Lordre: nationalism

Showing posts with label nationalism. Show all posts

Irish unity would be fair, but also destabilising

Sinn Féin is set to be the largest party in the Northern Ireland Assembly, after the results in local elections that took place in the United Kingdom on May 5.

What has happened pushes the UK towards a perhaps inevitable breakup, as Sinn Féin has long sought a united island of Ireland, which would be noble if they can secure majority support in Northern Ireland for it.

A return to Great Britain?

The people of Britain actually have no need for Ireland. If we were to lose Northern Ireland, the imposing name of the “Kingdom of Great Britain” (or just Great Britain) could be restored as the official one, as could the flag of 1707-1801, which British troops carried to war against America and France. Such days were hardly those of a lesser power, as we are now.

Even if things went a step further, and Scotland was also to gain independence, England would likely remain a powerhouse, keeping the neighbouring countries in its influence, unless the European Union was to actively work against such sway

Unionist backlash

The only peril may come from unionists in Northern Ireland, and their ties to that land, in the event that they refuse to accept the breakup of the country they were loyal to. Political radicals and aggrieved parties often end up punching above their weight, and it is not atypical that they can take a whole country hostage with their politics.

As well as a surge in violence taking place within a united Ireland, possibly drawing in outside forces such as the European Union, there is a greater risk of political radicals fleeing Northern Ireland to assume huge influence within the newly diminished Great Britain. Should anything atrocious befall the unionists residing in the united Ireland, or even a murmur of it, it would result in radical transformations of opinion in Great Britain, creating increasingly hostile English feelings towards Ireland and its EU backers. As well as undermining Scottish independence (assuming Irish unity occurs first), a wave of unionism finding a home in Great Britain could also be big enough to turn policy in London in an aggressive or revanchist direction. If Scotland in turn got independence, further flight of radical British nationalists into England could make them even more concentrated and capable of influencing London.

The return of England

In the most extreme course of future events, breakup could result in an English war not just with Scotland and Ireland but, by proxy, with old enemies like France, Spain and Germany via the European Union as the Scots and Irish will warm to them rather than the ostracised England.

The war on Russia's periphery in Ukraine exposes new vulnerabilities for all nuclear-armed powers, revealing that they are not as invulnerable as they had assumed and that the victors of the Second World War have no guarantee of security. Having a nuclear deterrent doesn't prevent conflict being actively inflamed by outside competitors on your doorstep, or result in the adjacent non-nuclear power standing down if you use force. The informal understanding that nuclear powers cannot incite a proxy to directly attack each other's territory and infrastructure is also gone, now. Now, everyone will be just expected to refrain from using nuclear weapons, as long as sneaky enough methods are being used to kill us and there is not a direct clash. This change may cause huge displeasure to Britain in the future, since it creates new rules that put the country in a new state of vulnerability. It allows the peril of a return to past ages, when Scotland was eligible as a French proxy against England.

Restored medieval conflicts

The idea of an English-EU clash reigniting Medieval-era tensions may seem farfetched, but it is not. Medieval leaders were not less civilised or educated in statehood than modern leaders. Some conflicts are inevitable, just because of the configuration of pieces on the board.

England has a much vaster population than Scotland or Ireland. It is not too hard to predict, if the UK breaks up, that these countries will be afraid and possibly even hateful of the economically and militarily giant England after being estranged from it. The temptation to bring in France or other European powers as protectors, and English resentment at this course of events, would be almost inevitable.

Nationalism, however benign at first, can unleash unpredictable and long-buried forces, as it did after the collapse of the Soviet Union. It can create opportunities for outside interference that will jeopardise a country’s security.

When an arrangement works peacefully, like the Union, it is best to treasure it and not to change it, even if we would personally prefer things to be different. This is the same case with the monarchy.

US President Joe Biden claimed on camera that “America” can be defined with a single word, before mumbling unintelligibly.

There is, of course, the fact that nothing can actually be defined with a single word, because successfully giving another word merely amounts to providing a synonym rather than a definition. Despite that, Biden was in some ways revealing a truth when he mumbled unintelligibly as a way of describing what America represents.

Biden may have meant to say freedom or constitutionality, or some special word combining both to present some firm principle the nation stands for, but America stands for no principles, so such content might as well have been garbled.

