Nationalism is back, and it's a good thing

It is Western "universalism", the old wolf of imperialism in lamb's clothing, that is questionable

Left-liberals may not like it, but nationalism has been making a comeback almost everywhere. The first phase began with the shrinking of the British and European empires in Asia and Africa. However, as we entered the Cold War, two alternative ideas of internationalism emerged, one led by America and the other by the Soviet Union. Starting with the collapse of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia in the 1980s, Russia’s western periphery and eastern Europe broke up into nationalist states.

It was presumed that as some of these states ceded sovereignty by entering the European Union, a new era of internationalism would emerge. Contrary to expectations, however, we find that at the very heart of the EU — western Europe — nationalist forces are rising again. In recent elections, every country, from Germany to France, Austria, Italy and even the Nordic states, has seen the rise of the so-called Far Right parties, the latest being Geert Wilders’ anti-Islamist Freedom Party (PVV) in the Netherlands.

Mr Wilders, who has made some over-the-top comments against Islam, has shocked Left-liberals all over and serious efforts are being made to keep him out of government. But no amount of deliberate name-calling and pejorative labelling of such parties as “Far Right”, “racist” or Fascist is going to change the reality that many countries, including those at the core of “liberal” Europe and America, are swinging towards nationalism.

What these nationalist parties are essentially against are two things: One, allowing culturally-disruptive elements from entering their countries and upsetting traditional value systems; and two, allowing supra-national institutions like the EU from undermining their cultural inheritance and addressing obvious vulnerability to demographic aggression. Britain’s exit from the EU, and the rise of Donald Trump’s America First sloganeering, are additional indications of the rise of nationalism in the Anglo-Saxon world.

In India, we have seen the rise of the “Hindu nationalist” Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in most parts of northern, western and even eastern and north-eastern India, as demonstrated by the recent state Assembly elections to Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan. The only holdouts are the deep south, especially Kerala and Tamil Nadu, which are the last redoubts of the Left-liberal elites. However, even here, the BJP has been in power in one state, and has made gains in another (Telangana) recently. Despite faux “liberals” doing everything in their power to deepen the north-south divide to keep the BJP out, the south is unlikely to remain forbidden territory for the saffron party forever. The fact that these southern states have forcibly extended control over all Hindu religious institutions and temples, but not churches and mosques, shows that they are not against using state power to prevent Hindu nationalist re-assertion in the south.

While it is fair to be wary of jingoism, why is it considered sacrilege to see normal nationalism as legitimate? Why is Western “universalism” and globalism the only way to govern the world? Is the artificial imposition of a “universal” value system an indirect way of making neo-imperialism palatable?

One intellectual countering these false narratives about nationalism is Israeli Conservative thinker Yoram Hazony. His 2018 book, The Virtue of Nationalism, has not received the kind of international attention it deserves, especially in India, where nationalism is repeatedly being conflated with Nazism and used as a stick to beat the BJP government with.

The massive loss of lives in the First and Second World Wars, the rise of Hitler, and the Jewish holocaust made it easy for globalists to mislabel nationalism as a threat to peace. But was Hitler a nationalist, or a German racist and imperialist? A nationalist, by definition, works for his people within boundaries, but when this boundary extends to creating an empire, we are talking imperial power or neo-colonialism, not nationalism. After the war, the EU was created to end all wars, but Europe is now back at war over Ukraine. And if German imperialism has ebbed, America’s defence guarantees to Europe effectively make it an imperial power in Europe. The whole of Europe is now subservient to US strategic interests.

In the world of ideas and ideology, what we call universal values are not necessarily that universal. They are Western ideological developments thrust on the whole world by declaring them as fundamental values. The “liberal” project, says Mr Hazony, is about expanding Western hegemony by calling it universal, when universalism is nothing more than ideological imperialism by another name.

Mr Hazony says that the normal meanings of words like nation and nationalism have been replaced by the global elite with words that are imperialist in intent, but seem more palatable. Imperialist projects are now described with words and phrases like “rules-based order”, “global governance”, “openness”, “pooled sovereignty” or “globalisation.” Every country now has to acknowledge that Western liberalism constitutes the “the right side of history,” or face a blowback.

Mr Hazony is clear that globalism is just a new form of imperialism, and refuses to compromise with the new elitist terminology by accepting the replacement words for nationalism with “patriotism” or even “civic nationalism”. The purpose of these euphemisms is to “remove decision-making from the hands of independent national governments and place it in the hands of international governments or bodies.” He does not add that most of these bodies are unelected.

In the conception of these global elites, only two things matter: Individual rights, and a legitimate state that free peoples have consented to be part of. The primary relationship is between individual and state, and all other human relationships and institutions — family, clan, tribe, caste, race, or religion — are illegitimate if found to be in conflict with these two notions.

While the Anglo-Saxon view of a world defined by rights rather than relationships is a valid way of thinking for those nations that believe in it,

Mr Hazony points out that “liberal theories of the rule of law, the market economy, and individual rights — all evolved in the domestic context of national states such as Britain, the Netherlands, and America.” They are specific to the cultures they evolved in, and cannot be termed universal by any means. While some of these values may be shared at least in part by other cultures, none will share them in toto, thus making them fit for imposition as “universal values”.

In Mr Hazony’s view, it is the nation that is the obvious level at which traditional groups — families, clans, tribes, and castes — can be organised effectively into a state with ties of mutual loyalty, even though all nations will have minorities of various kinds. But, as long as the dominant nationalist groups define a sensible set of rules for fair play, minority interests can be protected.

Whether liberals like it or not, nationalism, whether defined in racial, civilisational, or other terms, is back with a bang. It is imperialism masquerading as universalism that is the ideological interloper — and thus partly illegitimate. True universalism calls for independent nations to voluntarily agree to a set of rules that will apply to all, and not one where order is imposed from above by a small, unelected “liberal” elite that works to the advantage only of the rule-setter. It is time to give nationalism its due.

The writer is editorial director, Swarajya magazine