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Culture and Conflict
No. 7, Fall 1992
Nationalism and the European Construction
There is a growing tendency to analyse nationalism as a new plague creating chaos in Eastern Europe and the former USSR. Some speak of nationalism as a " natural " force. But we must remember that nationalism is always constructed by " identity entrepreneurs " and thus deeply depends on the political context. If many studies have been published concerning nationalism in Eastern Europe, none have discussed the influence of this " renewal " for the nationalist-separatist movements in the European Community. Is there a " contagion " of nationalism and fragmentative dynamics capable of challenging the national states at the time they are also being challenged by the construction of the EC, or will the EC be the necessary " intermediary " between the national states and certain aspirations for more autonomy ?
The Anglo-lrish Agreement of 1985 has helped containing the Northern Ireland conflict, but it has neither resolved the issue of Northern Ireland's status as a political entity nor led to an agreement on the redistribution of political power among the parties in Northern Ireland. As a result there has been an increasing interest for the possibility of the European Union providing a suitable framework for a more complete solution to the Irish Question. The Catholic minority is divided on the question of Europe's role. Sinn Fein regards the European integration as an obstacle to the achievement of its goal of a united Ireland. By contrast, the Social Democratic Labour Party has enthusiastically supported the notion of a Europe of Regions capable of providing the context for political accommodation between Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland. The party's enthusiasm for the European Union is based on the political advantages it has derived from the progress of European integration.
The Northern Ireland problem is closely linked to that of the future of its Protestant population (60 %), profoundly suspicious and even hostile to Europeanism, in complete contrast to the attitude of the Catholics. Feeling isolated in Brussels and Strasbourg, the Protestant delegates discover a community of interest with their Catholic countrymen in claiming European aid for their province, in addition to what they already receive from the United Kingdom. Nonetheless, despite a gradual displacement of the Northern-Irish problem from the British to the European level, a minority of independence extremists still advocate for an armed struggle. Nationalist fever continues inflaming this periphery of Europe.
Do far right-wing parties constitute a threat for Europe ? To answer this question one has to distinguish between the threat professed by certain groups within EC Member States (Front National in France, Republicans and neo-Nazi groups in Germany) on the one hand, and the dissemination in Europe of the ideas of such groups on the other. There is little doubt that the idea of Europe falling into the hands of the far right-wing parties remains a illusion, but the spread of the national-populist ideas of Le Pen and the German neo-Nazi groups is a bigger reason for concern. The far right is traditionally incapable of organising itself on a lasting basis within Europe, but a real danger exists in the long run : after constructing an organist and racist concept of the nation, justified by the safeguarding of the " national identity ", and having widely preached exclusion, German and French extremists now project their identity hallucinations onto the European construction. They exploit the fears and consequent convergence on the reassuring concept of the " nation ", promote the spread of xenophobia and thereby undermine the very foundations of the Community's development.
The disagreements within the national movement regarding Maastricht show that the image of Europe remains fuzzy in Corsica. The nationalist movement structures itself round local problems and struggles within the local political field. This delay in the recognition of Europe may increase radicalism as shown in the recent redirection of violence against foreign targets.
Since its reactivation, ETA, in its struggle against Madrid for the independence of the Basque country, has mobilised the population by an exaltation of national values and the use of violence. The author opposes this military model to a political one that uses the resources of the provincial statute of autonomy. He envisages that the latter may replace the former as a result of the events of 1992.