Towards a Post-nationalist Past

In the last decades, the concept of post-nationalism has gained currency amongst social and political theorists. The globalization of the economy, the expansion of the European Union, and other phenomena that displace politics beyond the boundaries of the nation-state has forced us to rethink basic political categories such as citizenship, justice, and solidarity. In this paper, I want to focus on the challenges post-nationalism poses for history, more specifically history as a source of national identity. Political theorists have argued that post-nationalism entails a separation of identity from politics and a forgetfulness of the past. I argue against this simplistic account and offer a post-nationalist conception of history organized along three points. First that the implementation of a national identity thorough the establishment of a historical narrative cannot be left to the group alone, but must be negotiated with those who are affected by the group’s self-definition. Second, that national history ought to be oriented toward post-national as opposed to national goals. And finally, that historically entrenched identities ought to be critically revisited in light of a cosmopolitan memory. I illustrate these three points by focusing on the example of Israeli and Palestinians intellectuals seeking to bridge the history of their constitutive national tragedies: the Palestinian Nakba and the Jewish Holocaust.