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Despite general recognition that not all nationalisms end up in violence and that wars can be waged without nationalist hysteria there is a tendency to assume that nationalism and warfare are deeply linked. Moreover many social analysts believe that the most important research task is to explain the causal relationship between the two. Hence some gauge the impact of warfare on the development of nationalist sentiments while others are concerned with the question “What types of nationalism are most likely to cause war?” (Van Evera 1994: 5). In this chapter I argue that nationalism and warfare have a very complex and unpredictable relationship that can neither be adequately captured, nor properly understood, by focusing on the narrow causal connection between the two. Rather than causing one another or being a key effect of each other's actions, both nationalism and war emerge, develop, and expand as the outcome of many longue duree processes. Hence, in order to explain the relationship between wars and nationalisms it is crucial to analyze the long-term organizational and ideological transformations that have shaped the world in the last two hundred years. In this context I argue that (coercive/bureaucratic and ideologized) periods of peace matter much more for the growth, expansion, and popular reception of nationalism than times of war. Nationalisms often witnessed in war contexts usually have not brought about these wars, nor have they been forged on the battlefields. Instead, both wars and nationalisms are multifaceted processes that emerge, develop, and are sustained by the continuous organizational and ideological scaffoldings created and enhanced in times of prolonged peace. Since the Balkan Peninsula is often perceived as the epitome of a region teeming with nationalism and warfare I use this case to assess the strength of my general argument.

Franklin's vision of an expanding British North American empire required a colonial union. The lesson, Franklin learned from the example of the Six Nations Confederacy was about the importance of union to the establishment of the imperial control of North America. The most radical aspect of Franklin's vision was his conception of an emerging parity between England and the colonies. Washington's and Franklin's efforts to spur unity suggest that the move toward the creation of an American union is best understood as a 'grasstips' movement. Franklin and Washington's participation in the expansionist thrust reflected both the personal and the public interests each had in acquiring control of the Ohio Country. The revolutionary faction in the colonies wouldn't accept political subordination or limitations on its territorial and commercial expansionism. The bloody battles at Lexington and Concord in April 1775 marked the beginning of a de facto war of independence for the colonies.

WHY ARMED RESISTANCE? A boot repeatedly treading on a face is one of the more disturbing images of the violence at the heart of political power. Used by George Orwell in his novel 1984 to sum up the brutality of a totalitarian regime, it was linked in the story to an equally disturbing image of the violence and moral dilemmas involved in resistance to oppression. When asked about the lengths to which he would go to resist, Winston, the protagonist, admits that he would be willing to throw acid in the face of a child if it would help to break the power of the ruling party. In both cases, the force of the image is in part due to the fact that the victim has a face, is a recognizable person like us, but the perpetrators remain faceless. These are the common currency of governments and of resistance organizations in their portrayals of each other, made all the more plausible by the ferocious violence of which both have been capable. In the case of the state, the organization of violence has been associated with a physical presence, concentrated in a particular site, the administrative centre, the location of supreme authority and the source of command to the armed forces. It is this aspect of state power and the resistance it provokes that I shall be discussing in this chapter. In the Middle East, as in other parts of the world, these sites are recognizable as magnificent historical relics, such as the Cairo citadel looming over the old city, the all-seeing but unseen spaces of the Topkapi Palace with their views across and around Istanbul, or the towering citadel of Aleppo that dominates the landscape from the summit of its man-made hill at the city’s centre.

The beginning of war War in the technical sense War in the technical sense starts with a declaration of war. A declaration of war is a unilateral and formal announcement, issued by the constitutionally competent authority of a State, setting the exact point at which war begins with a designated enemy (or enemies). Notwithstanding its unilateral character, a declaration of war ‘brings about a state of war irrespective of the attitude of the state to which it is addressed’. According to Article 1 of Hague Convention (III) of 1907 Relative to the Commencement of Hostilities: The contracting Powers recognize that hostilities between themselves must not commence without previous and explicit warning, in the form either of a declaration of war, giving reasons, or of an ultimatum with a conditional declaration of war. Article 1 explicitly mentions that reasons for a declaration of war must be given. But the causes of wars cannot be seriously established on the basis of a self-serving unilateral declaration. The main value of a declaration of war is derived from the fact that it pinpoints the precise time when a state of war enters into force. An ultimatum may take one of two forms: (i) a threat that, if certain demands are not complied with, hostilities will be initiated; (ii) a warning that, unless specific conditions are fulfilled by a designated deadline, war will commence ipso facto . Article 1 requires an ultimatum of the second type, incorporating a conditional declaration of war.

