CONSTRUCTING AN IMAGINED COMMUNITY; LATENT NATIONALISM IN THE LANGUAGE OF NEWFOUNDLAND SCHOLARSHIP

by

Erin Heys

An Honours project submitted to

Dr. Reade Davis

in partial fulfillment of the

requirements for the degree of

Bachelor of Arts Honours

Department of Anthropology

Memorial University of Newfoundland

April 2012

St. John’s Newfoundland

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Introduction

The Southside Hills frame the far side of the St. John’s harbour, shielding

Newfoundland’s capital city from the turbulent winds off the North Atlantic Ocean. At

their crest, grounded in the granite rock, flies the Pink, White and Green flag of

Newfoundland. Though not the official flag of the province, “The Tricolor” has been

standing, silhouetted against the oft-stormy sky, for decades. Increasingly, the flag can

also be spotted hanging above doorways, in car windows, on t-shirts, bracelets,

backpacks, pins and bottles of rum, often coupled with the tag line “Republic of

Newfoundland”.

Since the 1970s, a handful of scholars have sought to understand the historical

phenomenon of nationalism in Newfoundland and Labrador, as well its resurgence in

more recent decades. While these scholars have contributed a great deal to a better

understanding of the phenomenon of nationalism in the province, I will argue that some

have either consciously or unconsciously helped to reify and reproduce the logic of

nationalism in their work by assuming Newfoundland to be a bounded and distinct entity,

worthy of being studied. As Richard Handler has argued: “The terminology of social

science can reinforce the rhetoric of nationalism… by choosing to study a would-be

nation as “a society”, then spawning research, journals, and scholarly associations

dedicated to and named in terms of that society” (Handler 1988: 173). I will focus

attention primarily on the works of 20th century historians of Newfoundland. As Eric

Hobsbawm has argued, “history is the raw material for nationalist… ideologies, as

poppies are the raw material for heroin addiction” (Hobsbawm 1997: 5). Drawing upon

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works on nationalism by theorists such as Benedict Anderson, Richard Handler, Rogers

Brubaker and Frederick Cooper, I will examine the role played by some Newfoundland

historians in the naturalization of the ideology of nationalism.

* * * * *

Nationalism; what is it and where does it come from?

“Nationalism is an ideological construct partially based on the fabrication that peoples of diverse interests are really one…”

-Sean Cadigan (2009: 296)

Though nationalism is a relatively new phenomenon in the span of human history, the

idea of the nation-state has spread rapidly and is now taken for granted as a fundamental

building block of political organization around the world. Prior to the nineteenth century,

there were fewer than 40 independent countries, yet today the world includes 196 of them

(Fact Monster 2007). In examining the proliferation of the idea of the nation-state,

Valerie Vezina argues that its spread relies upon a naturalized doctrine that presents the

nation as the only valid source of political power. This doctrine defines individuals

primarily by their inclusion or exclusion from a particular group, labeling them as either

citizens or foreigners (Vezina 2011). Thomas Hylland Eriksen, in his book Ethnicity and

Nationalism , argues that everywhere people draw barriers between an “us” and a “them,”

but that these distinctions can be based on any number of criteria. In the case of

nationalism, this distinction is rooted in specific, geopolitical boundaries. He writes:

“Nationalism stresses the cultural similarity of its adherents and, by implication, it draws

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boundaries vis-à-vis others, who thereby become outsiders” (Eriksen 1994: 10).

In Imagined Communities , Benedict Anderson explores the idea of the nation as an

imagined political community. Arguing that “nation-ness is the most universally

legitimate value in the political life of our time” (1983: 3), Anderson sets out to explore

the historical roots of nationalism. Why, Anderson asks, are we so often willing to kill

and to die for this imagined community?

Anderson proposes several factors that prevented nationalism from taking hold prior

to the 19th century. The first of these factors was the persistence of “truth languages”-

particular script-languages (Christian Latin, Qur’anic Arabic, or Examination Chinese,

for example) believed to offer ontological truth to those privileged few that could read

them. The second precursor mentioned is that of the dynastic realm. Societies were

organized around and under divine monarchs, which at the time appeared to be the only

logical way to run a political system. The third factor was the way which temporality was

conceived of. Anderson suggests that at one point, history and cosmology were

indistinguishable. Peoples around the world had no concept of history as an endless chain

of cause and effect. With no perception of simultaneity, it was difficult to imagine a

group of individuals rooted in the same time and following the same temporal trajectory

as oneself, and therefore impossible to imagine the idea of a nation-state. Nationalism,

Anderson argues, could only begin to take root when these three factors no longer held

the same degree of influence (1983).

Print-capitalism, Anderson hypothesizes, fundamentally changed the world. It

expanded rapidly, opening up new markets and ignoring political boundaries. Its goal was

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to appeal to the broadest possible audience, and favoured works that were believed to

have mass-appeal. This meant printing texts in local vernaculars. As this

vernacularization movement gained momentum, absolutist monarchs began to use

particular vernaculars as “instruments of administrative centralization” (1983: 40), thus

associating particular languages with specific regions or political regimes. Through

print-capitalism, these localized vernaculars were then normalized. This made it possible

to recognize a community of people that spoke the same language and contributed to that

language becoming more standardized, permanent, and fixed (1983).