Why stand for principles, when there is power?

America is currently standing for something unintelligible and apparently garbled, as it represents no firm principles on any issue whatsoever. Principles are simply the enemies of power, and America loves power.

The willingness to stand for nothing would not normally be a problem for a national government, which is simply the governing authority over a piece of terrain. However, it is a problem for the United States, which keeps trying to declare that it stands for some principle or another, before promptly stepping on that principle like a rake and being accused of hypocrisy, because it loves power.

Hypocrisy in American rule is most obvious in international affairs, where the US does whatever augments its power (from coups to invasions) and confusingly describes it as somehow an advancement of “freedom” while decrying similar excesses by anyone else.

The best example of the US failing to represent anything may be in the fallout over the events of January 6, 2021. In those events, one side represented freedom and the other side represented the lawful authority, and yet both ended up encapsulating the contradiction inherent to any ruling regime that declares freedom its central value.

A demented ideology

The United States doesn’t just have a demented leader. The idea of these two cohabiting values of liberty and regime loyalty is a demented one in the first place, and the source of every political argument in the United States from the moment it was created in resistance to British rule, to the Civil War, to the January 6 events, to the current noxious political movements in America.

The US is only capable of presenting a demented, paradoxical vision that sows the seeds of crisis and civil war at home and abroad, making its international influence fundamentally destabilising. Rather than being a clever plot, the destruction wrought by US involvement overseas is actually just the result of the country's own incompetence and confusion, born of the contradiction of trying to have a liberal-authoritarian ideology.

The American empire is the creator of its own problems. It is inherently unstable and continuously sabotaged by itself, despite innumerable chances at world domination, because its current regime is based on a bizarre paradox of liberal rhetoric and authoritarian power, meaning it can produce no stable order or even be properly understood by its own supporters.

Far from being exceptional, America is just another country that will come and go, an accident born of accidents, with no sensible inscribed principles that ever made it superior to anyone.

Noam Chomsky asserted in his book, Media Control, that the corporate media had an ability to trigger totalitarian behaviour in people, stating "the educated masses goose-step on command and repeat the slogans they’re supposed to repeat".

America's history of making excuses for fascist types in Latin America and Eastern Europe, coupled with the veneration of police state figures at home and panic among elites at their collapsing economic and military power, could lay a path for our nations into actual fascism.

Sanitising fascism

As evidence accumulates that we in the West are supporting Nazis in Ukraine, such that even NATO itself is unable to avoid sharing evidence of these Nazis and then hurriedly deleting it, we may see excuses made for radical nationalism and fascism. It is accompanied by our own anti-Russian propaganda, sometimes rivalling the work of the Nazis, as we become enamoured with the monsters we support.

Nazism in Ukraine, however explicit, is uniquely weaponised and directed against the local ethnic Russians, such that Jews in Ukraine are seemingly able to avoid being hurt by it. But, as anyone who was properly educated at school knows, the selected scapegoat makes no difference to whether fascism is fascism. Portraying the West's declared enemies such as Russians, Muslims or the Chinese as subhuman is as wrong as anti-Semitism.

Unfortunately, as Chomsky points out, educated people in the West seem able to forget their entire moral code and education when the media simply claims that things are different this time, and that fascistic sentiment is now necessary. They are then okay with calling for the death or silencing of those who oppose us. Making special exceptions where it is okay to censor or even murder people when we are told is a masterclass in turning a peaceful person into a monster.

The subconscious drift to fascism

Part of the reason for fascism is the feeling that one's country was meant to be the most successful, the best of them all, but that traitors and fifth columnists are hampering it. In the past, that was the essence of anti-communism. Today, the communists are simply "Russians", the word used for essentially anyone on the internet who contradicts the narrative, despite no evidence of any link to Moscow.

There has been a tragic history of the United States relying on fascists to secure its goals in South and Central America, and the US is typically aligned with the most reactionary forces around the world. This is no different in Ukraine, where, from the beginning, the US took as its allies the most violent nationalists and fascists it could find, and portrayed them as liberals to gullible audiences at first. Now, though, the audience is actually becoming illiberal, drawn more and more into pure hatred and flag-waving.

