To Break a Nation

It is widely understood in the social sciences that a nation is essentially a community united via social interactions and symbols that relies on the imagination of its people. 

A simple response to the demand of this article’s title then is that - through the same widely-understood sense - destroying or breaking apart a nation requires the destruction of the social interactions, symbols, and the very imagination of its people. 

However, in this article, we shall not ponder on the obvious but rather ask the more interesting question: 

1. How does one go about destroying the social interactions, symbols, and the imagination of a nation’s people? 

2. More importantly, how can one even begin - and formulate a workable framework - for the realization of such a goal? 

Let us begin by examining the first question, specifically in terms of how social interactions, symbols, and imagination of a nation’s people are cultivated in the first place.

Narratives > People

Ten people standing in the middle of a forest is not a community nor is it a nation, but ten people with a shared story, common struggles against outsiders, and long-standing experience with the forest as their place of birth and death might just be.

For Benedict Anderson, three features define the modern imagination for a nation: (1) the nation as limited with delineation from other existing nations, (2) the nation as sovereign, free and departing from the pre-modern concept of a divinely-ordained hierarchy, and (3) the nation as a community which promotes a deep sense of fraternal bond regardless of the nation’s inter-class dynamic.

This means that to destroy the imagined nation, one would need to either blur the delineation it requires with other nations, take away its modern freedoms and liberties as a sovereign, or somehow get rid of the cultivated fraternity to the point that inter-class dynamic becomes more narratively important than the story of the nation itself.

Already, those are three distinct yet interconnected routes to breaking a nation apart. Fundamentally, the success one would have in breaking a nation would rely on the strength of their counter-narrative against the predominant national narrative. However, the first two options require one to possess a level of influence that nearly-overshadows that of the nation which - for most people in the world - would be unthinkable, even on a purely-narrative level. 

It is therefore the third option that becomes the most workable and primary method for the pursuit of this article: to break the nation via narrative disintegration, specifically through sectarian violence. 

Thus, this answers the first question of our inquiry. What about the second?

On that note, cleavage is the main concept that we ought to understand.

Cleavages

Rich versus poor.

Indigenous versus settlers.

Urban residents versus rural residents.

First-generation migrants versus permanent citizens.

Central government versus provincial governments.

Persija versus Persib.

IISMA recipients versus non-IISMA recipients.

Et cetera.

There are numerous precedents of inter-sect violence, but all of them - no matter what it is - relies on one fundamental attribute, that is, the presence of cleavages.

Many schools of thought exist on how we ought to conceptualize a cleavage. However, the term can be generally understood as the social differences between people on which political divisions are further mapped upon. 

Being a really rich person may not necessarily go beyond jealousy, but the Marxists would say that having an obscenely disproportionate amount of wealth compared to the rest of a nation’s population suggests a monopoly over the means of production, thus leading to further exploitative divisions, including political divisions, eventually warranting the class cleavage and conflict between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat.

Similarly, being a settler does not directly suggest that one is diametrically opposed to the presence of an indigenous population, but the Post-Colonialists would certainly be more than happy to attribute the displacement of the indigenous people to such an opposition, firmly rooted in the social and cultural cleavage between the imperialist settlers and the systematically oppressed indigenous. The argument is that a settler-indigenous cleavage would eventually become political, leading to further sectarian violence between the two identities.

If it wasn’t intuitive already, a cleavage is not just a division between peoples. It is a line that is determined through complex socio-cultural interactions between identities. The same line that tribalizes people into groups with differing, often contesting, political interests that amounts to conflict. 

Yet, just merely having cleavages is not enough for one’s plan to break a nation. 

It is an essential component in the third route, yes, there is no doubt, but it is insufficient on its own.

This is where the concept of sectarianization - a relatively recent addition to the scholarship around regional sectarian conflicts - becomes imperative to understand. 

Under the sectarianization thesis, cleavages become relevant when analyzed through its role in precipitating and amplifying sectarian conflicts. Specifically, it is these same cleavages that provide the best opportunities for authoritarian leaders in a nation, often those with already fragile and weakened institutions, to exploit for the purpose of mobilizing popular support. 

In these cases, the key lies in the manipulation of narratives.

