Americans’ peculiar understanding of a “nation”

This week U.S. President Trump signed an executive order stating that Jews in America would be covered by the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which “prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color and national origin,” but does not mention religion. The Jewish community was divided in its reaction, with some praising the move and others condemning it.

Those praising the move saw it as necessary to combat rising levels of anti-Semitism on American college campuses, where anti-Semitism often appears hidden in “anti-Zionism”. While not all opposition to or critiques of Zionism and the Israeli state are anti-Semitic, a growing trend in academic environments of late appears to demonize the Israeli state out of all proportion to its sins, and in an apparent vacuum wherein Israel is held to standards not applied to other states. Zionism, which is essentially Jewish nationalism, likewise gets derided in ways that other groups’ nationalism does not.

On many university campuses, for example, Jewish students running for election in student government or other posts have been challenged by pro-Palestinian groups with demands that they first “clarify their position on Israel.” This would be akin to demanding that Muslim students in America make an obligatory disavowal of the Iranian state, the Saudi state or the so-called “Islamic State.” Other Jewish students have been harassed or threatened, and events relating to Israel (even just cultural events) see crowds of pro-Palestinian protestors shutting down the venues and threatening speakers.

President Trump’s order attempted to address the growing problem, but many took great exception to his order classifying Jews as having a “national origin” (it also does not help that Trump himself peddles in Jewish stereotypes in many of his speeches). Some Jews in America replied that their national origin was “American.” Others said this was a throwback to Nazi-era laws classifying Jews as different than the German nation, with ominous possible consequences. The president of one college in Tennessee wrote that "any presidential order that extends this way of thinking—by defining “Jewish” and “American” as exclusive categories or by debasing minority groups of any kind—will only embolden those who would exclude and divide."

The issue here relates to Americans’ somewhat unique habit of treating “state” and “nation” as synonyms. In my lower level political science classes in Missouri, I must spend a good amount of time trying to get my students out of this habit. I must explain to them the difference between a “state” and a “nation.” Kurds and groups such as Scots in Britain, Basques in Spain, and Amazigh in Algeria have no problem understanding this difference.

For most of the world, a nation is a group of people that view themselves as such and are tied together by bonds of culture, language, history or religion. They may, along with other national groups, be citizens of a certain state, but this remains separate from their national identity or origins. In the Yugoslavian example, Croats, Serbs and Bosnians were all citizens of Yugoslavia and largely shared the same language, culture and modern history – but based on religion, simultaneously saw themselves as different nations.

In America, however, students from a young age are taught that everyone belongs to the “American nation.” In some ways this seems commendable – an attempt to strengthen the glue that binds immigrants from across the world together as “Americans” in what they call “the great melting pot.” To Canadian ears, however, the “melting pot” sounds like an attempt to erase people’s culture and language and assimilate it to a dominant Anglo-Saxon norm. French speakers and what Canadians call their “First Nations” (aboriginals) would never accept this. Canadians instead celebrate multiculturalism and what they call their “mosaic” or “mixing pot” (as opposed to “melting pot”). 

Americans should learn about how most of the world understands the term “nation”. It would help them understand the point of view of myriad groups, including the Kurds. It would also help them realize that “whites” in America have national origins too (in Europe for the most part), along with everyone else. The inclusion of Jews in the 1964 Civil Rights Act would thus not prove overly contentious if Americans understood what “national origin” actually means.

The current situation, on the other hand -- wherein everyone in America except white Anglo-Saxon Christians has an ethnicity, a race and a (foreign) national origin -- seems destined to perpetuate problems.

David Romano has been a Rudaw columnist since 2010. He holds the Thomas G. Strong Professor of Middle East Politics at Missouri State University and is the author of numerous publications on the Kurds and the Middle East.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rudaw.

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