Few if any states in the world have faced challenges to their legitimacy and existence like the State of Israel. Many new states in the Third World emerged out of a crucible of struggle and violence waged against an imperial power (though a majority did not), but this fledgling state was forced simultaneously into both a communal war and a war against other territorial states. Israel fought at least three different types of foes – the Palestinian Arab community that threatened communication lines between the key Jewish population centers (particularly in the early stages of the 1948 war), Arab irregular forces (of which the Muslim Brethren on the southern front were arguably the most effective), and the Arab states of Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Iraq, and Lebanon. The latter were by far the most formidable contestants (Ziv and Gelber 1999). Suffice it to say that the forces fielded by Israel’s major military foe, Egypt, penetrated within twenty miles of Tel-Aviv (the major Jewish population center) at the furthest point of their advance. At the other point of vulnerability, the Jordanian Arab Legion overwhelmed Israel’s newly established army in the Jewish Quarter in the old city of Jerusalem (ibid.). Rarer still did such a war of independence continue for over fifty years, as is the case between Syria and Lebanon and Israel (which are, at least in a formal sense, still at war). Syria, in fact, continues through its Hizbullah proxies to wage war against it until the very act of writing. Israel’s War of Independence ended with the signing of mere armistices rather than peace agreements with Egypt, Jordan, and Syria. All three states, despite the bitter disagreements among them, were members of the Arab League, which, as a sizeable and growing bloc, dedicated itself collectively to undoing the results of the 1948 war, the most important of which was the creation of the Jewish state.

This chapter examines two aspects of colonial violence that have come to occupy a significant place in political, media and intellectual debate on the Algerian War of Independence (1954–62) since the late 1990s in France. The first is torture practised by the French military against Algerians in this period. The second is the 17 October 1961 police repression of Algerian nationalist demonstrations in Paris, during which many dozens were killed. Although these events were both state crimes that the French authorities denied, and were committed during a colonial war the existence of which the French state refused to admit, this chapter will show the different afterlives of these two events. Such differences stem from the presence or absence of individuals and groups willing to speak out about such violence, and the political and wider social context in which such voices could or could not be publicly heard. Our analysis focuses on the main actors of this violence: both those who suffered violence – the victims – and the perpetrators. However, we do not use the terms ‘victim’ and ‘perpetrator’ unquestioningly. Our discussion charts the complex articulation between individual and social silence and/or forgetting shown by these groups over the decades since 1962, and the various strategies individuals and groups have adopted in order to deal with this past. Our aim is to explore the processes determining the forms and levels of silence regarding both torture and the brutal events of October 1961, and how and why such silences can be transcended, when, and by whom.

Turkey has the largest Kurdish population in the world. Estimates of the number of Kurds in Turkey in 2007 ranged from 8 million to 12 million. The Kurds of Turkey have made demands varying from full secession, to federalism, and, at a minimum, to the recognition of individual and cultural rights within the framework of the process of Turkey's entry into the European Union (EU). Undoubtedly, the most extreme symptom of Kurdish nationalism in contemporary history has been the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has led resistance and terrorist activities against the Turkish state as well as against moderate Kurds, which in turn has resulted in the Turkish armed forces' equally violent backlash against both PKK fighters and innocent Kurdish civilians. Turkish soldiers have battled the PKK in the south-east since 1984, a conflict that has caused an estimated 37,000 fatalities and hundreds of thousands of displaced people. One cannot understand Turkish history over the last quarter-century without taking into full account the role played by Kurdish nationalism in general, and that of the PKK in particular. In a way, both the domestic and foreign policies of Turkey have been held hostage to the Kurdish problem for the past twenty-five years. In addition to causing human suffering, the PKK-led rebellion has defined the meaning and role of politics, redefined the boundaries between state and society, and has inadvertently empowered certain state institutions at the expense of others. It has also slowed down the democratization process of Turkey.

