{"id":3141,"date":"2013-07-13T01:46:16","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:46:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=3141"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:46:16","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:46:16","slug":"09-the-creation-of-the-heterogeneous-nation-vol-the-ideal-of-human-unity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/02-other-editions\/the-ideal-of-human-unity\/09-the-creation-of-the-heterogeneous-nation-vol-the-ideal-of-human-unity","title":{"rendered":"-09_The Creation of The Heterogeneous Nation.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\n\n
\n

\nCHAPTER VII<\/b> <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\nTHE CREATION OF THE
\nHETEROGENEOUS NATION<\/b><\/font> <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nT<\/font>HE
\n<\/font>problem of a federal empire founded on the sole
\nfoundation that is firm and secure, the creation of a true psychological unity,\u2014an empire that has to combine heterogeneous elements,\u2014resolves itself into two different factors, the question of
\nthe form and the question of the reality which the form is intended to serve. The former is of great practical importance, but
\nthe latter alone is vital. A form of unity may render possible,
\nmay favour or even help actively to create the corresponding
\nreality, but it can never replace it. And, as we have seen, the true
\nreality is in this order of Nature the psychological, since the mere
\nphysical fact of political and administrative union may be nothing more than a temporary and artificial creation destined to
\ncollapse irretrievably as soon as its immediate usefulness is over,
\nor the circumstances that favoured its continuance are radically
\nor even seriously altered. The first question, then, that we have
\nto consider is what this reality may be that it is intended to create
\nin the form of a federal empire, and especially we must consider
\nwhether it is to be merely an enlargement of the nation-type, the largest successful human aggregate yet evolved by Nature, or a
\nnew type of aggregate which is to exceed and must tend to supersede the nation, as that has replaced the tribe, the clan and the
\ncity or regional state. <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nThe first natural idea of the human mind in facing such a
\nProblem is to favour the idea which most flatters and seems to continue its familiar notions. For the human mind is, in the
\n<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-63<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nmass, averse to a radical change of conception. It accepts change
\nmost easily when its reality is veiled by the continuation or g¦
\nhabitual form of things or else by a ceremonial, legal, intellectual or
\nsentimental fiction. It is such a fiction that some think to
\ncreate as a bridge from the nation-idea to the empire-idea of
\npolitical unity. That which unites men most securely now is the
\nphysical unity of a common country to live in and defend, a
\ncommon economic life dependent on that geographical oneness
\nand the sentiment of the motherland which grows up around
\nthe physical and economic fact and either creates a political and
\nadministrative unity or keeps it to a secure permanence, once
\nit has been created. Let us then extend this powerful sentiment
\nby a fiction, let us demand of the heterogeneous constituents of
\nthe empire that each shall regard not his own physical motherland but the empire as the mother or at least, if he clings to the
\nold sentiment, learn to regard the empire first and foremost as
\nthe greater mother. A variation of this idea is the French notion
\nof the mother country, France; all the other possessions of the
\nempire, although in English phraseology they would rather be
\nclassed as dependencies in spite of the large share of political
\nrights conceded to them, are to be regarded as colonies of the
\nmother country, grouped together in idea as France beyond the
\nseas and educated to centre their national sentiments around the
\ngreatness, glory and loveableness of France the common mother.
\nIt is a notion natural to the Celtic-Latin temperament, though
\nalien to the Teutonic, and it is supported by a comparative
\nweakness of race and colour prejudice and by that remarkable
\npower of attraction and assimilation which the French share with all the Celtic nations. <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nThe power, the often miraculous power of such fictions ought not for a moment to be ignored. They constitute Nature s
\nmost common and effective method when she has to deal with
\nher own ingrained resistance to change in her mentalised animal,
\nman. Still there are conditions without which a fiction cannot
\nsucceed for long or altogether. It must in the first place be based <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-64<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\non a plausible superficial resemblance. It must lead to a realisable  fact strong enough either to replace the fiction itself or eventually
\nto justify it And, this realisable fact must progressively realise itself and not remain too long in the stage of the formless
\nnebula. There was a time when these conditions were less insistently necessary, a time when the mass of men were more
\nimaginative, unsophisticated, satisfied with a sentiment or an
\nappearance; but as the race advances, it becomes more mentally
\nalive, self-conscious, critical and quick to seize dissonances between fact and pretension. Moreover, the thinker is abroad; his
\nwords are listened to and understood to an extent unprecedented in the known history of mankind; and the thinker tends
\nto become more and more an inquisitor, a critic, an enemy of
\nfictions.* <\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nIs then this fiction based upon a realisable parallel,\u2014in
\nother words, is it true that the true imperial unity when realised
\nwill be only enlarged national unity? or, if not, what is the
\nrealisable fact which this fiction is intended to prepare? There
\nhave been plenty of instances in history of the composite nation
\nand, if the parallel is to be accepted as effective, it is such a composite nation on a large scale which it is the business of the federal empire to create. We must, therefore, cast a glance at the
\nmost typical instances of the successful composite nation and
\nsee how far the parallel applies and whether there are difficulties in the way which point rather to the necessity of a new
\nevolution than to the variation of an old success. To have a just idea of the difficulties may help us to see how they can be overcome. <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nThe instance most before our eyes both of the successfully
