The World in Chains: Some Aspects of War and TradeMavrogordato, John
Philosophy
The World in Chains: Some Aspects of War and Trade
Mavrogordato, John
Profiteering; War -- Economic aspects
the _Corriere della Sera_, until it finally reappeared in the _Matin_ in
the following form: "According to the information of the _Corriere della
Sera_ from London and Cologne it is confirmed that the barbaric
conquerors of Antwerp punished the unfortunate Belgian priests for their
heroic refusal to ring the church bells by hanging them as living
clappers to the bells with their heads downwards."[77]
The Manufacture of Hatred is unfortunately become a part of the
Nationalist Movement in nearly all modern European States. The spurious
Nationalism which is the result not of race but of education, depends
for its existence almost entirely on so-called ethnological propaganda
and continues to thrive by the cultivation of two propositions, neither
of which is true: that all the members of one national group are
racially different from all the members of the neighbouring group; and
that this racial difference naturally and necessarily and properly
implies the mutual hatred of the two nations. They proclaim, in fact,
that certain nations are the "natural enemies " of certain others, by
hating which they are only fulfilling the national function of
self-realisation. By such arguments, which have no genuine ethnological
foundation, the false prophets of nationalism are filling Europe with
the racial prejudice of artificial Kelts, artificial Poles, and
artificial Teutons. Of course race hatred between Slav and Teuton is no
more "natural" than family hatred between Jones and Robinson; and even
if it were, even that is if the cultures of two neighbouring races were
mutually exclusive, it could still be argued--as it must in any case be
argued--that no nation is racially pure. The last "Pole" I met proudly
professed that the hatred of Russia was _in his blood_. Yet he was born
in Bessarabia, and it was therefore not surprising that his facial type
was distinctly Roumanian; he came, that is, if race means anything at
all, of a Graeco-Latin stock, and his hatred of Russia, which seemed to
be the beginning and the end of his programme of "Polish nationalism,"
was the result of a few years of neglected education. Half the
conflicting "Nationalisms" of Europe are programmes of artificial
hatred, the propagandists of which may actually be of the same blood as
their opponents; a single generation suffices for the manufacture of the
racial enthusiast, which is often completed by a modification of the
family name. Even Greeks and Bulgars are frequently of common descent.
When a Macedonian village changes hands the Greek Karagiozes has been
known to develop into the Bulgarian Karagiozoff; and a Mazarakis will
boast a racial incompatibility with his second cousin Madjarieff. The
same process for the manufacture of nationalism may be detected at the
other end of Europe: at Mons of glorious memory there was a Walloon with
the good old Walloon name of Le Grand, whose grandfather had been an
equally enthusiastic Fleming with the good old Flemish name of De
Groodt.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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