Counter-Currents
Petre Țuțea
268 words
Translator’s Note:
The following is drawn from Petre Țuțea, 322 de vorbe memorabile ale lui Petre Țuțea (Bucharest: Humanitas, 2009 [1993]), “Naționalism,” 79-80.
We have been accused, we on the Right, of exaggerating the power of the nation. All peoples do so. The Germans consider themselves to be the navel of the world, the English consider themselves to be the two navels of the world, the French consider themselves to be the three-and-a-half navels of the world. Everyone believes his own nation is the navel of the world.
Romanianism meant, for our generation, that we should be ourselves. To be on the Left means to be up a gum-tree. Every people wants to be itself. And we also wanted, we on the Right, to be Romanian.
I am Romanian and, as a Romanian, I consider myself to be at the navel of the world; that if I were not Romanian, I would not be anything. I cannot imagine myself as French, English, or German. I mean that I cannot extrapolate my spiritual substance to another nation. I am Romanian by vocation. Everything that I think becomes Romanian.
If there is a science of nationhood, I am Romanian by profession.
Nationalism can also be practiced with decency. No one can forbid a people from living its tradition and history, with its glories and defeats. Pârvan[1] says: ethnicity is the point of departure and the universal point of arrival. I, as a nationalist, have long thought that the nation is the end-point of world evolution. When the nations disappear, we enter the Tower of Babel.
Note
[1] Vasile Pârvan (1882-1927), a Romanian historian and archaeologist, known for his work on ancient Dacia.
1 comment
Heaven forbid, the world runs out of Germans. After all, if it did, those who make their money tormenting the German people about the Holocaust and all its evils, would then switch to giving the British, the English in particular, much grief about the Plight of the Irish– particularly those of Catholic faith in Northern Ireland. Indeed, (((such people))) would cry a river about the Plight of Irishmen, more than the Irish themselves.
Personally, and I know others might disagree, but I am scared of BREXIT. After all, once the United Kingdom leaves, I fear the UK shall itself disassemble into its components: England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland. Speaking of Northern Ireland, the Irish Nationalists shall then have their dream of a United Ireland. What will happen to the Ulster Protestants then?
For, do you not see the irony? And, indeed, it is ironic to the point of absurdity. Whatever one may think about the Anglo Saxon Invasion Theory, it is most interesting– is it not?– that exactly like how the Germans call themselves Europeans, hoping that the rest of the EU does the same; the English, quite similarly, refer to themselves as British, hoping the rest of the UK does the same. Do you not see the parallel? Do you not perceive the irony of it?
For exactly like the European Union is more a Bloc of Countries, rather than a single, monolithic National State, so too, the United Kingdom is more a Bloc of Countries, than a single, monolithic National State. Makes me sad to think of it. Still, this may be the beginning of a Post British Dark Age. Wait, it slowly began during the time when Great Britain had to let go of her glorious Overseas Colonial Empire.
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