On at least two occasions, France's Emmanuel Macron, leader of "En Marche", has declared that 'nationalism causes wars.'
The idea is not new; in fact, it is often held aloft as one of the great "lessons of the 20th century", born from the tragedies of two World Wars (1914 and 1939). The "lesson" about nationalism has inspired policy to chip away at national identities and undermine the differences between states, supposedly in the hopes of creating a universal, peaceful world. But wait: in spite of the subsequent rise of multicultural identity under that system - and the fluidity of borders to erode the understanding of nations - the world has actually been in a constant state of war since the Second World War, when nationalism was supposedly defeated and the new system began its ascendancy under the guidance of the United States.
And that is the thing; although increasingly straightforward about embracing ethnopluralism and globalized liberal democracy, the United States has not gone a single decade since that time without participating in foreign military intervention, whether in Korea, Vietnam or with countless struggles in South America and the Middle East. Of course, one could counter that state interests were at stake. Moreover, during most of this period, the American policy goal was to contain the spread of communism and fight proxy wars to keep the Soviet Union and its allies at bay. But these explanations doubles as an admission that war is not explicitly caused by nationalism.
The theory connecting war to nationalism is debunked even further when you realize that the Soviet Union - the communist-led state which supposedly justified America's aggressive foreign policy - was built around an intense devotion to anti-nationalism, and yet one of the most aggressive powerhouses of the last century. In just a twelve-year period, the anti-nationalist Soviet Union invaded over a dozen countries and attempted to set up satellite states there. Furthermore, although the anti-nationalists bemoan the military industrial complex and are inclined to blame nationalist aggression for war, the Soviet behemoth ended up propping up other powers and fighting proxy wars for its own economic and geopolitical gain. In other words, the force of "anti-nationalism" did the exact sort of thing that nationalism and the nation-state are blamed for.
The international socialist may argue that the aggressive policy of the Soviet Union - invading other countries, for example - was about spreading a working-class revolution to help liberate the proletariat of all countries who were being oppressed. But the end result, of course, was still expansion of Soviet government influence through conflict, which cuts against the idea that nationalism alone creates aggression.
The international socialist may also pardon Soviet aggression by saying it came at a time when war carried much less of the baggage it carries today, including the possibility of total and complete civilian decimation. To be fair, there was a time when war was more like a battlefield chess match, parodied so well here, or a behind-the-scenes government-sponsored venture to plunder at sea (ex: Sir Francis Drake or, later, Horatio Nelson). But that era had come and gone before the rise of the Soviet Union and, even if one were to maintain that the Soviet Union was only part of that era of transition, that same rationale could be used to pardon the aggression of the 'nationalist' countries of the 19th and 20th century and their wars. Instead, catastrophes like the bloodbath at Somme (in the First World War, which Macron incidentally mentions to explain his opposition to nationalism) are held up as to "why we cannot have nationalism" and "what nationalism leads to". If the "we did not know of the danger" excuse is good enough to pardon anti-nationalist aggression, then why should it not pardon nationalist aggression, too?
Another argument is that nationalism leads to dangerously destructive domestic policy. Once again, depictions of nationalism in the 20th century are inserted into the argument - this time, to suggest that nationalism leads to the mistreatment or killing of those who do not fit the nation's ideal. The public has been conditioned to see this connection based on what happened within nationalist states in the 20th century. But a lot of bad things have happened within, and in connection with, anti-nationalist states in the 20th century, too: freedom of speech was all but eliminated, violence was used for political intimidation and mass incarcerations occurred without due process. This happened throughout the West; in the Soviet Union, untold millions were used for slave labour or simply purged from existence, slaughtered en masse and forgotten. Yet few associate the anti-nationalists with such things, unlike the nationalists. Why the double standard?
Today, our state identities are as cloudy and pluralized as ever and look at the aggressive attitude that the one-world, multicultural-globalists have towards Russia; look at the potential collision course between the United States and China, not to mention Iran, Syria or any number of other countries. Each time, the trigger is not nationalism. What we see instead is a conflict for a sphere of ideological, economic or political influence, with geopolitical consequences. And that is the point: even if you take away the nation and even the state, you still have groups competing over how to order society and competing for resources, trying to take advantage of one another. That occurs on a micro-societal level every day, with hostile interactions between individuals. So why is nationalism blamed for something that exists even in nationalism's complete absence?
