Flexibility-A Modern Nation by Design
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Transcript of Flexibility-A Modern Nation by Design
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Flexibility: A Modern Nation by Design
By Tom Mitchell
Years ago, my family had a tradition of going bowling on New Years Day. This tradition
started because of our rich history in bowling dating back to the 1960s. After about 15 years, the
tradition was lost when my siblings and cousins grew towards adulthood and began pursuing our
own lives. These 15 years of family cohesion was an invented tradition that helped my younger
brother and I become decorated professional bowlers. This tradition in essence was no different
than invented national traditions which create memories and bonds between citizens. In his book,
The Nation in History, Anthony Smith claims that deep-rooted traditions are created from a
nations legendary events and the source of connection amongst its citizens. On the other hand,
Eric Hobsbawm in, The Invention of Tradition, questions the accuracy of historic or heroic facts,
saying instead that many traditions are invented. This distinction may lead one to think
Hobsbawms and Smiths theories are altogether different, but one can argue this may not be so
true.
Smith refutes Hobsbawms theory that traditions are sometimes invented or constructed
with the intent to install a deep-rooted connection within a nation. He contends that invented
traditions do not provide a deep-rooted connection; Constructing the nation away misses the
central point about historical nations: their powerfully felt and willed presence, the feeling shared
among so many people of belonging to a transgenerational community of history and destiny.1
Smith is then arguing deep-rooted tradition must derive from social cultural history of a nation.
However, this is not entirely true if we take a quick glance at modern-day Russian flags. The
current Russian national flag is more closely related to former Czarist government while the
military flies the flag of the former Soviet Union. Here one flag is ancient in history, the other is
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more modern, and both represent former ruling governments, not Russias current democratic
state as it searches for a national identity.
Russias search for a national identity is true for any democratic nation because
democracy did not exist until the late eighteenth century. The widespread progress of
democracy and the consequent emergence of mass politics therefore dominated the invention of
official traditions in the period of 1870-1914,2
according to Hobsbawm. The mass production of
traditions was part of the rapid change brought on by the Industrial Revolution and the creation
of new democratic nations during the modern era. Some invented traditions Hobsbawm says
were used by nations in attempts to install a deep-rooted connection with its people. The
utilization of invented traditions was historically subject to different circumstances of each
nation and achieved different levels of success and failures.
Hobsbawm uses the The Star of India, the Indian Order of Knights, as a good example
of a failed British invented tradition which was used in an attempt to build unity and loyalty after
conquering India knighthood was also integrated as part of ranking. Hobsbawm notes, A social
order was established with the British crown seen as the centre of authority, and capable of
ordering into a single hierarchy all its subjects, Indian and British.3
This was an important
European component of ritual idiom that the British were trying to install. Indians were
knighted in ceremony by the viceroy, given robes, a collar, jeweled pendant, a medallion with
the effigy of the queen, and took an oath to adhere to a code of conduct and loyalty. If an Indian
knight was disloyal, he had to return all the possession of knighthood and his title was rescinded.
Knighthood, like other British invented traditions in India, was done to show British cultural
superiority, but in reality it garnered more mistrust than loyalty amongst the Indians compared to
the sharing of valuables under the Mughal empire. While Indian knighthood and other British
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traditions in India failed, ultimately British policies did create a democratic state out of India in
which some would say is a success.
Invented traditions also fail because they no longer serve a purpose to a nation over time.
Such is the case of the Israeli legend of Tel Hai and Yoseph Trumpledor as told by Yael
Zerubavel in her article The Historic, the Legendary, and the Incredible: Invented tradition and
Collective Memory of Israel. Trumpledor was a Russian Jew, a decorated soldier of the czarist
army and a Zionist activist who was rooted in the Tel Hai, a settlement in northern Galilee not
under British rule. Trumpledor, along with several other Jewish settlers, died in a gun fight with
local Muslim militants searching Tel Hai for French soldiers. Trumpledors legend is enhanced
because his left arm was amputated during service in the Russian-Japanese war and his famous
last words it is good to die for our country.Trumpledors legendary action and words
immortalized him and he was described as a soldier in Bar Kokhbas army who has come to us
from a previous generation4
as Zerubavel notes.
Trumpledors famous last words became an iconic in Israeli society and the Eleventh of
Adar, (the Tel Hai battle date on the Jewish calendar) was commemorated as a memorial day to
the Jewish nation. This invented tradition, Tel Hai Day was a day marked by the media, public
institutions, schools and youth movements as a way of honoring Trumpledors heroic efforts.
Trumpledor became the most distinguished hero in Israeli society and his last words were a
national slogan used in schools to build loyalty. Zerubavel tells of the importance of branding
loyalty by saying: To impress students further with its symbolic message, teachers often feature
the slogan on classroom walls during the annual commemoration of Tel Hai.5
This clearly
shows how important Tel Hai Day was to the Jewish nation during this time.
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The importance of Tel Hai Day and the legend of Yosef Trumpledor began to fade with
the emergence of the formally recognized Israeli state in 1948. Four factors contributed to this
decline: the Holocaust, the constant warring with Arab nations, the immigration of Jewish
nationals from other countries, which led to cultural changes in the Israeli state, and the re-
examination of the Trumpledor legend by historians. Jews who died in or survived the Holocaust
were now bigger national heroes than Trumpledor, and the incessant warfare after the
reemergence of the Israeli state provided even more war heroes. Furthermore, the new Jewish
immigrants never had the connection to this legend that their native counterparts had. Finally,
historians now questioned the validity of the story of Trumpledors last words and his other
heroics because he was Russian, did not speak Hebrew and because of his lessened physical
abilities as an amputee. In spite of these factors downgrading the Trumpledor legend, Tel Hai
Day is still celebrated in Israel and can be considered a successful invented tradition.