\nSolved composite or heterogeneous nation and of the fortunately evolving heterogeneous empire is that of the British
\nnation in the past and the British empire in the present,\u2014successfully,<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n *These conditions too may very well soon disappear; for freedom of
\nthought is menaced everywhere and, where there is no freedom of thought,
\nthere will be the disappearance of the power of the thinker. <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-65<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nbut, fortunately, with a qualification; for it is subject to the perils of a mass of problems yet unsolved.* The
\nBritish nation has been composed of an English-speaking Anglo-Norman England, a Welsh-speaking Cymric Wales, a half-Saxon, half-Gaelic English-speaking Scotland and very imperfectly, very partially, of a Gaelic Ireland with a mainly Anglo-Scotch colony that held it indeed by force to the united body but
\nwas unable to compel a true union. Ireland was, until recently,
\nthe element of failure in this formation and it is only now and
\nunder another form and under other circumstances than its
\nother members that some kind of unity with the whole, still
\nvery precarious and with the empire, not with the British nation,
\nis becoming possible, although even yet it has hardly begun to be
\nreal.\u2020 What were the determining circumstances of this general
\nsuccess and this partial failure and what light do they shed on the possibilities of the larger problem? <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nIn building up her human aggregates, Nature has followed
\nin general principle the same law that she observes in her physical aggregates. She has provided first a natural body, next a
\ncommon life and vital interest for the constituents of the body,
\nlast a conscious mind or sense of unity and a centre or governing
\norgan through which that common ego-sense can realise itself
\nand act. There must be in her ordinary process either a common
\nbond of descent or past association that will enable like to adhere to like and distinguish itself from unlike and a common
\nhabitation, a country, so disposed that all who inhabit within
\nits natural boundaries are under a sort of geographical necessity
\nto unite. In earlier times when communities were less firmly
\nrooted to the soil, the first of these conditions was the more important. In settled modem communities the second
\npredominates; but the unity of the race, pure or mixed\u2014for it need not <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\n* It must be remembered that this was written some decades ago and
\ncircumstances and the empire itself have wholly changed; the problem, as it was then, no longer poses itself. <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\u2020 This was written when Home Rule seemed to be a possible solution; the
\nfailure has now become a settled fact and Ireland has become the independent 
\nRepublic of Ireland. <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-66<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nhave been one in its origin,\u2014remains a factor of importance and
\nstrong disparity and difference may easily create serious difficulties in the way of the geographical necessity imposing itself with
\nany permanence. In order that it may impose itself, there must
\nbe a considerable force of the second natural condition, that is
\nto say, a necessity of economic unity or habit of common sustenance and a necessity of political unity or habit of common
\nvital organisation for survival, functioning and aggrandisement.
\nAnd in order that this second condition may fulfil itself in complete force, there must be nothing to depress or destroy the third
\nin its creation or its continuance. Nothing must be done which
\nwill have the result of emphasising disunity in sentiment or
\nperpetuating the feeling of separateness from the totality of the
\nrest of the organism; for, that will tend to make the centre or
\ngoverning organ psychologically unrepresentative of the whole
\nand therefore not a true centre of its ego-sense. But we must remember that separatism is not the same thing as particularism
\nwhich may well coexist with unity; it is the sentiment of the impossibility of true union that separates, not the mere fact of difference. <\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nThe geographical necessity of union was obviously present
\nin the forming of the British nation; the conquest of Wales and
\nIreland and the union with Scotland were historical events
\nwhich merely represented the working of this necessity; but the
\nunity of race and past association were wholly absent and had
\nwith greater or less difficulty to be created. It was effected successfully with Wales and Scotland in a greater or less lapse of
\ntime, not at all with Ireland. Geographical necessity is only a
\nrelative force; it can be overridden by a powerful sentiment of
\ndisunion when nothing is done effectively to dissolve the disintegrating impulsion. Even when the union has been politically effected, it tends to be destroyed, especially when there is
\nWithin the geographical unity a physical barrier or line of division sufficiently strong to be the base of conflicting economic interests,\u2014as in that which divides Belgium and Holland, Sweden
\nand Norway, Ireland and Great Britain. <\/b> In the case of Ireland, <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-67<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nthe British rulers not only did nothing to bridge over or dissolve
\nthis line of economic division and counteract the sentiment of
\na separate body, a separate physical country in the Irish mind,
\nbut by a violent miscalculation of cause and effect they emphasised both in the strongest possible manner. <\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nIn the first place, the economic life and prosperity of Ireland were deliberately crushed in the interests of British trade
\nand commerce. After that it was of little use to bring about by
\nmeans which one shrinks from scrutinising the political "union"
\nof the two islands in a common legislature, a common governing
\norgan; for that governing organ was not a centre of psychological
\nunity. Where the most vital interests were not only different, but
\nin conflict, it could only represent the continued control and
\nassertion of the interests of the "predominant partner" and the
\ncontinued subjection and denial of the interests of the foreign
\nbody bound by legislative fetters to the larger mass but not united
\nthrough a real fusion. The famine which depopulated Ireland
\nwhile England throve and prospered was Nature’s terrible testimony to the sinister character of this "union" which was not
\nunity but the sharpest opposition of the most essential interests.