Anderson questions why nationalism seems to have developed first in European

colonies, where nationalist revolutions were formed and led by those of European decent,

and who shared a common language with those against whom they fought. He points to

several potential reasons for this apparent oddity. First of all, fiscal problems in Europe

resulted in more strict control over trade, and higher taxes in the colonies. These policies

were unpopular with the colonial upper class. Simultaneously, liberal ideals of the

enlightenment were spreading, and improved methods of communication meant these

concepts were disseminated wider and faster than ever before. Resentment grew among

those of European decent born in the colonies, who, despite their lineage, were

considered second class citizens in Europe. This discouraged loyalty to the motherland,

and encouraged loyalty towards the colony (1983).

Once the revolutions had begun, colonies the world over had access to a model of

how to challenge for independence, a model made available by new trans-Atlantic

communication avenues. Improved, locally concentrated communication led people of

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the colonies to begin to see themselves as members of a community, and eventually of a

nation. What is interesting for our purposes is not so much that colonies revolted and

tried to claim power, but that they tried to claim power as a separate entity by envisioning

the entirely new concept of the nation (1983).

By the end of the First World War, the nation-state had been established as an

international-norm. Nationalist sentiments within the boundaries of many of these

countries continued to grow, often encouraged by “nation building policies” imposed by

the government. Greater physical mobility (railways, steamships, motor transportation

and aviation), the increasing population and therefore expanding size and diversification

of government, and the spread of modern education also contributed to growing

nationalist fervor (1983).

Finally, Anderson discusses the ideas of purity and naturalness that often go hand in

hand with sentiments of nationalism. Anderson explains how the identity categories

created by the use of tools like the census, maps, and museums shaped the way that the

state saw its dominion, the nature of its subjects and the legitimacy of its ancestry. These

categories assume that there are no fractions- and that everyone can fit into a neat,

singular category. The “nation” is now so deeply engrained in our consciousness that we

seem largely unaware that there was ever a time before nationhood.

While Anderson’s Imagined Communities set the stage for anthropological

scholarship of nationalism, since its publication scholars Richard Handler, Rogers

Brubaker and Frederick Cooper have questioned the complicity of the social sciences

themselves in encouraging and spreading the logic of the nation-state.

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In Nationalism and the Politics of Culture in Quebec , anthropologist Richard Handler

argues that nationalism, in Quebec and elsewhere, is an ideology of possessive

individualism. He borrowed the term from C.B. Macpherson, who argued that possessive

individualism is what encourages people to define themselves and others by their

possession of certain commodities- be they material goods or characteristics of various

kinds (1962). Each person is a proprietor of his or her own talents and abilities, and

society is comprised of the interaction between these individuals, exchanging their

individual properties. Contrary to popular opinion, this ideology is not universal. In the

Japanese language, for example, there are multiple first person, singular pronouns- as

opposed to the singular English option, “I”. This suggests that the perception of the self

may not be as bounded and unchanging in the Japanese tradition, but rather more

contextual and fluid. Nationalism however, at least in the context of Handler’s fieldwork

among the Quebecois, makes sense only within the logic of Western understandings of

self, which are rooted in the ideology of possessive individualism (1988).

Handler discusses two common metaphors of nationalist discourse. In the first case,

nations are imbued with the qualities of an individual, and are seen as distinct entities.

Often such understandings have been deeply influenced by functionalist theory and have

been characterized by a belief that nations operate much like living organisms. Handler

argues that “nationalism is an ideology about individuated being” (Handler 1988:6). The

nation is perceived as a natural collective, one that possesses boundedness, continuity and

homogeneity. While individual actors within the nation may be unique, their similarities

are interpreted as more important than their differences. Once this sense of wholeness and

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life has been achieved, the nation can conceivably be assumed to execute its own actions.

The nation, as “an individuated actor, manifests [its] life through the exercise of choice,

and through the consistent action that follows therefrom” (Handler 1988: 6). These

choices are made in accordance with the “essence” and “nature” of this nation. Handler’s

second nationalist metaphor is that of the nation as a biological species. He gives the

example of Marcel Rioux’s “l’homo quebecois”, assuming the French Canadian people

to, again, possess specific traits by which they are defined, and which have been accrued

through shared exposure to natural and historical forces (1974).

In their article “Beyond “Identity” (2000), Rogers Brubaker and Frederick Cooper

have examined how the term “nation” operates as a category of social and political

practice. In practice, the category of nationhood is one understood, shaped and

experienced by the masses in regular social interaction. “As a category of practice,

[nation] is sometimes used by “lay” actors to make sense of themselves, of their

activities, of what they share with, and how they differ from, others” (2000: 4). Through

categorizing themselves and others, they are able to simplify the complicated world

around them. Brubaker and Cooper argue that the term “nation”, along with similar

terms such as “identity”, “race”, “ethnicity”, “citizenship”, “class”, and “community”,

should be looked upon by critical scholars in a different light, not as a category of

practice, but rather as a category of analysis. Some scholars, they argue, have flippantly

used the idea of the “nation” without questioning it’s meaning, and have simultaneously

reified, reproduced, and reinforced the category and made it seem like a natural and

stable entity. In doing so, they claim, social scientists “become both analysts and

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protagonists of nationalism” (2000: 6). Brubaker and Cooper argue that social scientists

should be questioning the validity of categories such as nationhood, and trying to

understand the processes that lead to their development, rather than offering them validity

through the uncritical use of this idea in published work (2000).

