Understanding the Nation

I have heard it said that the nation is nothing more than a social construct, an imagined community that has no more validity other than in the misguided minds of men. I sympathise with the Liberal/Marxist worldview. I had a recent conversation with a friend who felt it better to idealise community rather than country, and by logical extension, the world rather than country also. I agreed with him.

Just call me a liberal internationist.

But in earnestness, whilst taking on board the liberal concerns that I myself share, I hope to offer an alternative understanding of 'the nation', one which tries to balance the fervor of right-wing patriotism with the occasional miserableness of left-wing indifference.

The Nation - respect for the laws, man

The nation is a real entity - or at least, sufficiently real to warrant a useful discussion. It is a clear historio-politico-legal structure (hows that for a description?) that has had and continues to have a very real bearing on our own lives as it did on the lives of our predeccesors.

If we are born in Britain, we have an obligation to abide by British law. If we are born in France, we have an obligation to abide by French law.

For example, as 'Britons', our understanding of law and politics determines our 'Britishness'. We understand our membership of the British nation through an appreciation of historical events and legal rights that have developed and occurred within the generally distinct political entity, Britain. We do not understand ourselves through an examination of French systems. The French system is, of course, equally valid and possibly even preferable. But I do not gain a legal/political understanding of what I can and can't do in Britain today and thus what it means to be British by reading the Napoleonic Code.

This, as I understand it, is nationhood.

The British constitution

Thus, Britishness can be defined in a series of rights and political norms (somewhat simply put):

- the right not to be locked up without trial
- the right to due process
- the right to freedom of expression
- religious freedom
- the sovereignty of parliament
- the constitutional monarch

These rights have been the outcome of popular struggles and victories, but we now understand them as inalienable .

Of course, many of you will be thinking that this is all ridiculous. That the rights I have listed are merely manifestations of universal human rights, and are applicable to all. That my inclusion of the phrase 'Britishness' is a somewhat bizarre and unnecessary digression.

In a sense, this is self-evidently correct. But in another sense, it can be helpful to view them through the British lens, as a point of comparison can then be made between Britain and other jurisdictions.

Freedom in modern Britain

I apologise if this post has caused more confusion than clarity. In short, my central argument is that nationhood can be useful if viewed through a historcal, political, legal lens, as we are all born within defined political territories, even if those territories are ultimately arbitary and socially constructed.

There are all sorts of things we take for granted today. The right to freely protest Mr Blair's foreign policy, education policy or any other policy. The right to depose our leaders at election time. The right to be gay. The right not to be gay. Etc. These are not rights guaranteed throughout the world. This is by no means a conservative apologetic of the wonderland that is Britain - but it is a recognition that within the territory widely known as Britain, we as Britons have become accustomed to freedoms that we now regard as sacred and inalienable.

An extreme simplification - life is not the same in the UK as it is Saudi Arabia or North Korea. Life was not the same in the USA as it was in the Soviet Union.

I submit that understanding nationhood as the cumulation of national freedoms is the best way of viewing 'the nation', and frees it from any racial or xenophobic implication it might otherwise have.