Published on 07/4/2012

Dr. Katheleen Wilkes (1946-2003), during her speech at the University of Zagreb in 2001: A charming thought to start a rather depressing talk. Johann Gottfried von Herder, in 1791: “How wonderfully has Nature separated nations, not only by woods and mountains, seas and deserts, rivers and climates, but most particularly by languages, inclinations and characters, so that the work of subjugating despotism might be rendered more difficult...”

Kathy Wilkes at the University of Zagreb in 2001, part 1

Dr. Kathleen Vaughan Wilkes at the University of Zagreb in 2001

Some of the recipients of Doctorate Honoris Causa from the University of Zagreb: William J. Perry, Margaret Thatcher, Kathaleen Vaughan Willkes

On the left Professor Branko Jeren, Chancellor of the University of Zagreb

Dr. Kathleen Vuaghan Wilkes (1946-2003) with Professor Branko Jeren.
She is a honorary citzien of the City of Dubrovnik since 1993.
She died in Oxford, and according to her last wish, her ashes have been strewn over see in the City of Dubrovnik. Photo from 1999.

Diploma of Dr Honoris Causa title of the University of Zagreb, printed in Latin language.

Predavanje održano 22. svibnja 2001. u auli Sveučilišta u Zagrebu

Dr. Kathleen Vaughan Wilkes

Globalizacija i nacionalizam

Za početak prilično sumornog govora, zgodna misao Johanna Gottfrieda von Herdera iz 1971.:
"Kako je Priroda čudesno razdvojila nacije ne samo šumama i planinama, morima i pustinjama, rijekama i klimama, nego posebice i jezicima, sklonostima i osobinama samo da bi djelovanje podjarmljujućeg despotizma učinila što težim …"

Tijekom nekoliko posljednjih mjeseci vidjeli smo mnogo prosvjeda protiv "globalizacije". Došlo je do "Bitke u Seattleu", izgreda u Washingtonu, tučnjava u Pragu, a posljednjih dana svibnja i do demonstracija – nekih mirnih, nekih manje mirnih – u Berlinu, Sydneyju, Londonu i desecima drugih mjesta.

Nejasno je što su točno ti prosvjednici i demonstranti željeli postići. U Londonu je, primjerice, bilo anarhista koji su tražili sukob ili su željeli provaliti u banke i vladine zgrade i zauzeti ih (ili tek razbiti nekoliko izloga i nešto opljačkati); bilo je zabrinutih za planetarno onečišćenje i zakrčenost prometa; onih koji brinu zbog sve većeg jaza između bogatih i siromašnih zemalja te zbog načina na koji MMF/Svjetska banka postupa prema zemljama u razvoju; bilo je onih iz Udruženja za zaštitu interesa seljaka (Countryside Alliance) i onih koji žele zabraniti lov na lisice psima, ribarenje, lov divljači; bili su tamo i otpušteni radnici čeličana, druge je brinula korupcija ili nemoral u politici; bili su tu aktivisti za ljudska prava, pobornici mogućnosti legalnog prava na pobačaj i oni koji se tome protive; neki su bili gnjevni zbog testiranja novih lijekova na životinjama, drugi bijesni što su lijekovi za ublažavanje učinaka virusa HIV-a patentirani i preskupi da bi ih AIDS–om pogođene afričke zemlje mogle kupovati i propisivati oboljelima. (Sve to zbog nužnosti stvaranja profita multinacionalnih farmaceutskih kompanija.) Mnogi drugi smatrali su da su izostavljeni iz procesa odlučivanja u Britaniji ili da britansku nezavisnost, zapravo njezinu suverenost, nagriza utjecaj Europske unije.

