یکشنبه ۲۵ شهریور ۰۳ | ۱۴:۱۹ ۷ بازديد
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must arise from this living together of different groups, one must restrict the state to
just those tasks that it alone can perform.
4. Nationalism
As long as nations were ruled by monarchical despots, the idea of adjusting the
boundaries of the state to coincide with the boundaries between nationalities could
not find acceptance. If a potentate desired to incorporate a province into his realm,
he cared little whether the inhabitants—the subjects—agreed to a change of rulers or
not. The only consideration that was regarded as relevant was whether the available
military forces were sufficient to conquer and hold the territory in question. One
justified one's conduct publicly by the more or less artificial construction of a legal
claim. The nationality of the inhabitants of the area concerned was not taken into
account at all.
It was with the rise of liberalism that the question of how the boundaries of states
are to be drawn first became a problem independent of military, historical, and legal
considerations. Liberalism, which founds the state on the will of the majority of the
people living in a certain territory, disallows all military considerations that were
formerly decisive in defining the boundaries of the state. It rejects the right of
conquest. It cannot understand how people can speak of "strategic frontiers" and
finds entirely incomprehensible the demand that a piece of land be incorporated into
one's own state in order to possess a glacis. Liberalism does not acknowledge the
historical right of a prince to inherit a province. A king can rule, in the liberal sense,
only over persons and not over a certain piece of land, of which the inhabitants are
viewed as mere appendages. The monarch by the grace of God carries the title of a
territory, e.g., "King of France." The kings installed by liberalism received their
title, not from the name of the territory, but from that of the people over whom they
ruled as constitutional monarchs. Thus, Louis Philippe bore the title, "King of the
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French"; thus too, there is a "King of the Belgians," as there was once a "King of the
Hellenes."
It was liberalism that created the legal form by which the desire of the people to
belong or not to belong to a certain state could gain expression, viz., the plebiscite.
The state to which the inhabitants of a certain territory wish to belong is to be
ascertained by means of an election. But even if all the necessary economic and
political conditions (e.g., those involving the national policy in regard to education)
were fulfilled in order to prevent the plebiscite from being reduced to a farce, even
if it were possible simply to take a poll of the inhabitants of every community in
order to determine to which state they wished to attach themselves, and to repeat
such an election whenever circumstances changed, some unresolved problems
would certainly still remain as possible sources of friction between the different
nationalities. The situation of having to belong to a state to which one does not wish
to belong is no less onerous if it is the result of an election than if one must endure it
as the consequence of a military conquest. But it is doubly difficult for the
individual who is cut off from the majority of his fellow citizens by a language
barrier.
To be a member of a national minority always means that one is a second-class
citizen. Discussions of political questions must, of course, be carried on by means
of the written and spoken word—in speeches, newspaper articles, and books.
However, these means of political enlightenment and debate are not at the disposal
of the linguistic minority to the same extent as they are for those whose mother
tongue—the language used in everyday speech—is that in which the discussions
take place. The political thought of a people, after all, is the reflection of the ideas
contained in its political literature. Cast into the form of statute law, the outcome of
its political discussions acquires direct significance for the citizen who speaks a
foreign tongue, since he must obey the law; yet he has the feeling that he is excluded
from effective participation in shaping the will of the legislative authority or at least
that he is not allowed to cooperate in shaping it to the same extent as those whose
native tongue is that of the ruling majority. And when he appears before a
magistrate or any administrative official as a party to a suit or a petition, he stands
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before men whose political thought is foreign to him because it developed under
different ideological influences.
But even apart from all this, the very fact that the members of the minority are
required, in appearing before tribunals and administrative authorities, to make use of
a language foreign to them already handicaps them seriously in many respects.
There is all the difference in the world, when one is on trial, between being able to
speak in court directly to one's judges and being compelled to avail oneself of the
services of an interpreter. At every turn, the member of a national minority is made
to feel that he lives among strangers and that he is, even if the letter of the law
denies it, a second-class citizen.
All these disadvantages are felt to be very oppressive even in a state with a liberal
constitution in which the activity of the government is restricted to the protection of
the life and property of the citizens. But they become quite intolerable in an
interventionist or a socialist state. If the administrative authorities have the right to
intervene everywhere according to their free discretion, if the latitude granted to
judges and officials in reaching their decisions is so wide as to leave room also for
the operation of political prejudices, then a member of a national minority finds
himself delivered over to arbitrary judgment and oppression on the part of the public
functionaries belonging to the ruling majority. What happens when school and
church as well are not independent, but subject to regulation by the government, has
already been discussed. .
