, as Nairn stresses, they only share this identity in a mythical way. Nairn, as well as Miroslav Hroch and Peter Worsley, envisages a chronological progression in the spread of nationalism from elite into mass involvement.

In Nairn’s theory, the support of the masses is crucial if a nationalist movement is to succeed. But what are the implications of turning to the people? He points at three main implications: (1) speaking their language; (2) taking a more kind view of their general ‘culture’, which had been relegated by the Enlightenment; and (3) coming to terms with the enormous and still irreconcilable diversity of popular and peasant life.⁸

John Breuilly: the creators of ideology

Nationalist ideology has its roots in intellectual responses to the modern problem of the relationship between state and society.

( J. Breuilly, Nationalism and the state, p. 349)

Breuilly understands nationalism as a form of politics, principally opposition politics. In his view, ‘the term “nationalism” is used to refer to political movements seeking or exercising state power and justifying such actions with nationalist arguments’.⁹ Breuilly, in line with Kedourie and Nairn, stresses the ability of nationalism to attain mass support and confers a pre-eminent role on intellectuals and members of the professions as key figures in the construction of nationalist ideologies. But, according to him, ‘nationalism cannot be seen as the politics of any particular social class . . . [and] neither can it be regarded as the politics of intellectuals’,¹⁰ although most nationalist leaders are drawn from the professions.

In Breuilly’s view, the idea that ‘nationalism should be seen primarily as the search for identity and power on the part of displaced intellectuals is a gross exaggeration, even if that is what it means to many intellectuals in nationalist movements’.¹¹ Breuilly admits, however, that the exclusion from expected positions suffered by some intellectuals and members of the professions may contribute to their support for nationalism as an ideology able to provide a new identity containing ‘images of an ideal state and an ideal society’ in which they will have a secure, respected and leading position.¹²

Breuilly points at two sets of arguments to explain the intellectuals’ attraction to nationalism. First, although he portrays nationalist intellectuals as unsuccessful professionals, he argues that their failure is relative, since it involves both failing to obtain certain positions, and not attaining the financial and social status expected from the position attained. Here the argument echoes that of Elie Kedourie’s theory about indigenous intellectuals being excluded from top positions in colonial societies and how this made them turn to nationalism. Second, Breuilly argues that the excessive number of intellectuals produced by some societies, and the inability to ‘absorb’ them, may also contribute to explain why some intellectuals turn to nationalism. He perceives nationalist politics as elite politics in politically fragile states, or as a form of politics which can arouse mass support without having to tie itself too closely to the specific concerns of that support. The compelling character of the nationalist ideology stems from the connection between the intellectuals’ portrayal of the nation and the common beliefs and often widespread political grievances shared by large sectors of the population. Breuilly argues that symbols and ceremonies award nationalist ideas a definite shape and force in two major ways: they project certain images of the nation, and they enable people to come together expressing some type of national solidarity.

Anthony D. Smith: ‘in search of identity’

There is, in fact, an ‘elective affinity’ between the adapted model of a civic, territorial nation and the status, needs and interests of the professionals (and to a lesser extent of the commercial bourgeoisie).

(A.D. Smith, National identity, p. 121)

In his early work, Smith confers pre-eminence on political and religious, rather than social and cultural, factors in the emergence of what he refers to as ethnic nationalism. He argues that the modern era is characterized by the rise of what he calls the ‘scientific state’; that is, ‘a state whose efficacy depends on its ability to harness science and technology for collective purposes’.¹³ In his view, the emergence of the ‘scientific state’ challenges the legitimacy of religious explanations and favours situations of ‘dual legi-timation’, in which rival grounds of authority dispute for the allegiance of humanity. Intellectuals, as the equivalent of pre-modern priests, are particularly affected by this dispute.

According to Smith, the rise of a secular intelligentsia within the framework of the ‘scientific state’ has encountered several obstacles, including the overproduction of highly qualified personnel, the opposition on the part of entrenched hierarchical bureaucrats to the critical rationalism of the intelligentsia, and the use of ethnic or other cultural grounds for discrimination in admitting sections of the intelligentsia to public high-status positions. Smith emphasizes the crucial role of intellectuals as generators of ideology and leaders of the nationalist movement in its early stages, although he is more sceptical about their function once the nationalist movement develops. He rejects those who define intellectuals as fanatical power-seeking individuals, though he accepts that, in some instances, it is possible to point at some excluded and resentful intellectuals, especially in colonial societies. Smith concludes that the beneficiaries of nationalism are the members of the mobilized ethnie at large, since nationalism favours both the activation of the masses and the end of their role as passive objects of external domination, and the elevation of popular culture into literary ‘high’ culture performed by intellectuals. Against those who stress the invented nature of nations and nationalism,¹⁴ Smith highlights the ‘ethnic origins’ of most of the cultural elements selected by intellectuals in the construction of modern nationalism.

To explain the attraction that many intellectuals in different parts of the world have felt for nationalism and their influential imprint on the ideology and language of nationalism, Smith invokes the ‘identity crisis’ experienced by people in general and the intellectuals in particular, stemming from the challenges posed to traditional religion and society by the ‘scientific state’. He argues that the ‘nationalist solution’ allows individuals to draw their own identity from the collective identity of the nation. In so doing, ‘she or he becomes a citizen, that is, a recognized and rightful member of a political community that is, simultaneously a cultural “community of history and destiny”’.¹⁵ Here Smith stress...

Índice

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Routledge/Cañada Blanch Studies on Contemporary Spain Series editors Paul Preston and Sebastian Balfour
• Acknowledgements
• Abbreviations
• Introduction
• 1: Nationalism and intellectuals in nations without states
• 2: Portrait of a dictatorship
• 3: The re-emergence of Catalan nationalism during Francoism
• 4: Catalonia within the new democratic Spain
• 5: Images of Catalonia I ERC, PSUC-ICV and PSC
• 6: Images of Catalonia II CDC and UDC
• Conclusion
• Appendix National position of the main political parties of Catalan origin
• Notes
• Bibliography