Mnogi prosvjednici djelovali su nesigurni u ono što žele; jedan transparent je glasio: "Riješite se kapitalizma. Zamijenite ga nečim boljim." Možda je zajednička nit, tema na koju ćemo se vratiti, bio dojam prosvjednika da su tek figure u igri koju negdje drugdje vode neki neizabrani drugi i manipuliraju njima iza neprozirnog zaslona bezlične statistike; da su kotačići u ogromnoj i dehumanizirajućoj mašineriji koju ne mogu kontrolirati niti na nju mogu utjecati, a čiji im ciljevi i motivacije nisu zajednički; da multinacionalne korporacije, odane samo ulagačima i motivu profita, raspolažu većom gospodarskom moći nego nacionalne države (Mitsubishijeva ekonomija jača je od ekonomije npr. Saudijske Arabije, a zajedno s korporacijom General Motors i od Grčke, Norveške ili ekonomije Južne Afrike; zapravo s 50 od 100 najjačih ekonomija upravljaju multinacionalne korporacije, a ne države – čini se da zemlje postaju tek poštanski kodovi na slobodnom globalnom tržištu). Manje izražen vjerojatno je bio i još uvijek jest osjećaj da takva globalna aktivnost zanemaruje pojedinca, da brojke, dijagrami i zaključni računi vrijede više nego stvarna ljudska bića zbog kojih se tobože sve to radi. Sramotno vrijeđa osjećaj da je ljudsko dostojanstvo, zapravo identitet koji uključuje međusobne razlike identiteta - gurnut postrance. No, vratit ćemo se na to.

Mene ovdje zanima složeni međusobni odnos ili veza, gotovo dijalog a zasigurno recipročni odnos između globalizacije i nacionalizma. To je zapleteno zbog velike nejasnoće svih uključenih osnovnih pojmova: "globalizacija", "nacionalizam", Ťkultura", "multikulturalizam", te uz njih vezane pojmove poput "etnik", "rasa", "pleme", "država". Njih treba pažljivo iznijansirati. Najprije ću, međutim, bez nijansi i ugrubo ocrtati svakog od njih.

Globalizacija: izaziva pomisao na McDonalds, Levis, odjeću Nike, anonimnost i istovjetnost trgovačkih centara diljem svijeta; na multinacionalne korporacije; na WTO, MMF, Svjetsku banku, lutkice Barbie, američke filmove, Disneyjeve filmove koje gledaju djeca cijelog svijeta; na prodaju nogometnih igrača (prošle je godine momčad Chelsea, koja je među vrhunskim britanskim momčadima, najmanje jednom izašla na teren bez ijednog Engleza u svom sastavu); svakako na Internet i World Wide Web; posebice na status prezaduženosti zemalja u razvoju. Sve u svemu, iako veoma uopćeno: globalizacija uključuje tehnološku promjenu, porast globalne ekonomije, masovno povećanje moći ogromnih multinacionalnih korporacija, globalizaciju politike i izvjesnu globalizaciju ideja. Po nekim autorima, jedna ili dvije od tih stvari važnije su od drugih; interpretacije variraju. Navodim to samo kao grubu zajedničku jezgru kako bih uprizorila potpuniju raspravu. Pokušat ću tako napraviti i s nacionalizmom.

Ako je "globalizaciju" teško opisati čak i u širokim crtama, "nacionalizam" je još teže. On je relativno novog datuma – sve do osamnaestog i devetnaestog stoljeća najčešće političke strukture, barem u Europi, bile su multinacionalna carstva i gradovi–države. Najveća je podjela među onima koji ga smatraju "fuj" pojmom, nečim lošim povezanim s rasizmom, ksenofobijom, šovinizmom; nečim što ima svoj izraz u tako pogubnim djelovanjima kao što je etničko čišćenje i genocid ili u relativno trivijalnim poput tučnjave između navijača Leedsa i Galatasaraya u Istanbulu. Za druge je to "hura" pojam vezan uz domoljublje, uz ponos pojedinca i idiosinkratičnost kulture u vidu jezika, postignuća, obilježja i posebnosti nacije; to je svaka nacionalna država s vlastitim središtem prema kojem gravitira; obično je to nešto vezano uz određeni dio zemaljske kugle, neko mjesto; ovisi o srodstvu – zajedničkim precima – i kolektivnom sjećanju (selektivnom prisvajanju povijesnih događaja kakvi su stvarno bili, romantizirano ili mitski); nešto što ovisi o pravnom sustavu i njegovu statusu iznad monarha, careva, političara; nacionalni osjećaj je nešto što osobama daje osjećaj identiteta, dostojanstva, vlastite vrijednosti i sigurnosti stvarajući kategorije unutar kojih definiramo sami sebe. On izražava naše prioritete, ambicije i vrijednosti koje mogu biti ne srazmjerne i uistinu nespojive s onima drugih država. On stvarno pretpostavlja razliku "mi/oni" – razliku koja može biti bezazlena ili koja se može izokrenuti u netrpeljivost i neprijateljstvo.

