Nationalism Re-Examined
Nationalism is a very sensitive subject. As soon as you start generalizing about national traits you are accused of “racial profiling” and racism. -especially if you talk about negative traits. Yet nations are really quite distinct- just as genders are quite distinct- despite current narratives.
People generally have a lot of emotional investment in their nation. Some are unduly proud like the Americans who keep repeating in their discourse on public media that they are “the greatest nation ever on Earth”. There are a few discounting facts to that narrative- like the fact that they rank the lowest on almost every social variable amongst the developed nations. But who cares about facts when you have pride lol.
There is also an even more sensitive area which has to do with shame about our national characteristics. So, for example, Jews will regularly give their children gentile -sounding names like Tiffany and Elizabeth for example lol. Some will shorten their last name so it sounds less Jewish. So Bergman becomes Berry and Glouberman becomes Glidden. Muslims, as well, will shorten their name from Mohammed (a truly honorable name) to Moe so they sound like the owner of a delicatessen. Black people, most obviously athletes, will shave their heads as if there is something wrong with God-given curly hair. I don’t get it! Two of my childhood heroes were Angela Davis and Jimmy Hendriks. I really admired their natural Afro hairdos!
Then there was one of my clients-an indigenous man from the north of Quebec- who pretended to be a Québecois pure laine and hid his identity for years in therapy. It ended up catching up with him in his relationships- because his Québecois partners didn’t appreciate his taciturnness-an indigenous characterstic (OOPs! Is that “racial profiling?) It might have been easier for him if he had stated in advance that he doesn’t talk too much lol
In my first book: “Snakes and Ladders:Aphorisms for Modern Living” I make the following statement:” We are each caricatures of our national origins” ! That may sound extreme especially for those with a serious dose of Western education lol. We were taught over and over again the nature/nurture hypothesis. And even there the emphasis was on the individual and the family genetics as opposed to the collective national ones. Yet, over and over again, travelling all around the world and interacting with many different societies, I could see the national characteristics so clearly!
I remember my first trip to Europe with a fellow medical student named Alan. We first came to London. It was cold and rainy. Everything was really expensive. We could not find a hotel within our budget and we ended up sleeping on the floor of a YMCA with a large group of German tourists. It was less than twenty years from WWII and the idea of sleeping in a room of Germans was still an intimidating prospect-especially being raised in a secular Jewish family.
So we decided to move to France. There was an immediate change in the environment. The hotels were a lot cheaper (this was before the European Common Market!) It was sunny and the charcuteries allowed us to eat easily within our budget . We sat out in the beautiful groomed parks and felt like we were almost in paradise ( France has since gone downhill considerably and when I visit it now it feels more like pre-Civil War Syria -but that is a whole other subject! )
When we got tired of the hedonism of Paris, we moved on to Germany. As we got to the border, I immediately noticed the militaristic aspect of the Germans ( btw we had a great time as well in that country).But that militarism of the customs agents triggered something in me. I then looked at my friend Alan and said: ’You know Alan we have been sold a crock. A bunch of B.S. Our educational system, liberal as it was at the time, taught us that all peoples are essentially alike. Only individuals are different.That is clearly not what we are seeing” And on top of that, these were three ”advanced” Western peoples. Imagine the differences if we compare them to Asian and African nations?!That may have been one of my earliest Aha experiences. The liberal viewpoint was misleading at best-at worst more ideological denial from the bleeding-heart liberals lol
On a personal note, I have always been adamantly opposed to nationalism-seeing it simply as a collective form of egotism and selfishness. Which it is! But there is another side to all of this. Just as we must come to terms with our individual ego (nafs in Arabic) we need to come to terms with our national origins-in all its dimensions. Each nation has its strengths and its weaknesses. Yet most people can only see the good qualities of their national origins and have difficulty imagining its shadowy aspects.
A case in point. In the early 2000’s I was studying Arabic in Amman and living with a few other students in a shared apartment. One of the students I got close to was of Palestinian descent-with all of the baggage that entails! One day I was discoursing on religion and made the statement that each religion had its particular strengths and weakness. Now, just from a theological point of view, this is difficult for any religious nationalist (and yes, there is nationalism based on religious practice as well!) to hear. The vast majority of people are convinced that their religion is best and there is a large percentage of those who believe that their religion is the only means of salvation-even if their scriptures, properly interpreted, say the opposite!