The reason for the contradiction is simple: the globalists want to discourage nationalism by any means possible simply because they do not want nationalism. Nationalism creates independent communities and borders. Globalists strive for the opposite - a steady flow of uneducated working-class labourers willing to do jobs for the least amount of compensation possible. The globalists want to break down borders to maximize that flow, which helps to keep wages lower than what the market would otherwise create, based on what wages the people were willing to do the work for. The globalists also want to break down borders in order to eliminate the tariffs they must pay on their goods. They want to collude with other globalists in other states to form powerful lobbies at a suprastate level and push common, bare-bone safety and welfare standards while using the maximum reach to dump their products to the maximum number of people possible and generate the maximum amount of wealth (which they hide in non-taxable, off-shore accounts). They want fluid borders to blend together cultures to create a mass culture which they can market to. They also want a single currency to streamline their complex, global business dealings. Most importantly, though, they do not want the will of nations to guide their behavior; they want to guide the behavior of nations.
The European Union is held up as the triumph of all of the globalist ideas above, having fused people of multiple languages and nations into one supra-national body. Its supporters argue that, since Europe began promoting cross-cultural and mass-identity in the European Union (thus breaking down borders and undermining the differences between states) Europe has largely avoided conflict. But is there more to this reality? There are several points to consider.
First of all, the U.S. still has troops on the ground in Europe and, by default, any aggression against the European Union by "x" becomes a conflict between the United States and "x". Accordingly, as long as the world does not wish to initiate conflict with the United States, it will not initiate conflict with the European Union. This dynamic keeps Europe safe - without the European Union having to figure out how to fund or organize its defenses from state to state.
Second of all, no state in the European Union has to worry about the military actions of another state because no state has a major army or needs one, due to the U.S. forces taking care of all the necessary defense obligations. Notably, America took up this role in Europe around 1945, when the opponents of nationalism began to gain power in Europe. Small wonder people falsely assume that Europe's divergence from nationalism, which began at the same time as American overlordship, is the reason for Europe's post-1945 record of relative peace.
Third of all, without any great military expenses, the European Union has a great deal of wealth at its disposal which can be used to fashion the type of society that is credited with preventing war. We see the integration of foreign, uneducated, working-class labourers within a social welfare state that seems to erase division lines - and conflicts - between various groups that would otherwise be driven by economic want and need. At the same time, the integration project is being funded by billionaires like George Soros, who pledge to invest $500 million to help push these migrants into the system and upwards beyond just being undereducated, working class labourers. This sort of stimulus helps to avoid tensions between natives and non-natives over wealth and station - and fights against the sort of stereotypes that could contribute tensions. The move should come as no surprise because, if "cheap wage slaves" were the only thing that the European Union churned out of its immigrant base, the result would look a lot like a South African diamond mine operation at the height of the Apartheid, relocated onto European shores. What would that say about the "triumph" of the European Union as a cross-cultural and multi-national experiment - other than one core group exploiting the other? So, availability of funds for integration - and funding for integration - plays a key role in the European Union's "success" story.
But what can be said of this story as of late - and its integration projects - when some of the very people imported into the country are nevertheless still trying to transform the socio-cultural and political landscape? And what about when these actors perceive that they are in a race to become the majority, and wish to accelerate that change through terrorism?
Ironically, the politics nationalism - opposition to the rise of multiculturalism and fluidity of borders - would have helped prevent what the European Union is now facing. Having embraced multiculturalism and the fluidity of borders, Europe has let in thousands of radical Islamists who are reaching out to Muslims within because they know what is at stake. This is something that America cannot protect Europe from. Note that this emerging conflict has an economic and geopolitical angle, and involves religion. These are themes that seem to pop up time and again, as opposed to nationalism. The thesis that anti-nationalism prevents war and nationalism creates war is propaganda for the blind.