Ovo je veoma ugrubo ocrtana situacija. Postoji gotovo jednako toliko interpretacija nacionalizma koliko ima ljudi koji o njemu pišu; kao i slučaju globalizacije, neke će čimbenike zanemariti, a druge istaknuti. Ipak, apsolutno je ključno izbjeći esencijalizam: ideju da postoji jezgra i fiksirani skup obilježja, neka bit koja naciju čini onim što ona jest. Gotovo sve što spada u određivanje "nacije" i "kulture" razvija se i mijenja; institucije poput pravnog sustava vjerojatno najsporije, dok se navike, ukusi, konvencije (itd.) pojave, a zatim ih se preoblikuje i prepravlja.

Dakle, oba sam pojma ocrtala veoma širokim potezima. Zanima me kako nacionalizam može biti važan za globalizaciju i obrnuto – u kakvom su međusobnom odnosu. Razmotrimo stoga neke velike političke teoretičare i povijest političkih ideja.

Koliko god anakronistički bilo tako reći, prvo sjeme jedne ili dviju linija globalizacije nalazimo u zapisima nekih starih Grka; točnije, argument da određene ideje imaju univerzalnu snagu kroz cijelo čovječanstvo. Ti veliki intelektualni odličnici, Platon i Aristotel, smatrali su da prave sklonosti pomiješane s razumom mogu čovjeku jednostavno reći, i mogu reći svima, što je ispravno u ovoj ili onoj situaciji. Uvijek je postojao jedan pravi odgovor, iako ga je možda teško pronaći. To još nije bila globalizacija u krajnjem obliku; Aristotel je osobito uporno tvrdio da "pravi odgovor" ovisi o činitelju (agentu) i situaciji. On je poput Platona bio svjestan da ima mnogo konfliktnih političkih sustava; kao i Platon smatrao je da je samo jedan najbolji (a to sigurno ni za jednog od njih nije bila liberalna demokracija i niti jedan nije dovodio u pitanje ustrojstvo gradova–država u većem dijelu Grčke toga doba). Ipak, kao što je razum isti za sva normalna ljudska bića, tako nikada ne može postojati neko nerješivo neslaganje između ljudi koji daju prednost jednoj vrijednosti pred drugom: jedna ili obje moraju biti krive, usmjerene u pogrešnom smjeru ili loše upućene.