As the West declines in the face of a rising China, and is confronted by the unprecedented failure of its sanctions policy, statements from Western journalists and politicians can only be expected to become more deranged. As economic and financial punishments fail against rival countries for the first time, a new ideology that justifies the magnification of military force, terroristic violence, and the creation of vast armies may be demanded. As refugees flee Ukraine, many still with sympathies to fascism, and are lionised, it is possible that the Western media will engage in revisionism and justifications for a for at least a few variants of fascism.

Ukraine to be the model for the declining West?

Russia has been afraid for some time that World War Two could be rewritten by the West, in a way that puts all the blame on the Soviet Union. It could get worse. As Russia is increasingly vilified, Ukrainian Nazi collaborators are redeemed in Western eyes, and the usefulness of fascist thugs becomes increasingly attractive to Western elites, not just abroad but potentially at home.

Because the US is okay with bans on media in Ukraine, it is okay with bans on media at home. Because the US is okay with a war on terror abroad, it is okay with a war on terror at home. Does the US's support for fascist thugs on the streets in Ukraine mean that fascist thugs will be accepted on the streets at home?

Now, some will want to stop me here and attempt to make the case that groups like Black Lives Matter (BLM) or Antifa are the local variants of fascism. They are similarly lionised to the Ukrainian nationalists, and excuses are made for their violence in the US. Others will say this is different, because these are the anti-fascists. But are they? Anti-fascists may be expected to use reason, and explain exactly why fascism is wrong. The BLM and Antifa movements are not rationalist movements. Their followers are just addicted to the dopamine rush they get from being supported in the media and in the currents of social media. The ideology matters not.

Swastikas of freedom

It is not unrealistic to estimate that if the media began to fly the swastika, at first pitching it as a maligned anti-Russian "freedom" symbol, a fair majority of the self-styled advocates of BLM, Antifa and other social justice causes would steadily convert not just to fascism but to Nazism. Moreover, the amount of effort needed to convert a majority of Western society to Nazi ideology would require one week to one month of television broadcasts, social media hashtags, and some entertainment and education-related boycotts and products being cancelled by certain key companies. In total, it would only require the staff at the top of several organisations such as CNN, Facebook and Twitter to collaborate on achieving it.

What if Western policy elites responsible for backing extremists abroad should now decide that establishing full fascism at home is the way to mobilise the United States and the West to defend their hegemony? They are disturbingly well-equipped to do it. They have so far been able to pressure the previously mentioned types of organisation into adhering to their strategy. The informal hierarchy placing the US foreign policy elites and spooks over the media lackeys is obvious in the shocking speed at which propaganda is disseminated everywhere, and, as Chomsky said, we can be made to goose-step on command.

On 21 March, French President Emmanuel Macron was reported to have absurdly claimed that opposing Israel is treasonous, referring to "anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism" as "enemies of the Republic", according to France 24.

Macron's statement is unfortunate for him, if anyone of a reasonable mind is to read it, for a variety of reasons. For one thing, despite how stupid and evil it is, racism (and the specific variants of it, such as anti-Semitism) is absolutely not any form of treason. Racism is more likely to be a trait of people with staunch national loyalty than those who would become traitors, so even the seemingly good part of Macron's statement is factually incorrect. If you doubt me, consider whether virtually every national hero in French history is likely to have shared modern sensibilities that allow us to reject racism. Saying racists are enemies of France would be a drunken and illogical remark.

What country is Macron loyal to?

The especially bad part of Macron's reported statement is his own expression of intolerance toward the criticism of Israel (anti-Zionism). Here, he accidentally fails to expose any traitorous behaviour other than his own. Demanding some form of allegiance to a foreign government by condemning all criticism of it would make Macron himself the enemy of the Republic.

Even impolite, more objectionable criticisms of Israel, statements that Israel is an enemy and must be bombed, and so forth, would not be incompatible with being loyal to France. Those statements may be incredible irresponsible, and they could even be criminal, but being loyal to France is solely defined by one's relationship to France and not to other countries supported by Emmanuel Macron.

