Political thinkers over the past two centuries have grappled with the question of what constitutes a nation, and who belongs – or doesn’t belong – to it.
Civic or territorial nationalists define the nation as an association of people with equal and shared political rights, and an allegiance to similar political procedures. The nation is a political entity, inclusive and liberal. Anyone can, so to speak, join through becoming a citizen.
Ethnic nationalists define the nation in terms of a shared heritage, which usually includes a common language, faith, and ancestry. They base membership on descent or heredity. It is clearly a more restrictive form of nationalism.
Let’s use one illustration to demonstrate the confusion that can occur when we try to pigeonhole people based on their differing identities.
We’ll take three families: the Rahmans are Muslim Bengalis from Bangladesh, the former East Pakistan. The Barkatis are Muslim Bengalis, but from the Indian state of West Bengal and therefore citizens of India. The Banerjees, who are Hindus, are also West Bengalis from India.
All three families move to Glasgow, Scotland. While it does have its own assembly and legal system, Scotland is not a sovereign state, but a devolved part of the United Kingdom.
Are the three families now Scots? In terms of ethnicity, no. But for civic or territorial nationalists, the answer is yes, they are Scottish. But are they then Indo-Scots, Bengali Scots, or, in the case of the Rahmans, Bangladeshi Scots?
Or, for that matter, since Scotland remains part of the British state, are they – at least once they acquire citizenship – simply British, thereby bypassing the tricky business of whether they are Scottish or not? That would work for some.
However, since Scottish ethno-nationalists, especially those who wish to create an independent Scotland, see the inhabitants of Great Britain as English, Scottish, and Welsh, the term British means little to them. It is merely a matter of legal citizenship.
So if nationalists were victorious and Scotland became a sovereign country, would the three families now be defined as Scottish, given that they are already UK citizens living in Glasgow?
For civic and territorial nationalists, the answer would be yes. But for some Scottish ethnic nationalists, the families would still not be Scots, even though citizens of a new Scotland -- though perhaps through assimilation, their descendants might become Scottish. (Racists, an extreme subgroup of ethnic nationalists, would deny that they could ever be Scots.)
What of the reverse? If the MacGregor family, ethnically Scottish, decide to leave Glasgow and move to London, would they cease being Scots? Not to ethnic nationalists, they wouldn’t – they’d become part of a Scottish diaspora.
Yet should the United Kingdom dissolve, and England, like Scotland, become – as it was for centuries – a country on its own, the MacGregors would become citizens of England.
And then perhaps they would become “Scots English” in terms of ethnic identity, despite the oxymoronic sound of that definition.
Is it a wonder these issues are never resolved?
Henry Srebrnik is a professor of political studies at UPEI.