Krenemo li naprijed i preskočimo li nekoliko stoljeća, vidjet ćemo kako je to sjeme uspijevalo na drugom tlu: mnogi koji su pisali i razmišljali o tim stvarima u osamnaestom i devetnaestom stoljeću u Europi bili bi užasnuti nacionalizmom (osim vjerojatno kao prolaznom i žaljenja vrijednom fazom kroz koju je neki narod možda morao proći). Oni su željeli nešto otporno na predrasude, praznovjerje, sukob: poput Platona i Aristotela, željeli su ispravne odgovore o tome kako upravljati. Neke određene etičke teorije koje bi mogli otkritii i braniti. Podjela svijeta na nacionalne države trebala bi nestajati i biti zamijenjena novim svjetskim poretkom koji podsjeća na srednji vijek, s mješavinom regija i nacionalnih država koje zajedno više ili manje skladno ko-egzistiraju unutar nekoliko labavo povezanih globalnih institucija – suvremenih ekvivalenata srednjovjekovnom papinstvu i carstvima. Posve različito od suvremenih pobornika globalizacije, motivi ljudi onoga doba bili su u osnovi moralni. Oni su željeli ustanoviti što je odgovorno za nepravdu, ugnjetavanje, okrutnost, ropsku podložnost, siromaštvo, očaj; što je to bilo u ljudima da je izazvalo takva zla? Kao posljedica toga htjeli su znati kako postići suprotno: mir, istinoljubivost, pravdu, sigurnost, dostojanstvo, slobodu, osobnu autonomiju i ispunjenje. Rousseau i Tolstoj dvojica su od onih koji su tražili rješenje u nečemu što su smatrali da je gotovo djetinja jednostavnost neiskvarenog seljaka – uvijek više mitološkog nego stvarnog bića koje živi u idealiziranom selu, u Arkadiji; u ljudima nezaraženih pohlepom i egoizmom skrivenih iza duhovnog sljepila takozvane civilizacije. Neki su zastupali povratak prema (opet uglavnom mitskim) "vrijednostima predaka" iz prošlih naraštaja u zlatnom dobu. Neki su pak odgovore tražili u učenjima teologije. I opet bi jedan odgovor, koliko god složen, bio primijenjen na sva razumna bića. Nacionalizam, svojim ustrajanjem na različitosti i stvarno čestim neslaganjem ciljeva i vrijednosti, tu nije imao mjesto.

Međutim, više od svega, počeo se isticati znanstveni racionalizam: društvene i političke teorije utemeljene na stvarnoj teoriji povijesne promjene. Postojalo je sve veće i ogromno zanimanje za povijesna proučavanja, a doista se imalo što istraživati. Svakodnevni život dramatično se mijenjao zbog nove tehnologije i uspona velikih industrija. Sekularizacija renesanse i reformacija uzdrmale su vjerske institucije. Osobito su prirodne znanosti kročile velikim koracima i doimale se gotovo nezaustavljivima. (Utjecaj posebice Newtona teško je preuveličati: sjetimo se Alexandera Popea: "Priroda i prirodni zakoni počivaju skriveni u noći. / Bog reče: Neka bude Newton! I sve postade svjetlo.") Prirodne znanosti i politika, psihologija i etika bile su u osnovi jednako metodološki oblikovane, iako različitih tema – ništa nije usporedivo s "dvije kulture" C. P. Snowa. Općenito, dakle, prestiž prirodnih znanosti, koje su od renesanse tako naglo napredovale, doveo je do stvaranja opće vjere u ideju kako se isto može postići političkom, etičkom i psihološkom spekulacijom korištenjem moćnog novog alata koji je, činilo se, razotkrio tajne izvanjskog svijeta.

Condorcet je 1794. bio siguran da možemo primijeniti matematiku na socijalnu politiku i dobiti istinski opis najboljeg političkog sustava, a mi bismo potom trebali tek iznaći načine pomoću kojih ga je moguće ostvariti – za cjelokupno čovječanstvo. August Comte, njegov suradnik (i tajnik, jer Condorcet je pisao iz zatvora), vidio je put napredovanja u nekoj vrsti svjetovne religije, autoritarno organizirane u skladu s racionalnim (ne liberalnim ili demokratskim) idealima. Otada su se u posljednjem stoljeću dogodili brojni politički i društveni pokreti koji prelaze ili teže prijeći granice nacija-država, poput međunarodnog socijalizam, islama, fašizma, liberalne demokracije – svi su posvećeni monolitnim ideologijama i svi privlače ljude u velikom broju.

Te transnacionalne ideologije izazvale bi racionalnu i radikalnu reorganizaciju društva te bi velik skladan – i univerzalan – sustav mogao biti uspostavljen. Predrasude i praznovjerje gubili bi se i nestali; bio bi to kraj glupostima i okrutnostima tiranskih režima. Dakle: ustanovite osnovne ljudske potrebe i najbolje načine njihova zadovoljenja. Tu nacionalizmu ne bi bilo mjesta.