“Mechanics” of Sectarianization

The journey to total national disintegration must meet along the way the total destruction of narrative cohesion between the various identities and groups in a nation. Under the conceptual framework of sectarianization, these identities and groups can be collectively dubbed as sects as in the grouping of people based on religious, political, or other philosophical ideas having separated from a main body of some sorts.

For Nader Hashemi and Danny Postel, sectarianization is “a process shaped by political actors operating within specific contexts, pursuing political goals that involve popular mobilization around particular (religious) identity markers.” This definition is not too surprising given the context of their work, Sectarianization: Mapping the New Politics of the Middle East, was concentrated on providing a counter-explanation to the conventional, ill-defined, and lazy explanations by often Western politicians with respect to term sectarianism. This, however, does not mean that sectarianization is limited to religious sects, rather it is far from it as we shall see further on.

To start, the actual mechanics of sectarianization has not been extensively studied across all regions with much of the literature concentrated on specific study cases such as the Middle East. However, just by going off of Hashemi and Postel’s work, we can infer a theoretical model with some explanatory power towards a lot of cases of both sectarian conflicts and what we are heavily invested in via this article, national disintegration.

There are essentially three milestones that we want to reach in the realization of national disintegration (See: Diagram 1), that is:

1. turning a functional state into a weak state;

2. conducting narrative manipulation via participatory discourses; and

3. escalating sectarian conflicts through the manipulation of sect identification factors in a society. 

Diagram 1. Mechanics of Sectarianization to National Disintegration

Let us start with the first.

To Weaken a State

Hashemi and Postel were not the go-to theorists to discuss both weak states nor were they allusory in their discussion to weaken a state. Rather, they refer to Joel Midgal’s conceptualization of weak states in comparison to strong states.

Midgal states that weak states are those who inevitably confront limited capabilities in four specific dimensions. First, their capacity to penetrate society. Second, their ability to regulate social relationships. Third, their ability to extract resources within their territories. Fourth and last, their capacity to appropriate resources in an effective manner.

To weaken a state, therefore, requires us to tackle these four dimensions in a manner that would proportionately lower a state’s strength in all four dimensions. This would debilitate their ability to effectuate state policies in a conventional top-down manner, thus encouraging decentralization and promoting a political norm in which local leaders would be more capable of taking control of their localities without the intervention of an actually functional, centralized government. Ideally, however, this decentralization should happen disproportionately by taking into account the cleavage that we would be trying to widen in its gap. 

An interplay of all these factors in a focused and sustained effort over a long period of time would result in a weakened state.

Perhaps out of many cases which are currently ongoing in the world to illustrate the targeting of all four dimensions, one pronounces itself in a way that eerily mimics this process in almost a linear fashion, that is: the Yemeni Civil War in 1990-1994.

After the 1990 unification, a nominal central government was created with progress being made on a constitution that would be collectively agreed-upon between the North and South. However, despite this attempt at unification between the two, the North and South clearly had differing visions and perceptions of what the other wanted. 

In a June 1990 interview, Prime Minister Haydar Abu Bakr al-‘Attas - representing the South - stated that the two parties had gained insight from Yemen’s recent history, as well as regional and global events. However, for the North, al-‘Attas seems to have been more skeptical than optimistic about their collaboration. For them, al-’Attas were more concerned with the state of the North as underdeveloped, tribalistic, and rife with sectarian divisions. 

On the other hand, the North viewed the South as inherently interested in separatism rather than the unification agenda. This is because the South often called for policies which would lead to administrative decentralization in the newly-formed unified government. Attempted assassinations led by the North were often alleged by the South, but were dismissed under the presumption of separatism and exaggeration.

This mutual suspicion meant that the ruling coalition’s instability allowed tribal and regional factions to fill the power vacuum, further undermining the central authority of the newly-formed North-South government as per the conceptual framework discussed in this section.

Furthermore, state capabilities are influenced by variations in social control, particularly how the state interacts with societal groups and manages resource allocation. Such control reasonably correlates with the degree of authority a state exerts over urban and rural territories reflects its institutional strength. In weak states, both state and societal actors prioritize strategies of survival - pragmatic actions that essentially encapsulates what Thomas Hobbes would call as the state of nature. These actions contribute to ensuring survival for these actors which hinges on maintaining power through rival-thwarting behaviors, often exploiting social and political cleavages via divide et impera tactics. 

