Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: the binational fantasy

http://www.haaretz.com/magazine/week-s-end/bye-to-the-binational-model-1.299660
'Bye to the binational model
If the last century has taught us anything, it's that the nationalist 
mind-set is not an easy thing to change. From Yugoslavia and, now, to 
Belgium, people have shown they would rather live under their own flag 
than share a country with others.
By Shlomo Avineri
Despite a Flemish separatist party's victory at the Belgian polls two 
weeks ago, the state won't be dismantled anytime soon.
However, the separatists' success does testify once again to the 
fragility of attempts to establish and perpetuate binational states in 
Europe, and of binationalism as an alterative to the modern nation state.
Multinationalism received its harshest blow in the 1990s. During that 
decade, in the wake of the collapse of Eastern Europe's Communist 
regimes and the process of democratization there, the world saw many 
multinational states in that region fall down like dominoes: the Union 
of Soviet Socialist Republics, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia.
Formally, the Soviet Union was a federation of 15 republics, each of 
them "national in form and socialist in content," as Soviet jargon had 
it. In reality, the federal framework was a thin cover for the central 
control of the Soviet regime in Moscow, just as "proletarian 
internationalism" was a front for an attempt to preserve the czarist 
imperial framework by giving it ostensibly Marxist legitimization.
At the start of perestroika, during then-Soviet premier Mikhail 
Gorbachev's term, it was nationalist movements in some of the Soviet 
republics - Lithuania, Estonia and Georgia - that saw democratization 
and liberalization as a basis for realizing their demands for 
self-determination.
Belgian election posters 	
Election posters in Belgium, where a Flemish separatist party proved the 
big winner.
Photo by: AP
In the democratic elections held with Gorbachev's blessing, nationalist 
movements won majorities in those republics. They embarked on a process 
of disengagement, which ultimately brought about the breakup of the 
Soviet Union and the granting of independence to the 15 national 
republics. The republics' disengagement process was accompanied by the 
demand by Boris Yeltsin - Gorbachev's adversary - to establish Russia's 
independence as the replacement for the Soviet straightjacket.
In some of the former republics, the process has not been completed. 
Russia is still facing the Chechen national resistance movement, which 
has some particularly violent members, and is fed in part by Muslim 
fundamentalism. The Georgian-Russian war stemmed from the attempts by 
two small nations - the South Ossetians and the Abkhazians - to break 
off from Georgia.
Velvet divorce
Despite more than 70 years of universalist Communist ideology, which 
entailed far-reaching processes of Russification, the national identity 
of tens of millions of Soviet citizens remained strong. The immigration 
of a million Jews from territories of the former Soviet Union is also 
connected to the strength of national consciousness in those places.
In Czechoslovakia, post-Communist democratization was accompanied by the 
strengthening of national awareness in each of the two constituent parts 
of that state. This process was especially strong among the Slovaks, who 
since the establishment of Czechoslovakia in 1918, felt discriminated 
against by the Czechs. The breakup of Czechoslovakia in 1993 was, in 
fact, the second divorce between the Czechs and the Slovaks.
In 1938, Hitler and the Nazis were aided by the mostly Fascist Slovak 
nationalist movement, and created an independent Slovak state. The old 
joke that "the only Czechoslovakians were the Jews" - all the rest were 
Czechs or Slovaks - only demonstrated the historical truth: The separate 
national consciousnesses were stronger than the imaginary idea of a 
united "Czechoslovakian" people.
It must be said to the credit of the Czechs and the Slovaks that their 
divorce in 1993 was a velvet separation. Part of this has to do with the 
historical political culture of the two nations, which is fundamentally 
peaceful. Another part has to do with the fact that the ethnic border 
between the two nations is clear and there are no minorities of one 
group inside the other group's territory.
Today relations between the countries are better than they were when the 
two groups were squabbling with each other in a single state.
Breaking up is hard to do
The reality in Yugoslavia was more complex and violent, and the 
situation has still not completely stabilized. The united Yugoslav state 
was first established in 1918. It was characterized by Serb hegemony 
over the other nations, as the Serbs had been on the winning side in 
World War I. When the king of Serbia became the king of the united 
Yugoslavia, an opening was created for a Croatian resistance movement, 
which had violent elements.
This violence spilled over into the parliament and reached its peak in 
the assassination of King Alexander in 1934 by Croatian separatists.
Under the pressure of the Nazi onslaught, in 1941 the Yugoslavian state 
broke up: Croatia won independence under Nazi-Fascist auspices, Serbia 
was under German occupation and controlled by a puppet government, 
Slovenia was annexed to the German Reich, Kosovo was annexed to Albania 
under Italian control and other areas were annexed to Hungary, Bulgaria 
and Italy.
The partisans, led by Tito, proved successful in reunifying Yugoslavia, 
mainly because in this terrible and tragic reality they were the only 
ones calling for reunification under the banner of Communist 
internationalism.
