It’s Nation Time: A Progressive Defence

Speaking at the Congress of African People in September 1970, Amiri Baraka said, ＂In Newark, when we greet each other on the streets, we say, ’what time is it?’ We always say, ’It’s nation time!’ Nationalism is about land and nation, a way of life trying to free itself.＂ National identity and nationhood are too often easily dismissed as retrograde populism or racist exclusion. Instead, they need to be understood as a key part of a vision of globalization that holds the imperatives of diversity and solidarity in a delicate balance. Jerry White offers a defence of the nation based on the assumption that struggles for national identity have often unfolded in ways that should be familiar to those who defend the political standpoint of the progressive left. Having evolved into something that a wide variety of actors have sought to defend, nations can also serve as a defence against the homogenizing forces of globalization and as havens of diversity in opposition to more singularly minded forms of affiliation. It’s Nation Time is structured as a series of specific case studies that speak to theories of nation and their historical and cultural manifestations. It includes examples as varied as Black nationalism, Simone Weil’s hopes for a postwar France, the first independence period of Georgia, the Bollywood cinema of Nehru-era India, and small or stateless nations such as New Zealand, Quebec, Ireland, Catalonia, the Métis, the Mohawk, and the Inuit to argue that nationalism is a social form that has much potential and life in it. Broadly internationalist but also deeply insightful about the particular cultures and politics of small nations, It’s Nation Time defends an idea of nation, and a form of nationalism that are rooted in the potential for diversity, flexibility, and progressive politics.

Jerry White is professor of English at the University of Saskatchewan.