Ernest Renan's What is Nation: How is Forgetting a Crucial Factor in the Creation of a Nation?

Ernest Renan in his essay called “What is nation?” attempts to define the legitimate nation. He claims in his essay: “Forgetting, I would even go so far as to say historical error, is a crucial factor in the creation of a nation, which is why progress in historical studies often constitutes a danger for [the principle of] nationality” (Renan). This paper will criticize this sentence in terms of how the term “forgetting” can be one of the most crucial factors by defining nation. Ernest Renan counts many arguments to indicate the needs to become a nation and every of these arguments actually points out the issue that the most important factor is the forgetting of the differences among people. These differences can be in race, language, religion and geography of every person and if people consider these differences, they will stifle the progress of being a nation and creating the unity among people. By considering this issue, Renan actually highlights the importance of the conglomerate of people with common shared past and with an agreement of living together by being governed by mutual consent (Soman, 2008). Ernest Renan in his essay gives some comparing examples like France and Turkey. The King of France has unified its citizens of today and no one of them actually knows their own race like Burgundian, Visigoth etc and actually almost every citizen of France has forgotten the massacres that took place in the Midi in the thirteenth century (Renan, p. 43). In contrast, the Turkish policy could not achieve what the King of France achieved. Because Turkey separates its citizens according to their religion and this resulted in “separating nationalities”, which then led to the downfall of the East. Secondly, what Ernest Renan implicitly highlights by correlating the “forgetting” and “nation”, is the freewill and equality of people. Because, as before mentioned, it is obvious that these people choose to forget about their

References: Ernest Renan, “What is a Nation?” in Suny, Ronald Grigor and Eley, Geoff (eds.), Becoming National (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), pp. 42-55  Soman, E. (2008, September 30). Analysis of What is a Nation by Ernest Renan. Retrieved from HubPages: http://ebeysoman.hubpages.com/hub/Analysis-of-Ernest-Renans-What-is-a-nation