To je "globalizacija" u punom smislu riječi. Rješenja za svjetske probleme postoje; ta se rješenja mogu otkriti, ali samo je jedno ispravno rješenje, sva su ostala pogrešna. Razboritošću i primjenom racionalnih znanstvenih metoda možemo iznaći načine za ta rješenja; odgovor na taj društveni problem bit će u skladu s odgovorima na ovaj i na onaj problem… jer istina je jedna jedinstvena, pa jedna istina ne može biti nedosljedna drugoj.

Ispravnim poimanjem pravila koja upravljaju fizičkim i psihološko–društvenim svijetom možemo steći nazor o savršeno skladnom načinu života i početi ga ostvarivati. Samo intelektualna slabost – jer se nikada nije mislilo da je to lako – ili prirodna grešnost ili pokvarenost, mogu tome stajati na putu. U Britaniji su npr. Bentham i Macauley bili sigurni u ostvarivost takvog "čistog i dotjeranog" svijeta. Svakako, neki su – slažući se s osnovnim porivom – smatrali da to baš nije posve jednostavno. Za njih (Hegela i Marxa, primjerice) istina nije bila bezvremenska. Postoji povijesna promjena i razvoj; ljudske ambicije su se promijenile a napredak mogu zakočiti ratovi, revolucije, snažne pobune među nacijama, kulturama, klasama; može se dogoditi povratak barbarizmu i nacionalizmu. Ipak, na koncu bismo počeli postizati univerzalnu skladnu suradnju. Nacionalizam je postojao, ali to je bilo zastranjivanje, korak unatrag, a njegova propast tek je nedovršen posao. Marx je smatrao da će jednog dana međunarodne klasne lojalnosti nadvladati međuklasnu nacionalnu lojalnost. Bio je to izraz pretjeranog povjerenja; Marx bi bio duboko razočaran načinom na koji su se radnici okupili pod svojim nacionalnim zastavama u Prvom svjetskom ratu, a rat (u velikoj mjeri vođen radi izgradnje vladavine kapitalizma i gospodarske kontrole) nije trebao imati veze s međunarodnom radničkom solidarnošću.

Danas liberalni demokrati, među kojima je za mnoge nacionalizam također anatema, osobno smatraju – može se reći donekle s razlogom – da je njihova politička ideologija najbolja. Ili, barem, da je vjerojatno najmanje loša (kao što je rekao Winston Churchill). Ta je ideologija na posljetku porazila drugu ideologiju – komunizam. Njih dvije su se za vrijeme hladnog rata uglavnom smatrale suprotnim polovima divovske ideološke borbe za srca i duše. Liberalna demokracija vođena tržištem bila je jasno suprotstavljena globalnim ambicijama komunizma i poput njega težila je da bude globalna. Obje su imale neku vrstu misionarske gorljivosti. Ipak, ta potreba za superiornošću liberalne demokracije treba biti pažljivo određena. Može se raspravljati, i raspravljalo se, protiv liberalne demokracije – da će različite nacionalne države "liberalnu demokraciju" shvatiti na različite načine; da se liberalne ideje Zapada jednim dijelom zapravo temelje na prešutnoj netrpeljivosti prema nezapadnim vrijednostima; da je isticanje sloboda i ljudskih prava (kad su suprotstavljeni npr. jednakosti ili državnoj sigurnosti) za zemlje poput Kine, Izraela ili Bangladeša previše eurocentrično ili američkocentrično. Nadalje, među onima koji se opiru globalizaciji postoji osjećaj – čak i kad nisu nacionalisti u bilo kojem obliku ili smislu – da su građani kao pojedinci, a time sama demokracija, zanemareni u odnosu na sve veći gospodarski utjecaj multinacionalista, bezličnih birokrata u Bruxellesu, u Svjetskoj banci, MMF–u ili Svjetskoj trgovačkoj organizaciji. Ipak, iako otvoreno poricana, postoji ta temeljna (vjerojatno implicitna) pretpostavka da je nacionalni osjećaj u cijelosti nevažan i sekundarni faktor koji ne vrijedi uzeti u obzir osim kao nezgodnu smetnju u napretku liberalne demokracije. Danas nama upravljaju i trebaju upravljati multinacionalne institucije, a ne povijest i zemljopis. Postoji i treba postojati lagano povlačenje državne suverenosti pred tim globalnim institucijama kao što se nacionalne države povlače pred novim nadnacionalnim preustrojstvom zemaljske kugle.