Brubaker and Cooper also explore the idea of “ethnopolitical entrepreneurs”-

individuals who attempt to inspire what Weber labels as “Zusammengehörigkeitsgefühl”,

or a feeling of belonging together (1978). These political entrepreneurs encourage an

imagined commonality, persuading certain people that they are in some sense “identical”

with one another, and different from some perceived “Other”. This task is undertaken in

the pursuit of some personal, political or economic self-interest on the part of the

entrepreneur. Essentially, they reap some benefit from encouraging people to feel part of

a national group (or ethnic group, gender group, racial group, etc.), and exclude those that

do not fit the criteria (2000).

In his later essay, “Ethnicity Without Groups”, Brubaker takes issue with the

assumption commonly made in social analysis that all categories of people, be they of

practice or analysis, take on a collective sense of “groupness”. “Groupism”, Brubaker

says, is “the tendency to take discrete, sharply differentiated, internally homogenous and

externally bounded groups as basic constituents of social life, chief protagonists of social

conflicts, and fundamental units of social analysis” (2002: 164). Though groupism is a

common occurrence of everyday social experience, it becomes most problematic, and

less forgivable, when it becomes a part of constructivist academic writing.

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* * * * *

Scholars of Newfoundland History; “Analysts and Protagonists of Nationalism”

A telephone poll conducted in 2003 concluded that 72% of Newfoundlanders would

identify themselves as a member of the Newfoundland nation primarily, and of the

Canadian one only secondarily (Pollara 2003). Harry Hillier argues that the sense of

nationalist pride in Newfoundland remains high because, due to very low rates of

immigration, roughly 95% of the resident population was born on the island (Hillier

2010). Hillier also claims the intense homeland loyalty and sense of place among

Newfoundlanders to be “without parallel among English speaking people in Canada”

(2010: 265). Social scientists have struggled to answer the question of “where this fierce

loyalty comes from?” Some have built upon Eriksen’s argument that “the nation is born,

or arises, from a painful rite of passage where it has to fight its adversaries; the Other or

the enemy within” (Eriksen 1994: 135). Newfoundland scholars have pointed to many

such rites of passage, from the initial colonization of the island, up to and including the

nationalist political doctrine of the current historical moment. The following sections

review key works dealing with the question of Newfoundland national identity. While

this literature has produced a number of important insights, I will demonstrate that many

of these authors have continued to rely heavily on a naturalized vision of the nation-state

and have often been guilty of uncritically using nationalism as a category of practice

rather than as a category of analysis.

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Judge D.W. Prowse and the Early History of the Colony

Though there is little consensus about what initially contributed to the emergence of

nationalist sentiments in Newfoundland, the first signs of a nationalist movement seem to

have emerged in the late 19th century, after the colony had been granted responsible

government. Shane O’Dea (2003) has hypothesized that it was at this time that merchants

began to make St. John’s their home base, rather than returning to England each winter as

they had previously done. This sudden change may have played a role in contributing to

growing nationalist sentiment in the colony.

It was at this time that Judge Daniel Prowse published his History of Newfoundland

(1896). Prowse’s history of the European settlement and development of the island

advocated a “sturdy nationalism”, and spun an elaborate narrative about an epic struggle

between cruel, tyrannical West Country merchants conspiring with an oppressive British

government, and the humble, heroic settlers of the colony (Bannister 2002b). Prowse’s

work has since been critiqued by a variety of scholars, including Keith Matthews, who

has proposed an alternative theory of interdependence, whereby fish merchants did not

conspire to prevent settlement. On the contrary, he argues that the merchant credit system

helped insulate both merchants and settlers from an unpredictable global market (2001).

Patrick O’Flaherty accuses Prowse of being unimaginative and sentimental, rampant with

personal bias and nationalist propaganda (2005). Nonetheless, the deep, far-reaching

influence of Prowse’s book is hard to ignore. It “inspired generations of scholars and

shaped the way Newfoundlanders see their past” (Bannister 2002b: 84). It would be

celebrated by nationalists for generations.

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Historian Jerry Bannister explores the way that Prowse’s particular version of

settlement, one fraught with oppression and struggle, has influenced historians and

nationalists alike. He writes that “Newfoundland history came to represent a type of

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) (2002a: 182). His language clearly supports

Handler’s first metaphor of nationalist discourse, describing the nation as a single living

organism capable of falling victim to its own disorders and diseases, and even aging

along a biological life-cycle trajectory. This echos Handler’s conceptualization of

French-Canada as an adolescent nation, on the brink of adulthood, with English Canada

playing the role of a dominating parent.

The “Pink, White, and Green” Flag

“The pink the rose of England shows, The green St. Patrick’s emblem bright,

While in between the spotless sheen Of Andrew’s Cross displays the White.

