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🪵 The Threshold

Language policy framed as zero-sum triggered counter-nationalism.

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tagsja-picks, addendum, question, causal_relationships, singleton, xref, category/causal-relationships
aliases@devotta_sinhalese_nodate, loc. 127

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Language policy framed as zero-sum triggered counter-nationalism.

Evidence

For example, Kelman (1999) argued that the Israeli–Palestinian conflict has been characterized by negative interdependence between the two national identities. According to this account, the two sides have not only defined access to territory as a zero-sum conflict, but also their national identities. That is, “each group’s success in identity building depends on the other’s failure in that task” (p. 589), and thus each side has denied the legitimacy of the other’s national identity. For example, Palestinians have argued that Judaism is a religion and is therefore not a true basis for a nation state, while Israelis have contended that Palestinian nationalism is an artificial creation without historical foundations. — Roderick M. Kramer, Geoffrey J. Leonardelli, Robert W. Livingston, Social Cognition, Social Identity, and…, 1123 (#expands, via linked claim)

At the same time, slowly increasing literacy (by 1869 one third of the adult population), the spread of print-Magyar, and the growth of a small, but energetic, liberal intelligentsia all stimulated a popular Hungarian nationalism conceived very differently from that of the nobility. This popular nationalism, symbolized for later generations by the figure of Lajos Kossuth (1802–1894), had its hour of glory in the Revolution of 1848. The revolutionary regime not only got rid of the imperial governors appointed by Vienna, but abolished the supposedly Ur-Magyar feudal Diet of Noble Counties, and proclaimed reforms to put an end to serfdom and noblemen’s tax-exempt status, as well as to curb drastically the entailment of estates. In addition, it was decided that all Hungarian-speakers should be Hungarian (as only the privileged had been before) and every Hungarian should speak Magyar (as only some Magyars had hitherto been accustomed to do). As Ignotus drily comments, ‘The “nation” was, by the standard of that time (which viewed the rise of the twin stars of Liberalism and Nationalism with boundless optimism), justified in feeling itself extremely generous when it “admitted” the Magyar peasant with no discrimination save for that relating to property; and the non-Magyar Christians on condition they became Magyar; and eventually, with some reluctance and a delay of twenty years, the Jews.’ Kossuth’s own position, in his fruitless negotiations with leaders of the various non-Magyar minorities, was that these peoples should have exactly the same civil rights as the Magyars, but that since they lacked ‘historical personalities’ they could not form nations on their own. Today, this position may seem a trifle arrogant. It will appear in a better light if we recall that the brilliant, young, radical-nationalist poet Sándor Petófi (1823–1849), a leading spirit of 1848, on one occasion referred to the minorities as ‘ulcers on the body of the motherland.’ — Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities, 386 (#exemplifies, via linked claim)

Yet, present political movements indicate these linguistic possibilities need to be restrained, if not dismissed through policies advocating an end to bilingual education, like California’s Proposition 227 and efforts to nationally designate English as the “official” language. — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 2502 (#exemplifies, via linked claim)

Categorization

  • XREF: connects to: Popular nationalism reproduced exclusion by demanding linguistic uniformity — Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on…, 386; US English-only policies actively suppress linguistic identity — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 2502; Political groups adopt nationalist rhetoric opportunistically — Neil DeVotta, Sinhalese Buddhist Nationalist…, 159 (+3 more)

Broader Connections

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