The idea is not new; in fact, it is often held aloft as one of the great "lessons of the 20th century", born from the tragedies of two World Wars (1914 and 1939). The "lesson" about nationalism has inspired policy to chip away at national identities and undermine the differences between states, supposedly in the hopes of creating a universal, peaceful world. But wait: in spite of the subsequent rise of multicultural identity under that system - and the fluidity of borders to erode the understanding of nations - the world has actually been in a constant state of war since the Second World War, when nationalism was supposedly defeated and the new system began its ascendancy under the guidance of the United States.
And that is the thing; although increasingly straightforward about embracing ethnopluralism and globalized liberal democracy, the United States has not gone a single decade since that time without participating in foreign military intervention, whether in Korea, Vietnam or with countless struggles in South America and the Middle East. Of course, one could counter that state interests were at stake. Moreover, during most of this period, the American policy goal was to contain the spread of communism and fight proxy wars to keep the Soviet Union and its allies at bay. But these explanations doubles as an admission that war is not explicitly caused by nationalism.
The theory connecting war to nationalism is debunked even further when you realize that the Soviet Union - the communist-led state which supposedly justified America's aggressive foreign policy - was built around an intense devotion to anti-nationalism, and yet one of the most aggressive powerhouses of the last century. In just a twelve-year period, the anti-nationalist Soviet Union invaded over a dozen countries and attempted to set up satellite states there. Furthermore, although the anti-nationalists bemoan the military industrial complex and are inclined to blame nationalist aggression for war, the Soviet behemoth ended up propping up other powers and fighting proxy wars for its own economic and geopolitical gain. In other words, the force of "anti-nationalism" did the exact sort of thing that nationalism and the nation-state are blamed for.
The international socialist may argue that the aggressive policy of the Soviet Union - invading other countries, for example - was about spreading a working-class revolution to help liberate the proletariat of all countries who were being oppressed. But the end result, of course, was still expansion of Soviet government influence through conflict, which cuts against the idea that nationalism alone creates aggression.
The international socialist may also pardon Soviet aggression by saying it came at a time when war carried much less of the baggage it carries today, including the possibility of total and complete civilian decimation. To be fair, there was a time when war was more like a battlefield chess match, parodied so well here, or a behind-the-scenes government-sponsored venture to plunder at sea (ex: Sir Francis Drake or, later, Horatio Nelson). But that era had come and gone before the rise of the Soviet Union and, even if one were to maintain that the Soviet Union was only part of that era of transition, that same rationale could be used to pardon the aggression of the 'nationalist' countries of the 19th and 20th century and their wars. Instead, catastrophes like the bloodbath at Somme (in the First World War, which Macron incidentally mentions to explain his opposition to nationalism) are held up as to "why we cannot have nationalism" and "what nationalism leads to". If the "we did not know of the danger" excuse is good enough to pardon anti-nationalist aggression, then why should it not pardon nationalist aggression, too?
Another argument is that nationalism leads to dangerously destructive domestic policy. Once again, depictions of nationalism in the 20th century are inserted into the argument - this time, to suggest that nationalism leads to the mistreatment or killing of those who do not fit the nation's ideal. The public has been conditioned to see this connection based on what happened within nationalist states in the 20th century. But a lot of bad things have happened within, and in connection with, anti-nationalist states in the 20th century, too: freedom of speech was all but eliminated, violence was used for political intimidation and mass incarcerations occurred without due process. This happened throughout the West; in the Soviet Union, untold millions were used for slave labour or simply purged from existence, slaughtered en masse and forgotten. Yet few associate the anti-nationalists with such things, unlike the nationalists. Why the double standard?
Typical anti-national propaganda in Europe, circa 2015. "All forms of nationalism lead to Auschwitz!" |
Today, our state identities are as cloudy and pluralized as ever and look at the aggressive attitude that the one-world, multicultural-globalists have towards Russia; look at the potential collision course between the United States and China, not to mention Iran, Syria or any number of other countries. Each time, the trigger is not nationalism. What we see instead is a conflict for a sphere of ideological, economic or political influence, with geopolitical consequences. And that is the point: even if you take away the nation and even the state, you still have groups competing over how to order society and competing for resources, trying to take advantage of one another. That occurs on a micro-societal level every day, with hostile interactions between individuals. So why is nationalism blamed for something that exists even in nationalism's complete absence?