Hail the pink, the white, the green, Our patriot flag long may it stand,

Our sirelands twine their emblems trine To form the flag of Newfoundland. “

-Bishop Michael F. Howley, “The Flag of Newfoundland”, 1902

The precise origin of the Newfoundland tricolour flag remains shrouded in mystery,

though it seems to have come into being during the 1840s. Some have suggested that the

Roman Catholic Bishop Michael Anthony Flemming, in an effort to calm growing

tensions between Irish Catholic and English Protestant lumber-yard workers, sewed

together the green flag of the Catholics and the pink flag of the Protestants, along with

the central white- either to symbolize St. Andrew’s cross and Scotland or possibly just a

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peace between competing religious groups (Hiller 2007:115). As heartwarming as this

origin myth may have been for those who promoted it, it has since been debunked. Most

scholars now accept that the tricolour is very likely a descendant of the much more

elaborate flag flown by a 19th century relief organization known as the Newfoundland

Native Society (N.N.S.). Benedict Anderson’s observations about the early development

of nationalism in the European colonies are certainly evident in the history of the N.N.S.,

a non-denominational and non-partisan organization founded in St. John’s in the 1840s,

which aimed to provide a “common ground for those who resented the power and

patronage enjoyed by privileged immigrants… as well as their condescension” (Hiller

2007:114). Its purpose was to ensure the interests of those born in Newfoundland were

put ahead of “strangers”, that those “within” were protected from those “without”. The

Irish shamrock, English rose, and Scottish thistle of this original flag eventually evolved

into the simple tricolour pattern in use today (Hiller 2007:114).

In his article, “Robert Bond and the pink, white and green: Newfoundland

nationalism in perspective”, historian James Hiller (2007) follows the development of the

Pink, White and Green flag as a nationalist symbol. He notes that the flag has

experienced a resurgence in popularity since the early 1970s, a period during which

industry boomed, the arts flourished, and political voices rang out in support of a distinct

and independent Newfoundland. Hiller argues that the flag served as a touchstone of sorts

for those wishing to bolster nationalist sentiments.

However, Hiller falls into the trap that Brubaker and Cooper caution against. In

studying nationalist sentiment in the province, he helps to reify Newfoundland as a

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distinct and bounded nation, frequently using nation as a category of practice rather than

one of analysis. In discussing the possible natures of Newfoundland nationalism, Hiller is

quick to criticize the stereotype of the sturdy, rugged, rural fisherman as representative of

the “real Newfoundlander” (2007:124). However, Hiller does not question the existence

of the idea of the “real Newfoundlander”, just this specific version of it. Hiller assumes

the “nation” of Newfoundland to have agency in itself, implying that all individuals

within its boundaries feel, think, act, etc. in similar ways. For example, he contrasts the

“mainland” perspective to the “Newfoundland” perspective. Newfoundland, he states, has

a connection to its history and distinct identity that the mainlander cannot understand

(2007). This assumes that all Newfoundlanders belong to one distinct, bounded group,

while all mainlanders belong to another, leaving no room for individual distinctiveness or

overlap between the two groups. When discussing the French Shore Dispute of 1857,

Hiller argues that “Newfoundlanders intensely resented the fact that the French held

fishing privileges along a lengthy coastline” (2007:117). During the 1860’s debate over

confederation, Hiller writes that Newfoundlanders were suspicious of central Canada.

There are many such examples in Hiller’s writing, in which the scholar discusses the

feelings or actions of “Newfoundland”, or the “nation of Newfoundland” as a whole. In

doing so, he presumes that Newfoundland is a unified, homogenous group. One last

example seems particularly striking. In his discussion of Newfoundland’s participation in

development of the Treaty of Versailles after World War One (the reader can only

assume he means the participation of Newfoundland’s political leaders), Hiller points out

that Newfoundland was largely excluded from the proceedings. In response to this,

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“Newfoundland turned in on itself accepting that, if it was a dominion, it was a

second-class dominion that hardly deserved a seat at imperial conferences” (2007:127). It

is hardly believable that every Newfoundlander would have been so accepting of this

statement, particularly if the nationalist sentiment that Hiller argues existed was really so

prevalent.

Historian Carolyn Lambert is critical of the use of the Pink, White and Green flag as a

nationalist symbol, but she too is guilty of continuing to rely on the nation as a category

of practice. Lambert does not suggest that we question the concept of Newfoundland as a

nation, as Brubaker and Cooper would encourage us to do, or even that we question the

use of a flag to represent that presumed nation. Rather, she questions the authenticity of

this one symbol alone, and simply suggests its replacement with another. She insists that

the original flag of the N.N.S. was in fact Red, White and Green, and that this was

replaced in the 1880s and 90s with the Pink, White and Green. This was then solidified

by Premier Robert Bond, who in the early 20th century made the Pink, White and Green

the official flag. Lambert suggests that “the N.N.S. was the first organization to formally

articulate pride of place and if we are… tied to our history and culture, then surely the

N.N.S. and their creations, the first emblems of Newfoundland… are part of that history”

(2007:37). Lambert unquestionably uses nationalist language in her writing, making

assumptions about a shared sense of connection to the island and its history, and thus

helps to reify the construct of Newfoundland as a unified nation as well as the category of

nationality as a useful and natural way of organizing the world.