So when I got to the issue of the good qualities of each religion, I was somewhat surprised , which I shouldn’t have been because actually it was quite predictable, to hear my Palestian friend ask: ”So where does Judaism excel, in that vein”. His bias was clearly obvious. But after getting over the initial shock, I responded from an inspiration that I get from time to me in these situation. ” In its humanism”
Now, I can see that if you identify Judaism with how the Israeli government behaves, you could hardly be blamed for concluding otherwise. But if you look at Jewish history, if you study the Arts and Sciences and philosophy produced by Jewish people, you can see what I was getting at. I have a particular fondness these days for remembering vocabulary in the Yiddish language from my youth-vocabulary that highlights the inevitable foibles of humanity both on an individual and collective level. Actually identifying these foibles helps us accept them! Much more so than those coming from a mindset of nobility and dignity! (I’ll let you guess who those may be lol)
So when I see what is going on in American politics,”kurveshe”(whoorishness) is the most precise term I can find to describe it. When I listen to overly abstract woke intellectuals I think: ”mishegene”(literally crazy) and when I hear my clients stories of intrusive mother-in-laws the word “schvigger” comes to mind – a word that literally means mother-in-law but in Yiddish becomes almost a swear word! Much more on this at a later time. But for now, I feel proud to dredge out some of this ancient vocabulary from my past that helps me identify and deal with what is going on nowadays.
The troubling aspects of nationalism and racism goes back a long way. I still remember an episode where I was asked to give the sermon at the youth sabbath at our local synagogue. I don’t even think I was 13 at the time. Being my usual controversial self, I took on the subject of Jews’ bias towards others. There were two dépanneurs( handy stores) near us. One was Jewish owned. The other was owned by a Greek man. But all the Jews bought from the Jewish store. So I brought this out and told them” You complain about antisemitism but you are acting in the same manner towards this Greek shopkeeper”. Somehow the message got through. The next time I met the Greek man, he thanked me profusely. His business picked up in the weeks following my talk! Sometimes, people DO listen lol!
Ok So let’s get back to the central point here. How do we deal properly with nationalism. There are many improper ways, as we have seen throughout history but managing this domain ethically and responsibly is a whole other matter! In one of the visitations of the Virgin Mary (I believe it may be the one at Medugorge) she said to the young girls who saw her: “Mankind is on the wrong track. If they don’t change their ways of materialism and nationalism, there will be more and more natural disasters”. So when I see the floods and fires and heatwaves of climate change I don’t think “carbon imprint”. Rather I think “man’s misbehaviour around deeper issues than carbon use”!
The initial trigger for writing this article was an interview on Epoch TVof an author named Rick Richman (forgot to change his last name to Rich lol). He wrote a recent book called: ”And None Should Make Them Afraid” about eight people who contributed to the Zionist project, Clearly not a popular topic in my current Muslim community lol And the first person he talked about was Theodore Herzl. Not usually my cup of tea! If I wanted to talk about great Jewish personalities I would start with the Ball Shem Tov, Reb Nahman of Bratislava and Maimonides. Perhaps Martin Buber. But this was about a person I really didn’t have much sympathy for. And I am sure there are people around, especially in the Arab world, who dislike him much more than I do,
Nevertheless, Richman painted a relatively positive picture of a man committed to an ideal that he spent his life on. But most interesting, only towards the end of his life, did he reveal that at 12 years old, he had a dream/vision of Moses bringing him up into the presence of God! Now in the Islamic tradition, we are taught that if a Prophet appears in a dream it is really him. The devil cannot take the form of a Prophet. So…the founder of Zionism was Divinely instructed to work towards a state of Israel.Ajib!
Now for many pious Christians, this a a no-brainer. They believe that the Jews had to return to the Holy Land in order to set the stage for the return of Jesus! And after all Jesus and all of his Apostles were all Jews, something it has taken Christians a long time to swallow! But for Muslims this is anathema.
