Should All Nationalism Now be Considered Evil?

By Henry Srebrnik, [Summerside, PEI] Journal Pioneer

For as long as I’ve been teaching university courses on nationalism, the literature in the field has contrasted civic and ethnic nationalism.

The former was seen as liberal and inclusive, while the latter, in which sovereignty was based on ethnic self-determination, was viewed somewhat suspiciously. It had, some felt, the potential of veering off into racism and fascism. 

The nationalism in old established nation-states could be both – if a country was very homogenous, such as France, Portugal, or Sweden, there was no reason to choose.

These could be nations as democratic as those founded along a political ideal, such as the United States.

But in the 21^st century, something strange has happened. The old idea of civic nationalism, as a counterweight to the ethnic variety, is disappearing, as political elites on the left have become globalists.

Nowadays, left-wing liberals in Europe and North America are jettisoning the idea of nationalism altogether, in favour of various versions of “cosmopolitan democracy.”

The Democratic Party in the United States is now a coalition of ethnic and gender sub-groups; it seems to believe in what amounts to open borders. 

In Canada, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has proclaimed himself a “post-nationalist.” This would surely have been a surprise to his father Pierre, who fought for a distinctive Canadian identity, replacing the organic “founding nations” narrative by one that was civic and open to all.

French President Emmanuel Macron recently called patriotism “the exact opposite of nationalism.” Since when have these been antonyms? This, from the leader of the republic whose national anthem is “La Marseillaise.” 

For Macron, “patriotism” means putting the European Union above France, the nation. In this, he more resembles Marshal Philippe Pétain, who led Vichy France under Nazi occupation during World War II and served Hitler’s “New Order” in Europe, than resistance leader Charles de Gaulle, who was the patriot — and nationalist.

Donald Trump is now assailed as a proponent of ethnic nationalism. But this is nonsense – Americans are a political nation, based on their adherence to the country’s constitution, which is in effect contractual. 

The country was formed through a voluntary union of people who rebelled against an empire. There is no American “ethnicity.” Indeed, the old “melting pot” ideal was the very antithesis of ethnic nationalism. American nationalism is inherently inclusive.

Liberal globalists fail to distinguish what is legitimate and justifiable in nationalism from what is small-minded and bigoted. Their cosmopolitanism, which advocates open borders, free trade, and rampant outsourcing, brands nationalist sentiments as nativist xenophobia.

Are nationalists like Egypt’s Nasser, India’s Nehru, and Ghana’s Nkrumah now villains?

Political philosopher Yoram Hazony makes the case for a renewed appreciation of the national state. In Hazony’s view, the history of mankind since the invention of the state is the history of two competing principles: nationalism, or the principle that the world should be divided up among a multiplicity of self-governing nations, and empire, which he defines as any order “whose purpose is to bring peace and prosperity by uniting mankind under a single political regime.” 

Empires today include those based on “liberal imperialism,” embodied in the European Union and, since the collapse of the Soviet Union, in the American-led “new world order.”

Hazony agrees with Oxford University professor Jan Zielonka, who in his study of empires and their “civilising missions,” also asserts that the U.S. and the EU possess all the characteristics of empires, albeit in diverse forms.

The rise of globalism among Western elites should be understood, according to Hazony, as the re-emergence of the ideology of an imperial ruling class that sees strong commitments to the nation as threats to the unity of the empire.

Hazony maintains that liberal imperialism has replaced national self-determination as the ideal world order in the minds of Western elites. And it denigrates the particular traditions, beliefs, and loyalties that are the foundation of actual nations.

But if all versions of nationalism are going to be defined in a negative light, this will end up driving patriotic citizens into the arms of those right-wing nationalists so abhorred by the globalists.

After all, observes Bard College professor Sean McMeekin, in countries where memories of devastating invasions, civil wars and foreign occupations remain fresh, “firm national identities and secure frontiers are bulwarks against catastrophe.”