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The Newfoundland Railway

According to Historian Kurt Korneski, nearing the turn of the 20th century,

Newfoundland caught “railway fever” (Korkeski 2008). Many politicians believed that

the construction of a railroad across the island would bring economic prosperity by

providing improved access to the resources of the interior, and helping to usher in a

progressive, modern era. Korneski argues that there was the perception of a sharp

division between colonies of settlement- those with inhabitants of European descent,

considered to be included in “Greater Britain”- and those of the dependent empire- home

to indigenous peoples of the land itself. Urban elites in the colony wanted to prove their

belonging to the former category, and be perceived to be “among the finest examples of

the British race” (2008: 87). The path to this goal, for many, seemed to be national

independence through the development of new industries that were independent from the

fishery. The railway, with its provision of access to agriculture, forestry, and mining

opportunities in the island’s interior, and its reputation as a symbol of civility, was an

opportunity to achieve both. In the long run, however, the railroad led to higher

unemployment, due to the short-term, false inflation of the job market during the

construction phase, and deficiencies in the quality of the railroad itself meant that it could

never successfully transport either people or cargo for profit. This left the government in

a seemingly insurmountable state of debt. Nonetheless, “the direction of government

policy after 1889 suggests that railways continued to be central to popular nationalism for

some time to come” (Korneski 2008:105).

Echoes of Anderson’s Imagined Communities are evident in the development of the

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railway. Though Korneski discusses the way that a method of transportation became a

symbol for nationalist sentiment, he does not question why it did. As previously

discussed, Anderson suggests that following World War One, greater physical mobility-

through such things as the development of new railway networks- enabled people to

visualize a bounded territory within which they lived. In addition, themes of a perceived

sharp divide between Old World and New, between those loyal to England in this case,

and those loyal to the colony, are evident here- a division that, according to Anderson,

was the major cause of nationalist movements, and often independence movements in the

colonies (1983).

Political Rhetoric: Joey Smallwood, Brian Peckford and Danny Williams

One of Judge Prowse’s most enthusiastic followers was Newfoundland’s first Premier

Joseph R. (Joey) Smallwood. Taking office in 1949, Smallwood would remain in power

until 1972 (Vezina 2011). Smallwood did not believe Newfoundland to be a nation yet,

because of its small population, high level of poverty and lack of economic and political

stability, but he planned to change those circumstances through the creation of a national

ethos and economic diversification (Cadigan 2009). He pushed for Confederation with

Canada, but was simultaneously an ardent nationalist, hoping to industrialize the island

and encourage a national ethos of self-reliance and North American consumerism (Webb

1997).

Smallwood saw Newfoundlanders as having what historian Jeff Webb refers to as “an

inferiority complex,” and was determined to “inspire them with faith in their country and

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in themselves” (Webb 1997:165). Smallwood tackled this undertaking even prior to his

term in office, acting as a prominent public figure and discussing the history, geography

and economy of the region throughout the 1930s on his radio programme, The

Barrrelman , and later in a column in The Daily News . While Webb’s article explores the

nationalist media propagated by Smallwood, it is noteworthy that he does not employ

Anderson’s highly applicable theoretical work, tying the use of communication tools with

a stronger perceived connection with the imagined community to which one belongs. In

Imagined Communities , Anderson discusses how the increase in local newspapers in the

European colonies was a huge factor in instilling a sense of nationalism, allowing people

for the first time to conceptualize a group of individuals reading- or, in the case of

Smallwood’s radio programme, listening to- the same thing at the same time, and thus

sharing a common experience (1983).

Leader of the Progressive Conservative Party of Newfoundland and Labrador, Brian

A. Peckford served as the third Premier of the province, from 1979 until 1989. Valerie

Vezina, who has studied the rhetoric used by Newfoundland politicians in their efforts to

bolster nationalist sentiments in the province, argues that Peckford took up Smallwood’s

nationalist torch. Like Smallwood, he used nationalist language to gain support from the

public, particularly espousing the importance of provincial control of natural resources in

areas such as fisheries and hydro-electric development. She notes: “He… represented…

the new generation’s desire to be free of the mentality of dependency, and to restore to

prominence a more individual sense of pride and self-respect in what Newfoundlanders

could accomplish” (Vezina 2011: 7). Unlike Smallwood, however, Peckford’s rhetoric

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focused heavily on anti-federalism, blaming the Canadian government for unfairly

structuring the Churchill Falls deal and encouraging the “rugged individualism” that he

believed would lead to provincial economic prosperity (Overton 1996). This

individualism was part of what Peckford believed to be the natural, authentic,

Newfoundlander: self-reliant and neighborly with a deep sense of community spirit and

family responsibility. This idealized Newfoundlander fit conveniently with the

conservative values that Peckford preached (Overton 1996). More recently, Peckford’s

nationalist successor, former Premier Danny Williams, threatened to remove all Canadian

flags from government buildings in the province should the federal government refuse to

negotiate with him on favourable terms. Vezina notes that “both Peckford and Williams

were able to raise the latent nationalist sentiments of their people” (Vezina 2011: 9) in

order to rally them together in support of their own political causes.

Brubaker and Cooper’s conceptual tool of the ethnopolitical entrepreneur is certainly

a useful one to approach nationalist political rhetoric in Newfoundland. Instead of

assuming Newfoundlanders to feel some sort of natural groupness, it is important to ask

what work is being done to imbue this geographic category with a naturalized feeling of

group identity. Both Peckford and Williams seem to be perfect examples. They “initially

seemed to best articulate the frustrations and ambitions of a younger generation of

Newfoundlanders and Labradorians, who felt disappointed by their experience as the

newest Canadians” (Cadigan 2009: 266). The politicians’ strong anti-federalist and

pro-nationalist stance overshadowed their liberal opponents and won them the

Premierships in 1979 and 2003, respectively.