And yet, the deeper thinkers amongst Muslims, realize that nothing happens in this world without Divine permission. I have even heard Jordanians thinking that Israel was a punishment for Muslims not holding tightly enough to their own religion. However, this story line is more positive I would say. The Jews returning to Israel is part of the unfoldment of Divine destiny. As said the great Sheikh Hashimi of Damascus “fi kooli shay khayran”(in everything is goodness).Even in Zionism lol!
As to Muslims- concerning the question of nationalism- Allah has told us in the Quran 49;13 “O mankind. We created you from a male and a female. and made you into peoples (shououb) and tribes so that you may get to know each other. “There are a lot of meanings in this short ayat but for our current purposes, it is enough to point out that nations are not an invention of man as some sociologists and anthropologists might like to postulate. They are natural creations of our Lord. Besides this Quranic quote, we have the well-known hadith of our Prophet saws which says” The love of the homeland comes from Faith” Another support for the positive aspects of nationalism. So it is incumbent upon us to accept that reality.
Thus we realize that we have to come to terms with our own nationhood and that of others-no mean feat actually. Because this is deep in our coding, yes even in our genetic coding. And much of it is unconscious.
I will proceed to highlight one case where these differences have created an enormous amount of conflict. Then we will go on to some final general conclusions.
Let’s start with the Middle East- a problem that has defeated many politicians and diplomats. I have no pretensions about solving this problem! But I, may be able to shed some light on the psychological aspects involved. Jews and Arabs. Why are they unable to come to terms and make a peace treaty. This is a very difficult and complex problem. But let us start at the base-their different psychological makeups. The defining fault of the Jewish nation is “doubt”. Some of the rabbis I met in Jerusalem were well aware of this! One of them said to me;” If you are committed to doubt, and most doubters are lol, Ashem (God) will supply you with all the data you need to keep doubting. So the Jews who doubted Moses in the dessert, the Apostles who doubted Jesus, the Jews in the Quran who couldn’t decide what kind of cow to sacrifice, were all true to form-they were Jewish doubters. When the Muslims run into these stories they react saying: ”You see. They are really unbelievers”. They don’t factor in the Jewish mind-set.
The Arabs, on the other hand, have no such problem. They are sure they are right-always lol. The equivalent to Jewish doubt is Arab pride! And both are problematic. ”My way or the highway” think the Arabs. .There is no room for second opinions. They are invalid by definition. So how do people with such different approaches get together to negotiate. They have clearly not been able to do so, so far!
Early on, during my stay in Jerusalem, and just before accepting Islam, I was introduced to the holy book of Islam-the Quran. I immediately recognized its authenticity! And yes, in English translation lol I then looked around me at the behaviour of the people in East Jerusalem and the West Bank and thought: “Why would God send this authentic Revelation to these people?! “My Sufi teacher-who was a highly knowledgeable Hafiz Quran and Qadi (judge in the Islamic court) at the time had warned me about this. He told us not to go to the famous al Aqsa mosque for 6 months after conversion. He was afraid we would lose our faith!
So, sitting on the side of the road going up to the Mount of Olives, I asked Allah again why these people (the Arabs) had received this book. And the answer came back loud and clear: ”They are the ones who will hold it most tightly”! And so it has been throughout history! So Allah himself is NOT a black and white thinker! He could and can see that these people, as faulty as was and is their behaviour, also had a particular quality of perseverance and tenacity ( the deniers would say “stubbornness” lol) that was uniquely suited to this purpose!
On the other hand the Jews who had been the previous recipient were not as perseverant in holding to their way. But their doubt and reflection has led them to be great scientists, musicians and artists.” To each his own” as they say. And ALL of it is from our Lord!
So what do we do with this conundrum? The answer is the same as in many other situations- “Develop Awareness”. We, all, need to be aware of how much we conform to our national characteristics. Then we have to learn to affirm and express our strengths and fight against our weaknesses-on an individual and a collective level. This is the jihad-a-nafs of Sufism (the struggle with the ego) but, in this case, we are struggling with the collective ego. No mean feat given that all the like-minded people around us (our nation) are telling us we are fine just the way we are. But we aren’t!
Once we accept our tribal limitations and work against the weaknesses, it is then incumbent upon us to accept these limitations and strengths of other nations and treat them with dignity and respect- rather than “othering them” to use a current Americanism.
May God help us in this sacred enterprise because it is a holy work! Salaams, Sufi Ibrahim