Introduction Relations between Europe and Mexico have been dramatic ever since Hernan Cortez conquered the Aztec empire and established New Spain in the early sixteenth century. Along with many other Latin American countries, Mexico gained its independence from Spain in 1810 in a war of independence, after almost three centuries of Mexican gold and silver financing Spanish wars in Europe. Half a century later, Napoleon installed Maximilian von Hapsburg and his wife, Carlotta, as Emperor and Empress of Mexico in a dispute over debts owed to France. The Mexicans later shot Maximilian by firing squad in Queretero, while Carlotta went mad and died a ward of the Vatican (only to be resurrected decades later by Bette Davis in the black-and-white Hollywood movie, Juarez ). Trade liberalization and foreign investment were welcomed for three decades under Mexican dictator, Porfirio Diaz. That cycle of economic opening ended with the Mexican Revolution in 1910. The twentieth century witnessed the nationalization of the oil industry under President Lazaro Cardenas in 1938 and of the banking industry under President Jose Lopez Portillo in 1982, before swinging back to trade liberalization and a reopening to foreign investment under President Carlos Salinas de Gortari in the 1990s. On 1 July 2000, the new century marked the entry into force of the Mexico–European Union Free Trade Agreement (MEUFTA or Global Agreement), the most comprehensive trade agreement between Europe and Mexico since the Spanish conquistadores first established transatlantic trade relations almost half a millennium earlier.

The revolt of 1857–8, which swept across much of north India in opposition to British rule, has conventionally been taken as the dividing point that marks the beginning of modern India. Historical periodization is, however, always somewhat arbitrary. With greater distance from the colonial period, when the searing chaos of the uprising was understood either as ‘Mutiny’ to the colonial rulers or as the ‘First War of Independence’ to many nationalists, it is possible to focus on substantial, long-term transformations rather than on a single event. Such an emphasis, moreover, places India in the context of changes taking place in the larger world, not just in terms of events and personalities in India itself. Far from modernity ‘happening’ in Europe and then being transplanted to a country like India, many of these changes took place in relation to each other. Modern technological changes, among them canals, railways, and telegraph, were introduced into India within years of their introduction in Europe. Changes essential to the modern state, including the unification of sovereignty, the surveying and policing of the population, and institutions meant to create an educated citizenry were also, broadly speaking, introduced during the same period in India and in parts of Europe. Indeed, certain modern practices and institutions were either stimulated by the Indian experience or originated in India itself. Municipal cemeteries, as noted above, appeared in India before they did in England; the same is true of English literature as a curricular subject, and of state-sponsored scientific and surveying institutions. The colonial relationship with India was essential, moreover, as Gauri Vishwanathan recently argued, to one of the fundamental characteristics of modern states, namely the practice of state secularism. At the same time, new religious organizations in both India and Britain shared the common pattern of an unprecedented involvement of the laity. In both countries too, the spread of electoral politics was accompanied by debate over the place of religion in public life. Above all, the economic lives of both countries were profoundly, and increasingly, intertwined.

Introduction Prior to the nineteenth century, secession was probably the most typical mode for States to come into existence, especially when we bear the process of independence of the American colonies in mind. Unlike the case of the Portuguese colony in South America, independence of the Spanish colonies constituted a very complex and unique process. The territory colonised by Spain was considerably vast, with different regions, each with its own characteristics. Consequently, the administrative divisions created by the Spanish Crown enjoyed ample autonomy. Thus, in the case of these colonial territories, the ‘secession’ or ‘emancipation’ from the metropolitan State did not always take place in a uniform manner, as opposed to the ‘no particular case of dismemberment or secession’ in the case of the South American Portuguese colony. This chapter outlines a general picture of the colonisation, independence and dismemberment of the Spanish colonies in the Americas during the process of independence experienced by the Latin American States. The Spanish colonies in the Americas declared their independence progressively. In some cases, it took a long time before Spain formally recognised them, in spite of the fact that they had established enduring control over their territory. They were first recognised by third States such as Portugal and the United States who led the way, followed by Great Britain. The delay on the part of the metropolitan State in recognising new States in cases of secession through a war of independence made some sense, as the secession could constitute a long drawn-out process and one whose results might be reversed.