Traditions are sometimes re-invented and changed from their ancient past. Britains royal
ceremonies entering the nineteenth century were not the glorious proceedings we see today.
Coronations, weddings and funerals were very much a private royal matter. The only exception
was funeral ceremonies for national heroes like Arthur Wellesey, the 1st
Duke of Wellington.
The ceremonies of the secretive British monarchy were designed for the elite and not for public
consumption. David Cannadines essay in Hobsbawms book, The Invention of Tradition, notes,
the royal ritual which accompanied them was not so much a jamboree to delight the masses, but
a group rite in which aristocracy, the church and royal family corporately re-affirmed their
solidarity (or animosity) behind closed doors.6
This type of secrecy has roots in the Agrarian
age when monarchies were publicly unpopular and their ceremonies deadening. Clerics, military
personnel, administrative clerics and the commercial ruling class made up the horizontal layer of
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the vertical Agrarian society that attended royal ceremonies, or high culture as Ernest Gellner
called it.
The Industrial Revolution ushered in an era of change and this included the public image
of the British monarchy as it was succumbing to democracy. According to Cannadine, Between
the late 1870s and 1914, , there was a fundamental change in the public image of the British
monarchy, as its ritual, hitherto inept, private and of limited appeal, became splendid, public and
popular,7
The fundamental changes occurring with the new democratic political environment
gave the opportunity for the British royal ceremonies to become splendid. In the 1877, Benjamin
Disraeli, Prime Minister of Britain fashioned one of the first invented royal ceremonies in
making Queen Victoria, the Empress of India, and in 1897, Queen Victorias Diamond Jubilee
turned royal ceremonies into imperial events.
The re-invented royal ceremonies and public approval had transformed London from a
shabby capital city to the jewel of Europes richest nation. The transformation of London and
royal ceremonies was spurred by the international competition of other European and Asian
countries, especially those under strained relations with Britain. Cannadine implies this when he
states, And as international relations became increasingly tense, this added the further
inducement of invention of tradition, as national rivalry was both expressed and sublimated in
ceremonial competition.8
Cannadine believes that, these rituals gave new meaning to the
ceremonies in Britain and other western states. It was imperative the British monarchy continue
to re-invent and improve ceremonies and public image so it would not be outdone by its rivals.
The transformation of the British royal ceremonies is an example of traditions that have
ancestral roots; however they were not public during the Agrarian era and only became publicly
popular during the late 19th
century. This would seem to only partially fit Smiths claims about
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ethnic past: Recurrence, continuity, appropriation: these are the ways in which past is related
to the present, and it may be ancient and half-remembered past that must be recovered and
authenticated.9
The problem is, democratic nations have no ancient past to create traditions;
thus recurrence, continuity and appropriation must be applied to a relatively recent past of a
nation. Smith also stated a half-remembered past, which itself questions accuracy of an ancient
past. If a tradition is only half-remembered, then how does a storied tradition become whole?
Smiths terminology of half-remembered past leaves the remaining half of the tradition subject
to be invented in order to complete the storied tradition. My point is no one ever celebrated a half
tradition.
It is because Smiths half-remembered past that he does not fully refute Hobsbawms
theory of invented traditions, which can install deep-rooted connection amongst the people in a
nation. Smith states:
Clearly, the ability of professional historians to document lies and explode
pure fiction is an important element in the manifold relationships between
past, present, and future on which a national community is based. But it is
only one of several elements; and it must be balanced by other factors, such
as the energizing force of myths, the resonance of shared memories, and
vivid appeal of symbols, all of which carry across generations to establish a
chain of felt and willed continuity.10
Smiths statement would then be in concurrence with Hobsbawms theory because they share
common characteristics in the development of traditions. Both theories show traditions can be
invented whether they are real or fictitious as long as they have the ability to evoke deep-rooted
connections in the people of a nation. This is overlap of theories changed my viewpoint on
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nations from Smiths synthesis of traditional and modern concept (ethnosymbolism) to solely
modern ideology.
These three examples of invented traditions show the range of circumstances which
determine their successes and failures. Each invented tradition, while different in nature,
occurred after 1870. In the case of British monarchy, royal ceremonies can be traced to the
Agrarian era where they were not publicly viewed; however, they were re-invented during the
Industrial Revolution, which together with the new mobile democratic society, incorporated
these invented traditions into modern nations. A mobile society requires its people to be
flexible which requires a nation be open to change. Therefore, flexibility is a defining attribute of
modern nations and that allows its people to invent or design traditions in accordance with an
ever changing society.
Endnotes
1Anthony D. Smith. The Nation in History, (Hanover: University Press, 2000), 57.
2Eric Hobsbawm, and Terence Ranger, The Invention of Tradition, (New York: Cambridge
University Press, 1984), 267.
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3Hobsbawm, 180
4 Yael Zerubavel, The historic, the legendary, and the incredible: invented tradition andcollective memory in Israel, (Princeton University Press, 1994), 108.5
Zerubavel, 110
6Hobsbawm, 116
7Ibid, 120
8Ibid, 133
9Smith, 64
10
Ibid, 55