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A Sense of Place

“You can take the man out of the bay, but you can’t take the bay out of the man.” -G.C. Blackmore (2003: 346)

In March of 2002, the provincial government of Newfoundland and Labrador

announced their intention to complete a Royal Commission on Renewing and

Strengthening Our Place in Canada . It came about in response to mounting concern over

the continued devastation of the fishing industry, the out-migration of over 70,000

Newfoundlanders and Labradorians- roughly 12% of the province’s population- and high

rates of unemployment. The goal of the Commission was to analyze the strengths and

weaknesses of the province and to compile a Research and Consultation plan to

encourage greater prosperity and self-reliance among inhabitants. Over the course of the

following year, Commissioners Victor Young, Sister Elizabeth Davis, and Judge James

Igloliorte commissioned dozens of research papers on such key issues as prosperity and

self-reliance, population and demographics, rural Newfoundlanders and Labradorians,

natural resources, equalization and resource revenue sharing and, finally, sense of place .

Among them was Gordon Blackmore’s “Sense of Place: Loss and the Newfoundland and

Labrador Spirit” (Royal Commission on Renewing and Strengthening Our Place in

Canada 2003).

Gordon Blackmore describes Newfoundlanders of the past as possessing strength and

resilience, defiance, persistence, pride, self-reliance, tolerance, loyalty, adaptability,

creativity and distinctiveness, while those post-Confederation possess submission and

victimization (2003). He argues that present-day Newfoundlanders experience a lack of

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confidence, a feeling of powerlessness and a loss of connection with “[their] story” that

dates back to the time of Confederation with Canada (2003: 354). He insists that

“[Newfoundlanders] must reclaim the individual spirit which sustained [them] over

[their] first 400 years. The traits of [the] people and [the] place are still there, ingrained

now in [their] character, part of [their] spiritual bloodline” (2003: 354).

I would argue here that Blackmore’s concept of Newfoundland nationalism could be

better understood through Handler’s lens of possessive individualism. According to

Blackmore, one’s definition as an insider of the Newfoundland group is determined by

the possession of particular characteristics. This means both that those that clearly do not

possess them are deemed outsiders, and that those that are deemed to be insiders are

assumed to naturally possess these qualities.

The nationalist remedy to the identity crisis described by Blackmore has typically

been a turn toward “nostalgia for a past that never existed… [an] idyllic past of outport

life” (Bannister 2002a: 180). This romanticized ideal of communal, outport living has

been studied to great lengths by social scientists, and Newfoundland’s current inhabitants

have often been categorized as either authentic or inauthentic, based on the degree to

which they resemble this idealized vision (Bannister 2002a; 2002b). In recent decades,

this vision has also been actively promoted by the tourism industry, which has sought to

present an image of a place largely untouched by modernity (Overton 1996). Parallels can

be seen in the work of Eric Hobsbawm, who theorizes that, for nationalists, the past often

becomes an ideal model for the future, looked upon as “the good old days” (1997).

Newfoundland historian Jerry Bannister writes that “…we have a difficult time

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facing up to our past and deciding what kind of present we want to have… we continue to

be fiercely attached to our homeland, although it has given us little economic

prosperity…” (2002a: 186). Gordon Blackmore writes that “we weren’t allowed to settle”

(2003: 341), in reference to early, 16th century, migratory fishers from Western Europe,

and that “we” must now “reclaim our place” (2003: 342) on the national and international

stage. Readers of these historical works can assume that by “we” Bannister and

Blackmore mean Newfoundlanders. It is difficult, however, to ignore their assumptions

about what it means to be a Newfoundlander. Both seem to see the province’s residents

as a largely homogenous group, as in Brubaker’s groupism, ignoring the reality that there

are as many ways to be a Newfoundlander as there are people living on the island. Being

born in the province does not necessarily mean being “fiercely attached” to your

homeland or struggling with your past, nor does it mean that you feel any affiliation with

European migratory fishers of centuries gone by. Brubaker suggests that by

understanding groupness not as a given, but as a psychological process and “event”,

which has the potential to happen or not, social scientists have access to pertinent

information such as how groups are artificially brought together, sometimes through the

work of ethnic entrepreneurs such as Smallwood, Peckford, and Williams.

Valerie Vezina discusses the closure of the Northern Atlantic cod fishery in the early

nineties, and the social and political aftershock caused by this largest industrial layoff in

Canadian history. She claims that the closure “has left a bitter taste to most

Newfoundlanders. They [feel] betrayed by the federal government who took away what

defined them for centuries. Their pride has been taken away, but most importantly their

22

national identity, their internal definition as a nation [has been] destroyed” (Vezina 2011:

8). Vezina also assumes the inhabitants of the island to have a singular, homogenous

self-definition associated with the fishery, and that all Newfoundlanders feel the same

way- angry and betrayed- about its closure. In addition, she writes under the assumption

that not only are the islanders defined by their association with the fishery, but that this

definition is tied to a sense of nationhood. She uses “nation” and “national identity” in the

way that Brubaker and Cooper argue “lay” actors do, as a way of understanding the

common activities (in this case the livelihoods) of Newfoundlanders.