This was an attractive idea. As long as Tito was alive, the renewed 
Yugoslavia succeeded where the first Yugoslavia had failed. It was not 
only Tito's personality and the partisans' heroic heritage that created 
a legitimate uniting adhesive, but also the sophisticated 
divide-and-rule policy Tito himself pursued, which neutralized the 
various nationalist groups within a complex and balanced federalist 
structure.
After Tito's death in 1980 and in the wake of the processes of 
democratization that began at the end of that decade, nationalist 
parties proved popular in the first free elections held in the various 
republics. Croats, Serbs and Kosovars all had leading nationalist 
movements. The tri-national reality in Bosnia alone also demanded a 
solution of its own.
Thus, Yugoslavia fell apart for the second time - and is still dealing 
with the fallout. Kosovo has won independence but Serbia does not 
recognize it, and the attempt to establish a binational and 
multi-religious state in Bosnia (a kind of Yugoslavia in miniature ) is 
limping. It too may break up into its national components.
However, recently rapprochement processes have begun between Serbia and 
Croatia, which are marching shoulder to shoulder, in impressive 
cooperation, toward joining the European Union.
This historical review - which does not at all do justice to the 
exceedingly complicated reality - shows that attempts to establish 
multinational entities shatter in the face of nationalism. Beyond that, 
when crises occur - and it makes no difference whether it is Nazi 
pressure in the 1930s or the democratization processes that undermined 
the totalitarian order in the 1990s - these multinational frameworks 
cannot sustain themselves.
Nationalist ideology has deep roots in the social consciousness of these 
groups. The assertion that the reason for the breakup is only 
manipulation by extremist leaders like Croatia's Franjo Tudjman or 
Serbia's Slobodan Milosevic (as some claimed during Yugoslavia's second 
breakup ) is based on a mistaken assumption. It ignores the fact that 
the manipulations by such leaders succeeded because they reflected 
deeply popular approaches, sometimes buried and sometimes open, that 
already existed in the consciousness of Serbs or Croats (or Czechs or 
Slovaks or Ukrainians or Georgians ).
An Israeli lesson
What has happened in Belgium shows that in Western Europe, too, national 
consciousness is strong. Ostensibly there is a paradox here: At a time 
when Europe is moving toward political unification (beyond the economic 
unification of a common currency ) separatist movements are flourishing. 
In the U.K., Scotland and Wales have gained differing degrees of 
autonomy in the shape of local parliaments and governments of their own, 
and it is definitely possible that Scotland is heading for sovereignty 
and disengagement from England.
In Spain the violent Basque nationalist movement has made headlines for 
years, but even the moderate Basque parties, like the Catalonian 
parties, are leading their regions beyond the broad autonomy within 
democratic Spain toward self-determination. Within this there are also 
voices demanding independence and disengagement from the historical 
Castilian hegemony over the Spanish state.
Another process, which has problematic aspects because of the country's 
Fascist heritage, is occurring in northern Italy, where the 
anti-immigrant Northern League is popular. The attempt in Cyprus to 
establish a joint Greek and Turkish state has also not worked out well.
 From all these examples a general lesson emerges, specifically for 
Israel. The general conclusion is that contrary to predictions of the 
death and disappearance of nationalism - commonly voiced among leftists 
and theorists in countries like France, England and Germany - national 
consciousness has not disappeared. Because of the way nationalism became 
extreme during the Nazi and Fascist period, movements have often gotten 
a bad rap.
However, it seems that in the end the desire not to be subordinated to 
foreign rule, to find a place in the sun for your culture, language and 
history and to "feel at home" are all major elements in the human 
experience. Anyone who holds dear the ideas of progress and 
enlightenment cannot ignore this.
The Israeli angle is clear as well: In light of the difficulties the 
idea of establishing a Palestinian state alongside Israel is 
encountering, here and there voices are calling for consideration of a 
binational solution, in which Jews and Palestinians will live together 
under a single regime. If we leave aside for the moment a number of 
troublesome questions (Under which flag? What will this state's national 
holidays be? What will be its national anthem? Will the mufti and David 
Ben-Gurion co-star in its textbooks? ), the European experience shows 
that binationalism is a story of failure, which in many cases (Cyprus, 
Yugoslavia ) has ended in violence.
If Czechs and Slovaks, Flemings and Walloons, who never fought each 
other but have different cultures and different historical memories, 
can't live in one country, then one has to be blind, ignorant, 
thoroughly insensitive or all three to think that Jews and Palestinians, 
who have been clutching each other's throats for more than a century, 
will be able to solve their problems and maintain a democratic life 
after being thrown into a single political cauldron. What has happened 
in Belgium has implications reaching far beyond its borders.

 Belgium, people have shown they would rather live under their own flag
il Belgio è ancora intero, idem la Spagna, l'UK e tanti tanti altri