Mnogi su, međutim, užasnuti tim prijenosom moći s odgovornih nacionalnih država na neodgovorne institucije i monolitski univerzalizam koji se njime potiče – a potiče ga zanemarivanje i gaženje lokalnih i nacionalnih lojalnosti i različiti pristupi stvarima. On pogađa izravno u srce identiteta pojedinca. Štoviše, čini se da je činjenično pogrešan – između 1990. i 2000. pojavilo se više od 20 novih suverenih država uz žestoko krvoproliće ili bez njega, od bivšeg SSSR-a, bivše Jugoslavije, od Čehoslovačke; tu su Eritreja, Istočni Timor ... itd. Naprosto se ne čini da su gradovi–države i transnacionalne strukture put u budućnost. Možda je Singapur izuzetak koji dokazuje pravilo, ali spomenimo Hong Kong, grad–državu koju je nedavno progutala nacionalna država. Nadalje, globalizacija se ne doima toliko amoralnom koliko pokatkad pozitivno nemoralnom: moralni razlozi jedva se ocrtavaju osim ako hipokrizija nije najdjelotvorniji način ostvarenja ciljeva koje globalizacija postavlja sama sebi. Na primjer: američko zauzimanje u Kuvajtu bila je "prava stvar" – Kuvajt je trebao izgubiti svoju nezavisnost na račun nasilnog susjeda. No, što je mnogo važnije: Kuvajt je imao naftu. Naprotiv, za vrijeme rata između Eritreje i Etiopije bilo je trenutaka kada se činilo da će Eritreju svladati veća i jača Etiopija; ali ni jedna zapadna zemlja nije ni prstom maknula. Nadalje, spomenut ću samo tri područja u kojima je motiv profita isključivao ili zanemarivao "ljudske" probleme u korist kratkoročnog gospodarskog dobitka, koliko god to bilo na uštrb potreba i interesa onih u najsiromašnijim zemljama.

Lecture held on May 22nd, 2001 in the Aula of the University of Zagreb

Dr. Kathleen Vaughan Wilkes

Globalization and Nationalism

A charming thought to start a rather depressing talk. Johann Gottfried von Herder, in 1791: “How wonderfully has Nature separated nations, not only by woods and mountains, seas and deserts, rivers and climates, but most particularly by languages, inclinations and characters, so that the work of subjugating despotism might be rendered more difficult...”

In the last few months we've seen a lot of protests against “globalization”. There was the “Battle in Seattle”, the riots in Washington; the fighting in Prague; and thus last Mayday there were demonstrations – some peaceful, some less so – in Berlin, Sydney, London, and dozens of other places.

Precisely what these protestors and demonstrators wanted to target is unclear. In London, for instance, there were: anarchists, looking for a fight, or to break into or occupy banks or government buildings (or simply to smash a few shop widows and do a bit of looting); those concerned with planetary pollution and traffic congestion; those concerned with the widening gap between the rich and the poor countries; with the IMF /World Bank treatment of developing countries; there were those from the Countryside Alliance as well as those who want to ban foxhunting, fishing, shooting; some were steelworkers made redundant, others concerned with corruption or sleaze in politics; human rights activists, pro-choice and pro-life campaigners; some angry about drug-related experiments on animals, others furious that drugs to alleviate the effects of the HIV virus were patented and too expansive for the AIDS-ridden African countries to buy and prescribe. (Because of the profit imperative of multinational pharmaceutical companies.) Many others thought that they were being left out of decision-making in Britain; or that Britain's independence, indeed its sovereignty, was being eroded by the clout of the European Union.

