On a short note: What is nationalism?
Nationalism is a way of thinking. That's a stupid phrase to start an article with, but I can't put it more accurately; nationalism is a way of 'thinking the world'. This is what we learn at school: The world consists of countries. All land on this earth is divided into national states. And these national states represent the people that live in it, at least in the eyes of those that live elsewhere in the world. National states are sovereign, their territorial integrity is inviolable, and their inhabitants constitute a unity that is ethnically and culturally distinct from whatever lies around it.
That's how many people, not to say most of them, perceive the world outside their own national context. Now look at this:
In reality, our 'world of nations' does not exist anymore. Globalisation has done the job already decades ago - at least here in Europe. The place where this 'world of nations' still exists is our own heads. And nationalism surges where those people that are fond of their 'world of nations' concept are confronted with our globalised reality, and feel pushed into defence.
We should all be aware that we are part of a global community meanwhile. We cannot defend our interests just out of our own miserable national loophole. If we want to have any future, we must overcome our borders, through economic integration, through cultural exchange - and not through re-establishing border controls in the imbecile hope of fencing out undesirable elements from our sacrosanct homes.
It is the responsibility of our governments to facilitate this change of mentality. We must learn about Europe in school. We must hear about Europe in the media. We must elect European parties during European elections, and not national parties that campaign for national interests in a European context. We have a lot to do, but our work in society can only be complementary to what is done by our politicians...
Tell it to you children as soon as you have some! And in the meantime, have a look at this very nice manifesto that I can personally very much identify with.
Thomas, your article stands out for the European unity that we, members of AEGEE should totally support. However, your lines raised some questions for me, so I took the liberty to share my point of view on nationalism and European Union.
ReplyDeleteWe really need to build up an ever closer Europe, hence nowdays we face with problems that can only be dealt on European level (financial crisis, massive unemployment of the youth, etc.), but when building up "Europe" we also have traditions to keep. Europe's curiosity is in the cultural colourfullness and the common values of its members. The death of the nations would mean the death of cultural diversity too, and this would be a great loss for Europe.
Globalization is too complex phenomenon to simply declare the death of the nations. I agree that globalization declined national sovereignty, but on the other hand it was Germany who regained some pieces of her national sovereignty within the EC after WW2. Germany now has a strong voice in the EU and the European monetary policy is strongly influenced by Germany, so she multiplied its power in the EU.
We have never forget that it is nation-states who can integrate societies in the EU - people twit to nations through their social systems and the common experiences. Since than nobody could create the European identity, which is a basic problem in my opinion. And if it doesn't change, the election of European Parties won't solve the problem of nationalism. We need to raise real European politicians first, and this is our common task: we need to grab the chance to talk about Europe publicly. We need to bring the EU closer to the European citizens!
Béla Fábián
AEGEE-Budapest
Local IPWG member
If there is a 'death of nations' I look foreward to the 'birth of mankind'.
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