America forcing loyalty to Israel

What Macron was trying to do, and what other French politicians are likely trying to do, is something that has also been done in the United States and has been advocated in Germany by some lawmakers. In the United States, people are forced by law in some states and government bodies to pledge their allegiance to Israel. US Conservative politicians see supporting Israel at all costs as essential to America, and their blind fervour drives them to extreme hostility towards Muslims.

Muslims are unable to accept Al-Quds as the capital of a hostile country that undermines their rights, and their religion would require them to be anti-Zionist. Trying to criminalise belief and brand millions of Muslims as internal enemies is not only unjustified but may put the people doing this on the same moral footing as anti-Semites, specifically the 1930s anti-Semites who created the Nuremberg Laws.

The European Union's attempt to impose a liberal monoculture on all member states risks destroying the entire EU project.

Unelected EU authorities, in this case foreign judges at the European Court of Justice (ECJ), have clashed with the parliaments of sovereign states that represent nations comprised of millions of people, threatening them with funding cuts.

Progress forced

Far from "democratic values", what the EU says it wants to impose on Poland and Hungary using funding cuts as a weapon amounts to some specific cultural changes. It is in the hope of changing their stubborn attitudes to LGBT content and immigration, that resistant countries are to undergo this forced conversion to the Euro-liberal ideology. Even if one supports this ideology and considers it to be a fulfilment of social progress, funding cuts seem like an awful way of achieving it.

The EU wants the power to ensure that the next generation in places like Poland are educated and inculcated in such as way that they will share the EU bureaucrats' cultural opinions, and will help stamp out their own local Catholic traditions and values. Without the monolithic liberal monoculture, which the Pope referred to as one-track thinking, the ideological righteousness and uniformity of a superstate can be in jeopardy.

Siege against the majority

What is happening is a basic failure of statecraft that creates significant division in even one country, let alone a confederation of multiple nation states. It is a rejection of the sovereignty of a people, which always leads to the oppression of that people. One cannot impose compliance with a set of cultural norms on a region or nation without oppression, such as as this financial siege the EU now threatens on disobedient countries.

Action by the EU is also unlikely to improve the situation for minorities the EU supposedly wants to make life easier for. They too will be hit by indiscriminate financial punishment of a country. As well as being morally problematic, financial punishment of a country due to the majority sentiment against a minority is folly from a pragmatic point of view. It may only increase acts of hostility by majority against minority, with the latter being now associated with a foreign siege against the nation, thereby having the opposite effect to what the EU hoped, even if the nation eventually yields.

Disregard for sovereignty

The utter disdain for the self-determination of nations, the very basis of democracy, being displayed by the EU is yet another manifestation of a familiar colonial arrogance. This disdain is part of the same mindset that brought Western armies to Afghanistan, only to cause more suffering and problems before falling back in retreat after twenty years of failed vision.

Many people value their national culture and identity more than any economic benefit, which drove Brexit against unheeded warnings of empty shelves and queues. Rather than give in, people in places like Poland should be prepared to endure significant hardship to resist and abandon an imperious confederation

If the Poles eventually decide they have had enough of the EU, they can always look to the seas, learn from Britain, and count on us as a trading partner. In addition, it would not take long for other countries to leave.

It is no accident that the opponents of racism are also often the opponents of war. That's because war causes racism, racism causes war, and warmongers have the moral character of the most violent racists.

Anti-Asian hate crimes in New York City rose by well over three hundred percent, in December. In San Francisco, they rose by over five hundred percent. Such attacks are taking place after Donald "the China virus" Trump left office.

Is this a random occurrence, or could it be tied to the that hate-filled rhetoric against China - or, to use the preferred term - "the Chinese"? Could it be the work of those who want us to believe we live on the verge of some great and imbecilic call to arms for the nation? 1914, repeated as farce?

Jingoism and violence

The endless, riotous war talk against "the Chinese" and "the Russians", portraying people's nationality as an inherently negative feature, deliberately peddled by politicians in the US and the UK, whips up paranoia and hate. Ironically, it will engender bigotry towards Eastern European people as much as the Russians, and towards Pacific Islanders as much as the Chinese.

Jingoistic hate speech, protected by things like parliamentary privilege in the UK, is typical of political discourse one might expect a hundred years ago. Skeletons are crying out to us to shut up and learn something from the past.