It is here that one must seek for the roots of the aggressive nationalism that we
see at work today. Efforts to trace back to natural rather than political causes the
violent antagonisms existing between nations today are altogether mistaken. All the
symptoms of supposedly innate antipathy between peoples that are customarily
offered in evidence exist also within each individual nation. The Bavarian hates the
Prussian; the Prussian, the Bavarian. No less fierce is the hatred existing among
individual groups within both France and Poland. Nevertheless, Germans, Poles,
and Frenchmen manage to live peacefully within their own countries. What gives
the antipathy of the Pole for the German and of the German for the Pole a special
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political significance is the aspiration of each of the two peoples to seize for itself
political control of the border areas in which Germans and Poles live side by side
and to use it to oppress the members of the other nationality. What has kindled the
hatred between nations to a consuming fire is the fact that people want to use the
schools to estrange children from the language of their fathers and to make use of
the courts and administrative offices, political and economic measures, and outright
expropriation to persecute those speaking a foreign tongue. Because people are
prepared to resort to violent means in order to create favorable conditions for the
political future of their own nation, they have established a system of oppression in
the polyglot areas that imperils the peace of the world.
As long as the liberal program is not completely carried out in the territories of
mixed nationality, hatred between members of different nations must become ever
fiercer and continue to ignite new wars and rebellions.
5. Imperialism
The lust for conquest on the part of the absolute monarchs of previous centuries
was aimed at an extension of their sphere of power and an increase in their wealth.
No prince could be powerful enough, for it was by force alone that he could
preserve his rule against internal and external enemies. No prince could be rich
enough, for he needed money for the maintenance of his soldiers and the upkeep of
his entourage.
For a liberal state, the question whether or not the boundaries of its territory are to
be further extended is of minor significance. Wealth cannot be won by the
annexation of new provinces, since the "revenue" derived from a territory must be
used to defray the necessary costs of its administration. For a liberal state, which
entertains no aggressive plans, a strengthening of its military power is unimportant.
Thus, liberal parliaments resisted all endeavors to increase their country's war
potential and opposed all bellicose and annexationist policies.
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But the liberal policy of peace which, in the early sixties of the last century, as
liberalism swept from one victory to another, was considered as already assured, at
least in Europe, was based on the assumption that the people of every territory
would have the right to determine for themselves the state to which they wished to
belong. However, in order to secure this right, since the absolutist powers had no
intention of peacefully relinquishing their prerogatives, a number of rather serious
wars and revolutions were first necessary. The overthrow of foreign domination in
Italy, the preservation of the Germans in Schleswig-Holstein in the face of
threatening denationalization, the liberation of the Poles and of the South Slavs
could be attempted only by force of arms. In only one of the many places where the
existing political order found itself opposed by a demand for the right of self-
determination could the issue be peacefully resolved: liberal England freed the
Ionian islands. Everywhere else the same situation resulted in wars and revolutions.
From the struggles to form a unified German state developed the disastrous modern
Franco-German conflict; the Polish question remained unresolved because the Czar
crushed one rebellion after another; the Balkan question was only partially settled;
and the impossibility of solving the problems of the Hapsburg monarchy against the
will of the ruling dynasty ultimately led to the incident that became the immediate
cause of the World War.
Modern imperialism is distinguished from the expansionist tendencies of the
absolute principalities by the fact that its moving spirits are not the members of the
ruling dynasty, nor even of the nobility, the bureaucracy, or the officers' corps of the
army bent on personal enrichment and aggrandizement by plundering the resources
of conquered territories, but the mass of the people, who look upon it as the most
appropriate means for the preservation of national independence. In the complex
network of antiliberal policies, which have so far expanded the functions of the state
as to leave hardly any field of human activity free of government interference, it is
futile to hope for even a moderately satisfactory solution of the political problems of
the areas in which members of several nationalities live side by side. If the
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government of these territories is not conducted along completely liberal lines, there
can be no question of even an approach to equality of rights in the treatment of the
various national groups. There can then be only rulers and those ruled. The only
choice is whether one will be hammer or anvil. Thus, the striving, for as strong a
national state as possible—one that can extend its control to all territories of mixed
nationality—becomes an indispensable requirement of national self-preservation.
But the problem of linguistically mixed areas is not limited to countries long
settled. Capitalism opens up for civilization new lands offering more favorable
conditions of production than great parts of the countries that have been long
inhabited. Capital and labor flow to the most favorable location. The migratory
movement thus initiated exceeds by far all the previous migrations of the peoples of
the world. Only a few nations can have their emigrants move to lands in which
political power is in the hands of their compatriots. Where, however, this condition
does not prevail, the migration gives rise once again to all those conflicts that
generally develop in polyglot territories. In particular cases, into which we shall not
enter here, matters are somewhat different in the areas of overseas colonization than
in the long-settled countries of Europe. Nevertheless, the conflicts that spring from
the unsatisfactory situation of national minorities are, in the last analysis, identical.
