Unit 1.

Introduction

Topic 3. Understanding Nationalism

Learning Outcomes

At the end of the unit, you are expected to:

1. describe the emergence of nationalism;
2. determine the emergence of nationalism based on Anderson's
Imagined Community; and
3. critically analyze the emergence of Philippine nationalism from
Anderson's frame.

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 Unit 1. Introduction

Presentation of Contents

I mentioned earlier that this course aims to open the students'

awareness of fundamental concepts like national consciousness,
national identity, and nation. However, these concepts could be
elusive. According to Watson, "there is no scientific definition of a
nation that can be devised, yet the phenomenon has existed and
exists." In Anderson's Imagined Community, he explored the
existence of nation as 'imagined.' He did not say that nation does not
exist, rather, it is more real ( Cavet, 2016). In trying to present the
existence of a nation, he ventured on explaining the emergence of
nationalism. He further mentioned that nationalism is a cultural
artifact. It can only be understood in a proper elucidation on how
such 'historical being' emerged and how its meaning changed over
the historical process. He emphasized on how people attached
meanings to specific structures, not the structures per se deviating
from Marx's critical theory and structuralism.
Most importantly, how this construct gained its legitimacy by
affecting the consciousness of people. Anderson (1983) further
explicated that nationalism is not the awakening of a nation to self-
consciousness but invents nations. A nation does not predate
nationalism, but the latter creates the former. He presented the
different periods in history to expound his arguments since he firmly
believed that nationalism should be understood not to be aligned
with political ideologies but with cultural systems that preceded it
and as well as against it (ibid.,12).
From the ancient period to the age of enlightenment, he traced how
people were shaped to specific external structures (political,
economic, cultural) that pervaded their consciousness. Their belief
of the sacred bounded these religious communities. During the
dynasties, it was ruled by pre-ordained monarchs by mandate of
heavens. The Christendom came, where the religious authorities
provided canonical teaching that whoever avert these canons were
considered heretics. The Latin language was the canonical medium
of the religious institution. It elated the clergies, ecclesiastical
authorities into dominant class along the Latin language. However,
people began to question the authority and supremacy of the church.
The rise of Protestantism led by Luther became a historical mark
that paved the way for forming people's new form of consciousness.
His attacks against the Catholic Church's teaching became successful
due to his writings, which surfaced the way to the translation of the
bible. This move deconstructed the use of Latin and became
instrumental to the use of vernacular language. The use of
vernacular language and mass production of published materials as
means of production had shaped new relations of production that
bonded people together.
Print technology and capitalism created a new form of imagined
community (ibid, p.46). The Print-languages laid the bases for
national consciousness in three distinct ways: 1). It created a unified
field of exchange and communication; the fellow readers in a way
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Unit 1. Introduction