The reason for the contradiction is simple: the globalists want to discourage nationalism by any means possible simply because they do not want nationalism. Nationalism creates independent communities and borders. Globalists strive for the opposite - a steady flow of uneducated working-class labourers willing to do jobs for the least amount of compensation possible. The globalists want to break down borders to maximize that flow, which helps to keep wages lower than what the market would otherwise create, based on what wages the people were willing to do the work for. The globalists also want to break down borders in order to eliminate the tariffs they must pay on their goods. They want to collude with other globalists in other states to form powerful lobbies at a suprastate level and push common, bare-bone safety and welfare standards while using the maximum reach to dump their products to the maximum number of people possible and generate the maximum amount of wealth (which they hide in non-taxable, off-shore accounts). They want fluid borders to blend together cultures to create a mass culture which they can market to. They also want a single currency to streamline their complex, global business dealings. Most importantly, though, they do not want the will of nations to guide their behavior; they want to guide the behavior of nations.
The European Union is held up as the triumph of all of the globalist ideas above, having fused people of multiple languages and nations into one supra-national body. Its supporters argue that, since Europe began promoting cross-cultural and mass-identity in the European Union (thus breaking down borders and undermining the differences between states) Europe has largely avoided conflict. But is there more to this reality? There are several points to consider.
First of all, the U.S. still has troops on the ground in Europe and, by default, any aggression against the European Union by "x" becomes a conflict between the United States and "x". Accordingly, as long as the world does not wish to initiate conflict with the United States, it will not initiate conflict with the European Union. This dynamic keeps Europe safe - without the European Union having to figure out how to fund or organize its defenses from state to state.
Second of all, no state in the European Union has to worry about the military actions of another state because no state has a major army or needs one, due to the U.S. forces taking care of all the necessary defense obligations. Notably, America took up this role in Europe around 1945, when the opponents of nationalism began to gain power in Europe. Small wonder people falsely assume that Europe's divergence from nationalism, which began at the same time as American overlordship, is the reason for Europe's post-1945 record of relative peace.
Third of all, without any great military expenses, the European Union has a great deal of wealth at its disposal which can be used to fashion the type of society that is credited with preventing war. We see the integration of foreign, uneducated, working-class labourers within a social welfare state that seems to erase division lines - and conflicts - between various groups that would otherwise be driven by economic want and need. At the same time, the integration project is being funded by billionaires like George Soros, who pledge to invest $500 million to help push these migrants into the system and upwards beyond just being undereducated, working class labourers. This sort of stimulus helps to avoid tensions between natives and non-natives over wealth and station - and fights against the sort of stereotypes that could contribute tensions. The move should come as no surprise because, if "cheap wage slaves" were the only thing that the European Union churned out of its immigrant base, the result would look a lot like a South African diamond mine operation at the height of the Apartheid, relocated onto European shores. What would that say about the "triumph" of the European Union as a cross-cultural and multi-national experiment - other than one core group exploiting the other? So, availability of funds for integration - and funding for integration - plays a key role in the European Union's "success" story.
But what can be said of this story as of late - and its integration projects - when some of the very people imported into the country are nevertheless still trying to transform the socio-cultural and political landscape? And what about when these actors perceive that they are in a race to become the majority, and wish to accelerate that change through terrorism?
Ironically, the politics nationalism - opposition to the rise of multiculturalism and fluidity of borders - would have helped prevent what the European Union is now facing. Having embraced multiculturalism and the fluidity of borders, Europe has let in thousands of radical Islamists who are reaching out to Muslims within because they know what is at stake. This is something that America cannot protect Europe from. Note that this emerging conflict has an economic and geopolitical angle, and involves religion. These are themes that seem to pop up time and again, as opposed to nationalism. The thesis that anti-nationalism prevents war and nationalism creates war is propaganda for the blind.