The Black Man's Burden
Posted: Sunday, July 4, 2004

By www.rootsie.com

We take the idea of sovereign nation states for granted. Nationalism is the religion of nationhood, and its 'uplifting' emotional rhetoric can lead us to assume that the 'sense of nation' is as integral a part of the human make-up as city-building and trade, and has been around forever and forever shall be… But consider: before World War I, there were only a handful of nations in Europe; after, there were over two dozen. The first 'nation' in Europe was England, and it likes to date its nationhood from the Glorious Revolution of 1686. France became a nation in 1789 with its own revolution, and the United States in 1791. The nation state is a very recent phenomenon, and a uniquely European construct. Its devlopment goes hand in hand with the rise of capitalism.The countries of Central and Eastern Europe were constituted a mere 40 or so years before the nations of Africa. And in case we didn't notice, Davidson reminds us that much of Europe, particularly the Balkans, is in many respects in as much of a mess as Africa. The difference lies in the magnitude of the pillage to which Africa was and still is subjected.

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