Nationalitarian

On the other hand, the nationalitarian phenomenon is one in which the struggle against the imperialist powers of occupation has as its object, beyond the clearing of the national territory, the independence and sovereignty of the national State, uprooting in depth the positions of the ex-colonial power— the reconquest of the power of decision in all domains of national life, the prelude to that reconquest of identity which is at the heart of the renaissance undertaken on the basis of fundamental national demands, and ceaselessly contested, by every means available, on every level, and notably on the internal level'.

And the birth of nations implies many artifices: Not only are they constituted in an active struggle against the imperial or evolved systems, the feudal systems, and the autonomous cities, but they crush their own "minorities," in other words, minoritarian phenomena that could be termed "nationalitarian," which work from within and if need be turn to the old codes to find a greater degree of freedom.

Van Gennep is adamant that the nationalitarian sentiment precedes modernity, and he quotes a variety of cases in which the existence of such sentiment can be reasonably assumed.