In the early 1970s, the Provisional Irish Republican Army was on the backfoot in its campaign against the British authorities and Northern Ireland鈥檚 loyalist paramilitaries. Under near-constant surveillance, the Provos needed a cost-effective innovation that would allow them to hit their enemies hard without exposing the clandestine networks that sustained their insurgency. They found what they were looking for in the US-made Armalite rifle, first smuggled into Northern Ireland on, ironically enough, the British cruise liner Queen Elizabeth II. Semi-automatic, light, and easy to conceal, the Armalite was the ideal weapon for urban warfare.
As the gun made its way onto the streets and the bodies began piling up, the graffiti in Belfast鈥檚 Catholic neighborhoods heralded newfound confidence: 鈥淕OD MADE THE CATHOLICS,鈥� read one banner, 鈥淏UT THE ARMALITE MADE THEM EQUAL.鈥�
This cocksure turn of phrase, quoted in Patrick Radden Keefe鈥檚 of The Troubles, captures a narrative oft told in national histories: the belief in an underdog that uses whatever tools are available to rectify injustices wrought by rapacious neighbors or distant powers, the ultimate goal being to live undivided on one鈥檚 own soil. Substitute 鈥淚rish Catholics鈥� with another nationality and 鈥淎rmalite鈥� with another lethal technology, and one could envision this graffiti in Palestine, Kosovo, or Kashmir.
Despite the ubiquity of nationalism throughout the late modern era, the five years since Brexit and the Trump election have seen pundits decrying the 鈥渞eturn鈥� of nationalism in the West, concern often grounded in a simplistic understanding of the phenomenon. Some reactions espouse denial (鈥淭his isn鈥檛 who we are鈥�), bafflement (nationalism is silly because it is 鈥� 鈥� as one explainer put it in The New York Times), or thinly veiled contempt (this isn鈥檛 our fault; the masses are simply seduced by authoritarianism). For their part, many conservatives, following Trump, have sought to recast nationalism in a favorable light, reassuring their readers that they are, in their own way, on the 鈥渞ight side of history.鈥�
If Western elites have frequently failed to understand nationalism in their own societies, then nationalism in the postcolonial world remains even more misunderstood. In discussions of Africa in particular, one still often sees ethnic nationalism portrayed as an antiquated tribalism. Yet Africa鈥檚 鈥渢ribal鈥� conflicts often originate in the colonial era of divide-and-rule and the abrupt imposition of a Westphalian model of the nation-state onto societies that had previously organized along the lines of nebulous kingdoms, emirates, chiefdoms, nomadic societies, and the like. Now the formal architecture of global politics, the nation-state鈥檚 origins were parochial. Named after a region of Germany and the 17th-century treaties signed therein, the Westphalian system is the product of Europe鈥檚 unique early modern history. What began as a means of mitigating the destructive fallout of the Protestant Reformation now underpins everything from nuclear nonproliferation to international soccer. As the writer Nanjala Nyabola succinctly 鈥淪o much of how the world鈥檚 states function and fear comes from Europe鈥檚 bloody and violent history.鈥�
Three important new studies scrutinize this relationship between European conquest and the modern state, each challenging the notion that our world of competing nation-states is the inevitable culmination of political development. Each book provides insightful case studies showing how diverse societies at various points in history have understood themselves in non-Westphalian terms, raising the question of whether a more cosmopolitan and perhaps more egalitarian political modernity might have been possible. Unfortunately, even if one believes that nationalism is a destructive social construct, it is far from clear that the genie can be put back in the bottle.
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