In teaching about South Africa when I was working at the college level, I had the very short statement from a German philosopher (whose name I forgot -- I'd mangle it if I tried to do it from aural memory) "A nation is that which wishes to be a nation!" --- In other words, following Dr. Weizfeld, national groups can SELF-DEFINE --
I also developed a longer one in a lecture entitled The FOrging of a Black South African Nation --- in which I argued that the various ethnic groups that lived in South Africa may have originally not constituted a nation --- but many common experiences --- gaining a "lingua franca" (either speaking English or Afrikaans), gaining a common religiom (Christianity), having the common experience (of oppression first by the colonialists, and then by the dispossession from land, and finally by the Apartheid system) and becoming part of a South African working class --- via the migratory labor system and the lives in the Townships --- created such a "nation." I have no idea whether my (admittedly crude) ideas had much validity --- *(I did discuss them with a South African sociologist about that issue) --- but the discussion of whether Jews constitute a "nation" or an "ethnicity" jogged my memory. I am a non-observant, non-Yiddish-speaking Jewish American --- I was Bar Mitzvahed and I still remember some of my Hebrew prayers (though I never learned what most of them meant in English) --- So what makes me Jewish? First and foremost, I call myself Jewish --- But in the end, I think what makes me (and many other non-observant Jews) Jewish is anti-semitism. Until the last anti-semite is dead, I will always be Jewish to myself, my family and friends and the world. Unfortunately, that doesn't answer the question of whether there is a "Jewish national group" anywhere in the world. AS FOR ISRAELI JEWS --- I would venture to guess without knowing for sure, that ISraeli Jews and Israeli Arabs have enough common history to constitute a "nation" --- just as all the various ethnicities that make up the United States are members of a "nation" --- It ain't as clear as when Napoleon called himself the "Emperor of the French" (not of France notice) but I think those multi-ethnic entities often share enough in common to be a nation. BUT IT'S MESSY --- and I would definitely hesitate to call is "False consciousness" --- On Tue, Aug 27, 2024 at 7:12 PM abraham Weizfeld PhD via groups.io <[email protected]> wrote: > In Reply; > > > > ‘’ false consciousness’’ is the refuge of the Nation-State paradigm > initiated by Hegel and the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648 creating the German > Nation-State, which did not include the jewish and Romani nationalities the > Siti, for reasons of our Oriental origins. > > > > For a Marxist to extoll the definition of the Nation-Sate, or a > territorial designated culture, is to discredit Marxism itself. > > > > > -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#31868): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/31868 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/107980589/21656 -=-=- POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. #4 Do not exceed five posts a day. -=-=- Group Owner: [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/8674936/21656/1316126222/xyzzy [[email protected]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