Many of the protesters seemed unsure of what they wanted; one banner red: “Get rid of capitalism. Replace it with something better”. Perhaps a common thread, a theme to which we will return, was a sensation of being counters in a game played elsewhere by invisible, unelected others, who were manipulating them behind the opaque shield of impersonal statistics; that they were cogs an a huge and dehumanising machinery which they could neither control nor influence, and whose ends and motivations were not theirs; that multinational corporations, loyal only to investors and to the profit motive, wielding more economic power than nation-states (Mitsubishi's economy is greater than that of, say, Saudi Arabia and along with General Motors, is bigger than Greece, Norway, or South Africa; in fact 50 of the largest 100 economies in the world are run by multinational corporations, not by countries - countries seemed to be becoming nothing more than postcodes in the free global market.) More inchoately; perhaps, there was and is a feeling that such global activity ignores the individual; that figures and graphs and balance-sheets count for more than the actual human beings for whom this is ostensibly being done. An outraged sense that human dignity; indeed identity including identity in difference, is being sidelined. We'll come back to this.

My interest here is to look at the complex interrelationship or entanglement, almost a dialogue, certainly a reciprocal relationship, between globalization and nationalism. Now: this is made tricky because of the great fuzziness of all the key notions involved: “globalization”, “nationalism”, “culture”, “multiculturalism”, and notions related to these, such as “ethnic”, “race”, “tribe”, “state”. These call for careful nuancing. I shall first, however, give an unnuanced and crude sketch of each.

Globalization that brings to mind McDonalds, Levis, Nike clothes, anonymity and interchangeability of shopping-malls around the globe; multinational corporations; the WTO, the IMF, the World Bank; Barbie dolls, American films, Disney films watched by children the world over; the selling of footballers (last year the Chelsea team – which is one of the top British teams - on at least one occasion fielded a team with not one Briton in the side); of course the Internet and the World Wide Web; in particular, the debt-ridden status of developing countries. In sum, though, very generally: globalization seems to involve technological change, the rise of a global economy, a massive increase in the power of vast multinational corporations, the globalization of politics, and certain globalization of ideas. I suggest this only as rough common core, to set the stage for fuller discussion. Now I'll try to do the same for nationalism.

If “globalization” is hard to characterise, even in broad outline, “nationalism” is worse. It is relatively new - right up to the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the most common political structures, in Europe at least, were the multinational empire and the city-state. The biggest divide is between those who see it as a “boo” notion, a bad thing, connected with racism, xenophobia, chauvinism; expressed in such serious activities as ethnic cleansing and genocide, or in relatively trivial ones, like Leeds and Galatasaray football fans fighting in Istanbul. To others it is a “hooray” term, allied to patriotism, to pride in the individual and idiosyncratic culture, in the forms of language, in the achievements, traits and quirks of the nation; each nation-state with its own centre of gravity; it is usually something bound to a specific part of the globe, a place dependent on kinship - shared ancestry - and collective memory (of a selective appropriation of historical events actual, romanticised, or mythological); dependent on the legal system and its standing above politicians, monarchs, emperors, politicians; national sentiment is something that gives individual a sense of identity, dignity, worth, and security, by supplying the categories within which we define ourselves. It expresses our priorities, ambitions, and values, which may be incommensurable and indeed incompatible with those in other nation-states. Indeed, it presupposes an “us/them” distinction - a distinction that can be benign, or which can turn into intolerance and hostility.

This, again, is very crude thumbnail sketch. There are almost as many interpretations of nationalism as there are people who write about it; as with globalization, some factors they will ignore, while highlighting others. However, what is absolutely crucial is to avoid essentialism: the idea that there is a core and fixed set of features, an essence, which makes a nation what it is. Almost everything that goes to make up “a nation”, and indeed “a culture” evolves and changes; perhaps institutions, such as the system of law, most slowly, but habits, tastes, conventions (etc.) come and go, are remade and refashioned.