The disease of warmongering

If the purpose of democracy is to elect moral representatives, it has proven to be an ineffective filter in the US and UK, instead collecting some of the most vile specimens who can be summoned in human form. Those we flatter as "hawks" are better characterised as boils on the flesh of humanity.

Many of the warmongers in the US Senate and Congress have stocks in American defence contractors and are essentially war profiteers. Those who don't, yet still pursue the militarist rhetoric of interference and domination in foreign conflicts, are more contemptible. They, for the sake of the flaws of their own narcissistic personalities, perpetuate suffering and prejudice for nothing more than personal glory and machismo.

A curious specimen of belief is that of the person who has converted not to a new religion, but a new nationality. Often, the results are similar.

The person who converts to another nationality will often adopt for himself the most idealised, rosy picture of their new identity. They take everything about their new identity a little bit too seriously, and won't relax.

They don't really understand what they have joined, but they are suddenly a big zealot about it and want to fight for it.

Mr Freedom

Those types of people I am referring to will often go to ridiculous extremes to label themselves as part of their new identity, possibly even having a flag or symbol tattooed on their bodies. Some of them might alter their names to something ridiculous, that they think fits their new nationality.

This may be the case with some Indian converts to Britishness, although I can't be sure and don't want to unfairly caricature a group of people. They may idolise the British monarch and wear jewellery featuring Union Jacks and state symbols - something few normal British people would do.

Worst of all, these new adoptees of the nation will often defend any policy of the government, even if they do not understand it, and will be quick to call others traitors. They become the worst caricature of chauvinism.

Immigrants against immigration

Although they are immigrants, the types of individuals I am talking about will often seek out right-wing groups and denigrate other immigrants. In fact, these immigrants often want to stop immigration, slamming the door on others just like them who would have followed them.

Joining a different community, a different culture, is a bit more complicated than getting a passport or being confirmed in a church. In fact, when people like this adopt the new identity and become militants in its name, they accidentally denigrate and mock their new community.

They turn themselves into a parody of the identity they hoped to join, they mistakenly insult the flags they hoped to wave. They doom themselves to be the butt of jokes, rather than truly accepted into the nation.

Infiltrators

Sometimes, people join a new nation or religion in hope of inciting it to war against those they do not like.

It may also be the case with asylum seekers. Asylum seekers, as opposed to economic migrants, are prone to be critics of the regime in their former country, and therefore may advocate a war against their former country, as Cuban refugees in Miami do. These are not model citizens. Their grudges have turned them into snakes, who imperil their new adoptive country with a conflict not in its interest.

People who remain part of their community of birth seem more likely to be mature, balanced individuals. The best immigrants will still carry their original national identity and pride with them somewhere.

There is a reason why countries are careful about who they accept as new citizens, and why the process often takes long. It is meant to filter out obvious evildoers, but also the unbalanced people and those with false expectations or understandings.

France has reportedly altered its national flag, swapping out the lighter shade of blue for a darker one. It no longer matches the blue of the European Union's flag.

It may be that the change of blue, returning to the colours of the French Revolution that were carried by the French in the Napoleonic Wars and both world wars, does not signify anything. It was probably made on the request of high-ranking military officers who preferred the old colours.

An attempt to win over conservatives and nationalists?

Although the French government has downplayed the change, a Twitter poll by Euronews showed an overwhelming preference for the darker colour as of today, suggesting it is a welcome move.

There is speculation that the change is a subtle expression of resentment towards the EU, but this is unlikely. The current French administration has made no move away from the European Union, and staunchly supports it.

We can guess that older French people would prefer the darker blue they knew in their youth, while the younger may be more familiar with the lighter shade. Given that French President Emmanuel Macron's biggest political competitors are conservatives, the move could have been calculated to provoke a debate that will win Macron some affection from French nationalists who would otherwise vote for his rivals.

Nothing at all?

Based on the official news reports, there is nothing much to say. The change of blues occurred in July last year and went unnoticed. The significance of what happened has probably been exaggerated.

Ultimately, there may be no meaning behind the change other than an adherence to the wishes of those officials who frequently are present at the Élysée Palace. It may not ultimately even apply anywhere other than that one site.

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