The desire of each country to preserve its own nationals from such a fate leads, on
the one hand, to the struggle for the acquisition of colonies suitable for settlement by
Europeans, and, on the other hand, to the adoption of the policy of using import
duties to protect domestic production operating under less favorable conditions
against the superior competition of foreign industry, in the hope of thereby making
the emigration of workers unnecessary. Indeed, in order to expand the protected
market as far as possible, efforts are made to acquire even territories that are not
regarded as suitable for European settlement. We may date the beginning of
modern imperialism from the late seventies of the last century, when the industrial
countries of Europe started to abandon the policy of free trade and to engage in the
race for colonial "markets" in Africa and Asia.
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It was in reference to England that the term "imperialism" was first employed to
characterize the modern policy of territorial expansion. England's imperialism, to be
sure, was primarily directed not so much toward the incorporation of new territories
as toward the creation of an area of uniform commercial policy out of the various
possessions subject to the King of England. This was the result of the peculiar
situation in which England found itself as the mother country Of the most extensive
colonial settlements in the world. Nevertheless, the end that the English imperialists
sought to attain in the creation of a customs union embracing the dominions and the
mother country was the same as that which the colonial acquisitions of Germany,
Italy, France, Belgium, and other European countries were intended to serve, viz.,
the creation of protected export markets.
The grand commercial objectives aimed at by the policy of imperialism were
nowhere attained. The dream of an all-British customs union remained unrealized.
The territories annexed by European countries in the last decades, as well as those in
which they were able to obtain "concessions," play such a subordinate role in the
provision of raw materials and half-manufactured goods for the world market and in
their corresponding consumption of industrial products that no essential change in
conditions could be brought about by such arrangements. In order to attain the goals
that imperialism aimed at, it was not enough for the nations of Europe to occupy
areas inhabited by savages incapable of resistance. They had to reach out for
territories that were in the possession of peoples ready and able to defend
themselves. And it is here that the policy of imperialism suffered shipwreck, or will
soon do so. In Abyssinia, in Mexico, in the Caucasus, in Persia, in China—
everywhere we see the imperialist aggressors in retreat or at least already in great
difficulties.
6. Colonial Policy
The considerations and objectives that have guided the colonial policy of the
European powers since the age of the great discoveries stand in the sharpest contrast
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to all the principles of liberalism. The basic idea of colonial policy was to take
advantage of the military superiority of the white race over the members of other
races. The Europeans set out, equipped with all the weapons and contrivances that
their civilization placed at their disposal, to subjugate weaker peoples, to rob them
of their property, and to enslave them. Attempts have been made to extenuate and
gloss over the true motive of colonial policy with the excuse that its sole object was
to make it possible for primitive peoples to share in the blessings of European
civilization. Even assuming that this was the real objective of the governments that
sent out conquerors to distant parts of the world, the liberal could still not see any
adequate basis for regarding this kind of colonization as useful or beneficial. If, as
we believe, European civilization really is superior to that of the primitive tribes of
Africa or to the civilizations of Asia—estimable though the latter may be in their
own way—it should be able to prove its superiority by inspiring these peoples to
adopt it of their own accord. Could there be a more doleful proof of the sterility of
European civilization than that it can be spread by no other means than fire and
sword?
No chapter of history is steeped further in blood than the history of colonialism.
Blood was shed uselessly and senselessly. Flourishing lands were laid waste; whole
peoples destroyed and exterminated. All this can in no way be extenuated or
justified. The dominion of Europeans in Africa and in important parts of Asia is
absolute. It stands in the sharpest contrast to all the principles of liberalism and
democracy, and there can be no doubt that we must strive for its abolition. The only
question is how the elimination of this intolerable condition can be accomplished in
the least harmful way possible.
The most simple and radical solution would be for the European governments to
withdraw their officials, soldiers, and police from these areas and to leave the
inhabitants to themselves. It is of no consequence whether this is done immediately
or whether a freely held plebiscite of the natives is made to precede the surrender of
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the colonies. For there can scarcely be any doubt as to the outcome of a truly free
election. European rule in the overseas colonies cannot count on the consent of its
subjects.
The immediate consequence of this radical solution would be, if not outright
anarchy, then at least continual conflicts in the areas evacuated by the Europeans. It
may be safely taken for granted that up to now the natives have learned only evil
ways from the Europeans, and not good ones. This is not the fault of the natives,
but rather of their European conquerors, who have taught them nothing but evil.
They have brought arms and engines of destruction of all kinds to the colonies; they
have sent out their worst and most brutal individuals as officials and officers; at the
point of the sword they have set up a colonial rule that in its sanguinary cruelty
rivals the despotic system of the Bolsheviks. Europeans must not be surprised if the
bad example that they themselves have set in their colonies now bears evil fruit. In
any case, they have no right to complain pharisaically about the low state of public
morals among the natives. Nor would they be justifi
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