This is exactly what we want in the short-term to create weak states that would devolve as leaders pursue their survival to the point where they would be de facto allowed by the state to mobilize popular support based on cleavage-based identities.

To Manipulate Narratives

All right, so we managed to somehow - in the short-term - turn a nation’s national institutions into mush, making them barely function, perhaps get rid of trias politica altogether if possible and simply cause power imbalances all around the legislative, executive, and judiciary branches. In short, we reached the first milestone. 

So, what now?

The road to reach the second milestone - insofar the conceptual framework of Hashemi and Postel goes - is relatively simpler than prior. Whereas before, one would be learning about “complicated” political institutions, finding out tribal and local factions to pit against each other, and empower authoritarian leaders, we would now only be concerned with one action only:

Lying!

Polarizing!

Manipulating!

Or to word this more seriously and more accurately, this is when narrative manipulation becomes key before we could ever move on to the last milestone. We don’t necessarily have to lie, but typically, lying helps.

In case we are a bit lost in the nomenclature, a narrative goes beyond mere stories such as the one we see in movies and novels. Working with Hashemi and Postel’s sectarianization framework, Adam Gaiser adapted Margaret Somers’ concept of small-scale and large-scale narratives. A narrative consists of three aspects: 

1. Plot(s): set of events connected in a logical, although not necessarily linear, sequence;

2. Character(s): Actors such as people and entities which plays some kind of role within the plot, including the narrative place of the self in relation to those actors; and

3. Theme(s): Underlying message, typically carrying some kind of normative baggage that provides meaning and significance to the overall narrative, can take many forms such as a great struggle and salvation.

Gaiser stated that these aspects can be manipulated to affect sectarian identifications by exploiting particular intra-sect differences. These differences can be pronounced, downplayed, and modified in specific socio-political contexts. Often, authoritarian leaders intentionally craft identities by embedding themselves in the past, present, and future of a particular sect, thus currying favors and support without necessarily or explicitly asking people for support. 

In this case, large-scale narratives such as the founding myths of a nation may be intentionally appealed to within smaller-scale narratives that are easier to manipulate through dubious testimonies and redirecting the grievance of a group towards a supposed common enemy, essentially mobilizing the popular support that authoritarian leaders need to dislodge democratic norms and paving way for their regimes.

Similarly, both state agencies and local leaders not part of a state can be instrumentalized as part of the overall effort for narrative manipulation, although the effectiveness of their manipulation - whatever the form - may rely on the context of a given region as waves of certain narratives may be more predominant than others.

We can point to a most classical example in modern history. 

In this case, let us give it to the case of one of the original modern Fascists in the world: Adolf Hitler prior to his rise to power as Fuhrer.

Hitler undoubtedly had a near-savant ability at narrative manipulation. Furthermore. his cronies promulgated various propaganda techniques that even until now are constantly used and studied, capable of manipulating narratives at a dramatically intensified level, augmenting Hitler’s regime with a level of narrative strength that made Hitler arguably a “communication genius” as Bill Gindlesperger would write similarly in 2018. 

It should be noted, however, that narrative manipulation is not purely about communication as much as it is about communicating an imagination that is relatable on a narrative level.

Hitler famously wrote Mein Kampf which is often misunderstood as having been the source of Nazi ideologies. In actuality, Hitler was preaching to the choir by popularizing, not revolutionizing, the anti-semitic sentiments of his era. Albrecht Koschorke was on the nose when he wrote that the book provided an amazing scapegoat to channel the anger, disappointment, and racial hatred of the nation.

In essence, the plot was that of a historic racial struggle with specific sub-plots taking place during Hitler’s time in the inter-war period. The character was of himself, the people of Germany, the Weimar government and the Jews as the enemy to be defeated. The theme, aptly stated by Robert Carr in 2007, was that of the “anti-Versailles, anti-Weimar, anti-Communist and anti-Semitic” variety.

