Almost all other nations justify their existence by a firm self-ascription. The distinction between 'our own' people and 'strangers' appears quite natural to them, even if it is questionable historically. Whoever wishes to hold on to the distinction would need to maintain, according to his own logic, that he has always been there – a thesis which can all too easily be disproved. To that extent, a proper national history assumes the ability to forget everything that doesn't fit.
However, it is not only one's own motley origin that is denied. Movements of migration on a large scale always lead to struggles over the distribution of resources. National feeling prefers to reinterpret these inevitable conflicts as though the dispute had more to do with imaginary than with material resources. The struggle is then over the difference between self- and external ascriptions, a field that offers demagogy ideal possibilities fro development.
Hans
Magnus Enzensberger, Civil Wars: From L.A. To Bosnia, NY: New
Press, 1994 p. 108.