\nThe Irish movements of Home Rule and separatism were the
\nnatural and inevitable expression of Ireland’s will to survive; they amounted to nothing more than the instinct of self-preservation divining and insisting on the one obvious means of self-preservation. <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nIn human life economic interests are those which are, ordinarily, violated with the least impunity; for they are bound
\nup with the life itself and the persistent violation of them, if it
\ndoes not destroy the oppressed organism, provokes necessarily
\nthe bitterest revolt and ends in one of Nature’s inexorable retaliations. But in the third order of the natural conditions also
\nBritish statesmanship in Ireland committed an equally radical
\nmistake in its attempt to get rid by violence of all elements of
\nIrish particularism. Wales like Ireland was acquired by conquest,
\nbut no such elaborate attempt was made to assimilate it; after
\nthe first unease that follows a process of violence, after one or <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-68<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\ntwo abortive attempts at resistance, Wales was left to undergo
\nthe peaceful pressure of natural conditions and its preservation
\nof its own race and language has been no obstacle to the gradual
\nunion of the Cymric race and the Saxon in a common British
\nnationality. A similar non-interference, apart from the minor
\nproblem of the Highland clans, has resulted in a still more rapid
\nfusion of the Scotch race with the English. There is now in the
\nisland of Great Britain a composite British race with a common
\ncountry bound together by the community of mingled blood, by
\na settled past association in oneness, by geographical necessity,
\nby a common political and economic interest, by the realisation
\nof a common ego. The opposite process in Ireland, the attempt
\nto substitute an artificial process where the working of natural
\nconditions with a little help of management and conciliation
\nwould have sufficed, the application of old-world methods to a
\nnew set of circumstances has resulted in the opposite effect.
\nAnd when the error was discovered, the result of the past Karma
\nhad to be recognised and the union has had to be effected through
\nthe method demanded by Irish interests and Irish particularist
\nsentiments, first by the offer of Home Rule and then by the
\ncreation of the Free State and not under a complete legislative
\nunion. <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nThis result may well reach beyond itself; it may create the
\nnecessity of an eventual remodelling of the British Empire and
\nperhaps of the whole Anglo-Celtic nation on new lines with
\nthe principle of federation at the base. For Wales and Scotland
\nhave not been fused into England with the same completeness
\nas Breton, Alsatian, Basque and Provencal were fused into the
\nindivisible unity of France. Although no economic interest, no
\npressing physical necessity demands the application of the federative principle to Wales and Scotland, yet a sufficient though
\nminor particularist sentiment remains that may yet feel here after the repercussion of the Irish settlement and awake to the
\nsatisfaction and convenience of a singular recognition for the
\nprovincial separateness of these two countries. And this sentiment is bound to receive fresh strength and encouragement by <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-69<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nthe practical working out of the federative principle in the now
\nreorganisation, which one day may become inevitable, of the
\ncolonial empire hitherto governed by Great Britain on the
\nbasis of Home Rule without federation.* The peculiar circumstances both of the national and the colonial formation and expansion of the races inhabiting the British Isles have indeed been
\nsuch as to make it almost appear that this empire has throughout
\nbeen intended and prepared by Nature in her workings to be
\nthe great field of experiment for the creation of this new type in
\nthe history of human aggregates, the heterogeneous federal empire. <\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\n* Home Rule now replaced by Dominion Status which means a confederation in fact though not yet in form. <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-70<\/font><\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

CHAPTER VII   THE CREATION OF THE HETEROGENEOUS NATION   THE problem of a federal empire founded on the sole foundation that is firm and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3141","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-ideal-of-human-unity","wpcat-63-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3141","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3141"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3141\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3141"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3141"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3141"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}