What both Koschorke and Carr did not note explicitly, however, was the fact that Mein Kampf was an artifact of a small-scale narrative that of Nazism, joined by a larger wave of other nationally-recognized narratives, which would eventually supersede such grand narratives becoming a large-scale narrative on its own through the rise to power of both Hitler and his Nazi agenda. 

By dynamically manipulating pre-existing large-scale and small-scale narratives through the modification and embedding of oneself into the plots, characters, and themes of a narrative, authoritarian actors essentially seek to erase competing frameworks of meaning. In this sense, our task at reaching the second milestone would end the moment such alternate frameworks are politicized in a grand narrative - a consequence of our manipulation - which polarizes people sufficiently to the point of autonomously seeking out our narratives. This would enable them to self-impose role identifications - how they see themselves in the manipulated narratives - and aiding in the solidification process of sects.

When such a milestone has been reached, we have reached the figurative breaking point of a nation, for it means that the narrative power of the nation has been subsumed by our own.

To Break a Nation

Assuming no outside interference affects our journey so far to national disintegration, sect identification from narrative manipulation in weak states should be understood as necessarily leading to sectarian conflicts. 

We can observe the case of the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) to understand why this is the case, specifically shortly prior to the execution of the Oslo Peace Process - one of the most significant moments in the Middle East Peace Process, especially for both Israel and Palestine.

As one of the primary founders and leaders of the Palestinian Liberation Organization, Yasser Arafat had been de facto exiled in Tunis since he had lost the first phase of the 1982 Second Israeli Invasion of Lebanon against the Israel Defense Forces. Thus, his return in 1994 - when Arafat returned to the Gaza Strip, cementing his political status as a central figure of the PLO - was met with jubilation from many Palestinians. 

This, however, would be simultaneously the start of a great rift within the Palestinian nationalist movement as a divide grew between those who felt that they represented the true Gaza-born PLO fighters (PLO-West Bank and Gaza) compared to those represented by Arafat and his rule in Tunis (PLO-Tunis). Such a difference while seemingly minor in description actually catalyzed the eventual breakoff of Hamas from the Palestinian secular nationalist and socialist movement such as Fatah and the PFLP, eventually threatening the political stability of the OPT, making national and sub-national integration outright impossible during the founding of the Palestinian National Authority.

This is why a nation’s integration is only important insofar that such integration can realize its own self-determination. Questions to be considered include whether the nation can ensure basic or fundamental human rights such as the right to political participation and non-discrimination. Furthermore, other more specific forms of self-determination may include having control and autonomy over one’s own territory which would be inherently problematic with the lack of a functional government under a weak state rife with political cleavages constantly disrupting basic state operations.

The presence of sectarian conflicts therefore directly contravenes with the goal of self-determination, thus in the sustained absence of national integration through sectarianization, our goal of national disintegration of a particular nation would already have been reached.

Congratulations!

Closing Thoughts

The aim of this article is not to promote violence nor does it seek to provide an actual realistic and workable roadmap for the purpose of dismantling a nation. Hopefully, at least that much was taken for granted. 

Not to excuse the severity of this article’s topic, understanding the process of how a nation breaks down via Sectarianization still provides some clarity to the way we are facing disintegration at the moment. 

As mentioned prior to this section, national disintegration via an Andersonian view of the nation can happen through paths other than Sectarianization. 

Yet, perhaps a close inspection under the presumption one is pursuing the third path could open our eyes, regardless of what nationality we happen to clasp our hands with, to the actors and factors which have showcased actions that are in alignment either implicitly or explicitly with Hashemi and Postel’s Sectarianization mechanics. 

In short, for those who seek to maliciously break a nation - greedy and genocidal politicians, psychopathic and egotistical business moguls, conceited and dogmatic religious leaders, terrorists, and hostile enemy operatives - they must nevertheless understand the narrative foundations of the nation. 

Even those who do not necessarily want to put their own nation into ruin, they must nevertheless have felt the need to reform their nation, for it ought to be in their best conscience to have felt something is wrong right now.

Thus, this article should provide value for both types of audiences.

It is in this understanding that those who seek to prevent their efforts can proudly read this article, determine, and enhance their standing with depth: 

To break a nation,

or to create one.