* * * * *

Questioning Nationalist Mythology

Many scholars, including Eric Hobsbawn and Benedict Anderson, have suggested

that an important factor in the creation of group sentiment is the perception of a shared

historical narrative (Bannister 2003b). Historians of Newfoundland have worked towards

questioning the historical narrative on which the island’s nationalist, political identity is

constructed. Keith Matthews, for example, questions the Prowsian version of the

historical narrative by arguing his alternate theory of interdependence, which I have

previously discussed. Prowse’s conflict theory, whereby the merchants conspired against

the settlers, conceptualizes history as timeless, with the social relations between

merchants and settlers remaining static and homogenous for over 200 years. Matthews

also points out that the history of Newfoundland as studied has been, in reality, the

23

history of its urban, literate, elites (Matthews 2001).

Currently one of the most publicly recognized scholars to investigate Newfoundland

nationalism, Sean Cadigan also takes a critical approach to the construction of the

province as a nation-like entity. His recent book, Newfoundland and Labrador; A

History , “examines and interrogates the logic of a peripatetic Newfoundland nationalism

that claims that the province can survive as a separate economic and political unit” (2009:

11). Drawing on the historical nationalist movement- one spearheaded by Joey

Smallwood and based on an optimistic vision for a bright, industrial future-

neo -nationalism, Cadigan argues, takes a more anti-federalist approach, offering theories

to explain away Confederation and blaming the union with Canada for “[undermining]

cultural identity, [blighting] the economy, and [forcing] people to leave” (2009: 288).

Cadigan chronicles the way that this neo-nationalist movement emerged in

Newfoundland, beginning in the late 1960s and early 1970s with what has been referred

to by Sandra Gwyn as the “Newfoundland renaissance” (Bannister 2002b: 99), which

culminated in a surging support of Newfoundland artists, poets, writers and theatre.

Artists associated with this movement included CODCO, Gerry Squires, Figgy Duff,

Mary Pratt, Ray Guy and The Wonderful Grand Band. General themes of artistic

expression, according to Cadigan, were romantic depictions of picturesque outport

community life, and the exposure of the “underlying social, economic, and political roots

of exploitation that dominated the day-to-day lives of Newfoundlanders and

Labradorians” (2009: 262). In St. John’s, the Codpeace Foundation was founded to try to

encourage a positive sense of Newfoundland identity. By the late 1970’s, Brian Peckford

24

had been elected premier, and encouraged Newfoundlanders and Labradorians to push for

control of the province’s new found offshore oil resources, backed up by a generation of

young, highly educated neo-nationalists living on the urban east coast of the island

(2009).

Cadigan is critical of what he calls “the political rhetoric of neo-nationalism” (2009:

288), seeing it as an unlikely solution to the problems facing the province. His writing

questions the foundational mythology on which these neo-nationalists stake their political

claims. Danny Williams and his supporters would explain away the province’s historical

economic dependence and delayed development, sense of cultural disconnectedness to

some idealized version of outport living, debilitating degradation of natural resources and

loss of population to outmigration as a product of a pattern of continued neglect and

exploitation by the federal government. Cadigan, however, points out that this

victimization at the cruel hands of Canada is mythological, that these problems were ones

that existed prior to Confederation (2009). He writes: “As a Newfoundlander, I do not

have much to sympathy for Newfoundland nationalists. They must confront history.

Federal and provincial policies in Newfoundland over the past 50 years are an extension,

not a break, with Newfoundland’s pre-Confederation history” (Cadigan 1999: 7).

While Cadigan discusses the nationalist sentiment that Newfoundlanders were

somehow duped into, or “surrendered to, Confederation” (2009:267), Jeff Webb

investigates the more drastic neo-nationalist claim, an unsubstantiated one according to

Webb, that the election of 1949 was rigged by the British and Canadian Federal

Governments. This conspiracy theory, disseminated by anti-confederates unhappy with

25

the province’s status within Canada, suggests that Smallwood acted as a paid agent for

“Canadian greed” and helped the British rig the famous 1949 referendum. Webb

questions the basis for theories such as this one, pointing out that, given the cultural and

political context of the 1940s, one in which Newfoundland had recently been bailed out

of bankruptcy by the British government and was eager to gain access to government

services that would be provided by Ottawa, the Newfoundland government could not and

would not have asked for a better deal than it was given. The suggestion that

Newfoundland would have flourished as a small nation with responsible government,

with improved fisheries management and more sway in the international political arena

is, to Webb, based on the denial of the shocking levels of poverty that existed in the

outports at the time, and the assumption that Newfoundlanders of the 1940s possessed the

same level of nationalist pride and unity that exists in the post-Peckford era. “For a

generation that came of age under Smallwood… and Peckford, creating a mythology

about the idyllic communities before Confederation is easy” (Webb 1998:181). This was

perhaps not so easy for the outport residents in the 1940s themselves who tipped the vote

towards Confederation. Though “nationalists everywhere are tempted to blame the

failures of the past upon external enemies” (Webb 1998: 180), Webb insists that this

nationalist conspiracy myth is out of touch with historical reality (1998).

