flexibility-a modern nation by design

7/30/2019 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

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