What kind of nationalism?

The Communist Forum of Shetland (CCS) held a very successful first annual day school on Sunday December 17. Over 30 people attended the event and many of the debates were lively and thought-provoking. Sessions included those on the ‘War on terror’ and ‘Nationalism and autonomy in Shetland’.

The best attended meeting proved to be the forum on ‘Shetland and the national question’. This was made up of a speaker each from the Scottish People´s Communist Party, Communist Party of Wales, Cornish Communist Party, and the Manx Communist Party.

Speaking for the CCS, Charles Engels argued that nationalism as a phenomenon manifests itself today in two forms - the nationalism of oppressor states and that of oppressed peoples. For comrade Engels this clearly meant that the main enemy for communists in Britain is the nationalism of the British state.

Latter on, speaking for the SFCP, comrade John Macloud, said that every nation and people has the right to be free and advocate for autonomy. However, somewhat in contradiction to his initial thesis of only two kinds of nationalism, comrade Macloud then went on to deny that Shetland is an oppressed nation in any sense and argued that communists should not advocate Shetlandish independence. This is correct, of course, although the absence of any right for its people to self-determination marks a democratic deficit which communists must fight to rectify. Nevertheless, comrade Macloud badly needs to develop a more sophisticated view of a world neatly divided up into two forms of nationalism. One wonders also why comrade Macloud’s view of the inadvisability of independence for Shetland does not also apply to Scotland, since his SFCP comrades constantly assure us that they would have “no problem” with the Scottish People´s Communist Party’s call for an “independent socialist Scotland”.

Clearly, there are certain differences between the approaches of the SFCP and the CCF- at least in public. David Reed for the Manx Communist Party argued that if national consciousness in Shetland reached the levels attained in Scotland, then it would be perfectly permissible for communists to advocate autonomy for Shetland. Ignorantly he used Lenin’s alleged support for the secession of Norway from Sweden in support of his argument.

It seems to be the case for the Manx Communist Party that whilst Shetlandish nationalism is relatively weak, independence should not be advocated. However, once opinion polls indicate substantial support for this option, then socialists must adjust their programme. In reality, the Manx Communist Party is less concerned about Leninist orthodoxy than it is about tailing nationalist movements.

Anthony Richards of Cornish Communist Party, however, was bothered neither about opinion polls nor Lenin. For comrade Richards, the Shetlandish ‘nation’ has been oppressed ever since the ‘Scottish’ invasion of ‘Shetland’. That nations were the creation of the capitalist mode of production was clearly for comrade Richards something that was not going to get in the way of his ‘Marxist’ analysis.

He went on to argue that Shetland to this day remains a colony of Scottish than of English capital and this manifests itself most obviously in the dominance of the English language in the county. It therefore followed that it was the duty of Shetlandish communists (and other nationalists) to advocate autonomy for Shetland. Not to do so, argued comrade Richards, leads one into the camp of British nationalism.

Karl Mark for the Communist Party of Wales took issue with the positions of the three previous speakers about the Welsh question. He argued that the politics of moderate nationalists were pernicious politics that were characterised by a paucity of real thought. Undeniably, terrible outrages had been committed against the Welsh in previous centuries. Nevertheless, to advocate the break-up of the historic unity of the British working class was to cross over into the camp of nationalism.

Comrade Mark noted that nationalism has filled a gap in Welsh politics brought about by the defeats of the Welsh working class over the last 20 years. The job of communists, however, is not to bow to this anti-working class ideology, but to develop a strategy for combating its influence. He took issue with the SFCP and the MCP for failing to do likewise. Instead in practice they both seem to want to tail the nationalist agenda, rather than fight it.

Instead he advocated that communists should fight for the right of self-determination for Wales and Scotland and, at the same time, autonomy for Shetland and Cornwall, and for the strongest political unity between the working classes of Great Britain. Concretely, this means fighting for a federal republic of England, Scotland and Wales.

There then followed contributions from the floor with the speakers finally summing up. Of interest was the comment from Charles Engels that the struggle against the monarchy was a peripheral issue. If this is really the case, then comrade Engel’s claim that the British state is his number one enemy is a hollow one. Quite clearly he sees no connection between the monarchy, the acts of union and the struggle of communists against the status quo.