James Overton also questions the foundational mythology for modern day

nationalism in the province. Like Webb, he criticizes nationalist historians for

minimizing the poverty that existed prior to Confederation, as well as overstating the

naiveté that allowed Newfoundlanders to be “duped” into joining Canada (Bannister

26

2003). In addition, Overton finds fault with the idea that there is a distinct, authentic and

homogenous Newfoundland character or ethnic identity, one which is constantly

undermined by the intrusion of industrialization and the welfare state, as well as North

American consumer culture and its accompanying values. The “Newfoundlander”, he

says, is depicted as simple and jolly, kind and friendly, with a focus on community and

family, who invariably calls an outport home. This “Newfoundlander” is ill suited to the

cutthroat arena of politics, and is thus easily taken advantage of. Overton points out that

this ideal type erases the real-life complexities in the population, assumes that there exists

some distinct cultural difference between Newfoundland and the rest of the world and

that this difference should be maintained. These things should not, however, be taken for

granted (Overton 1996).

In her article, “Emblem of our country: The Red, White, and Green Tricolour”,

Lambert explores in detail the origin of the famous nationalist symbol, the Pink, White

and Green (2007). She calls the romanticized version of the flag’s inception, in which

Bishop Flemming sews the three colours together in an attempt to create unity between

the largest immigrant groups to the island, “lore”, and labels the Pink, White and Green

an invented tradition. Quoting Eric Hobsbawm, she writes that “traditions which appear

to be old are quite often recent in origin and sometimes invented” (2007: 22). Continuing

to apply Hobsbawm’s theory from his The Invention of Tradition (1992), Lambert

critically shows the ways that the tricolour (in its present form) was constructed as a

nationalist symbol, both officially/politically and unofficially/socially. This occurred

through use by Roman Catholic elites and politicians, social clubs and fraternities,

27

publication on the cover of Sir Cavendish Boyle’s “Ode to Newfoundland” as well as the

unofficial national anthem, Bishop Howley’s 1902 “The Flag of Newfoundland”

(Lambert 2007).

While scholars such as Cadigan, Webb, Overton and Lambert question the specific

myths on which Newfoundland nationalists have based their political appeals, they

nevertheless fail to question whether any appeal founded on nationalist lines can be valid.

To question the validity of a particular nationalist claim is not enough. Rather, following

the work of earlier critical scholars, I believe that social scientists must question the very

concept of the “nation” as a bounded, self-contained entity, and ask how and why

Newfoundland has come to be seen through that lens.

* * * * *

Conclusion

Building upon works by Anderson, Handler, Brubaker and Cooper, I have identified a

number of works in Newfoundland scholarship that would benefit from a more discerning

look at how the world has been divided into nations, through the binary labeling of

individuals as citizens or foreigners.

Social divisions of all sorts have been used throughout history to justify crimes

against humanity. The reification of racial, ethnic, gender, and religious differences, has

often enabled violent mobilizations along those lines. Though national divisions are not

the only ones that have been used to legitimize violence and social exclusion, they do

28

seem to be the most prominent and least questioned divisions drawn in the world today.

Anthropologists such as James Scott (1998), Eric Wolf (1994) and John Bowen (2002)

have shown how “the idea of the nation state, regnant in international political

discourse… , has been so frequently held responsible for atrocities” (Bowen 2002: 388)

including homicide and even genocide. This may seem an unrealistically outcome to

expect of Newfoundland nationalism, and perhaps it is. Nonetheless, social scientists,

better than anyone, should know the dangers of encouraging the perception of meaningful

differences along nationalist lines. Not only can this lead to bigotry and hatred between

those labeled insiders and outsiders, it also forces people to identify with one of these two

categories, leaving those anomalous individuals who mesh with neither “betwixt and

between” (Turner 1967).

Eriksen (1994) argues that under the logic of the nation-state, citizenship, or

lack-there-of, becomes a valid reason for political exclusion. According to Hobsbawm,

“[it] has necessarily entailed the masking of social cleavages” (1997). Focusing primarily

on differences of nationality creates a false idea of unity within the nation, concealing

important divisions along lines of ethnic, gender, and religious difference, urbanity versus

rurality, and perhaps most detrimentally, economic inequality and class differences.

Cadigan points out that nationalist rhetoric ignores the experience of these other

divisions, effectively making the idea of a “Newfoundland nation” meaningless (2009).

Handler, Brubaker and Cooper have warned scholars about the dangers of uncritical

acceptance of the ideology of possessive individualism, of the nation as a natural

category of practice, and of the assumption of groupness and of the nation’s existence as

29

a distinct, homogenous entity with a unique “essence” of its own. I have argued here that

scholars of Newfoundland history, though sometimes questioning where the specific idea

of a Newfoundland nation has come from, have often failed to be sufficiently critical of

the possibility of a homogenous, bounded and distinct nation to begin with- so much so,

in fact, that they have sometimes helped to reinforce and naturalize the nation-state

through their own uncritical application of its logic in their writing. “The habit of

speaking without qualification of “Albanians” and “Serbs” [or in this case

“Newfoundlanders” and “Canadians”], for example, as if they were sharply bounded,

internally homogenous “groups”- not only weakens social analysis but constricts political

possibilities in the region” (Brubaker and Cooper 2000: 28). While we, as social actors,

may repeatedly categorize the people around us in an effort to make sense of a complex

social environment, it is the obligation of social scientists to remind us that these

categories are not natural, but contrived; and to point out why our categories of practice

are often problematic so that we may begin to see the world in a different way.

30

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