So: I've sketched both with a very broad brush. Now I want to see how nationalism can be relevant to globalization, and vice versa - how they interact. Let us therefore look at some of the major political theorists, and the history of political ideas.

Anachronistic as it may be to say so, we see early seeds of one or two of the strands of “globalization” in the writings of some of the ancient Greeks, in particular, the argument that certain ideas have universal force throughout mankind. Those great intellectual elitists, Plato and Aristotle, thought that good dispositions, infused with reason, could simply tell you, and could tell everyone, what was the right thing to do in this or that situation. There was always one right answer, even though it might be hard to find. This was not yet “globalization” in any extreme form; Aristotle in particular was insistent that “the right thing to do” was agent and situation - dependent. He, like Plato was well-aware that there were many conflicting political systems like Plato, though, he thought that one was the best (and that was certainly not liberal democracy, for either of them; and neither challenged the city-state structure of most of Greece at the time). However, just as reason was the same for all normal human beings. so there could never be an insoluble disagreement between people preferring one value to another, one or both must be wrong, misguided, or badly-informed.

Moving on and jumping several centuries, to see how this seed grew in other soil: many of those writing and thinking about these things in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, in Europe, would have been horrified by nationalism (except perhaps as a passing regrettable phase through which, maybe, some people had to go). They wanted something immune to prejudice, superstition, conflict: like Plato and Aristotle, they wanted correct answers about the right way to run things. Some specific ethical theory that they could discover and defend. The world-divisions into nation states should fade away and be replaced by a new world-order reminiscent of the middle ages, with a miscellany of regions and nation states, co-existing more or less harmoniously under a few loose global institutions – the modern equivalents of the medieval papacy and empires. Very unlike modern supporters of globalization, then, the motives of these people were essentially moral. They wanted to discover what was responsible for injustice, oppressions, cruelty, servility, poverty, despair; what was it about humans that brought these evils about? As a corollary, they wanted to know how to bring about the opposite: peace, truthfulness, justice, security, dignity, freedom, personal autonomy, and fulfilment. Rousseau and Tolstoy are two of those who sought the solution in what they took to be almost child-like simplicity of the unspoilt peasant - always more of a mythological than an actual being, living in a village that was idealised, an Arcadia; people uncontaminated by the greed and egoism which lay behind the spiritual blindness of so-called civilisation. Some advocated a return to the (again largely mythical) “ancestral values” of last generations in a golden age. Others of course looked for answers in the teaching of theology. Again, one answer, however complex, would apply to all rational mankind. Nationalism, with its insistence on the diversity, and indeed the frequent incompatibility, of ends and values had no place here.

Above all, though, there came an emphasis on scientific rationalism: social and political theories that would be founded on a true theory of historical change. There was an increasing, and huge, interest in historical studies; and indeed there was much to examine. Everyday life was being changed dramatically by new technology and the rise of large industries. The secularism of the Renaissance, and the Reformation, had shaken religious institutions. Above all, the natural sciences were making huge strides, and seemed well-nigh unstoppable. (The impact of Newton in particular is impossible to exaggerate: see Alexander Pope - “Nature, and Nature's laws, lay hid in night. / God said: Let Newton be! and all was light.”) The natural science, and politics, psychology, and ethics were essentially from the same methodological mould, albeit with different subject-matters – there could be noting like C. P, Snow's “two cultures”. Generally, then, the prestige of the natural sciences, which had progressed so rapidly since the Renaissance, led to a general faith in the idea that the same could be done with political, ethical, and psychological speculation, by using the powerful new tools which seemed to have revealed the secrets of the external world.

Condorcet, in 1794, was sure that we can apply mathematics to social policy, to get the one, true description of the best political system; and then we just have to find ways by means of which it can be realised – for all mankind. His collaborator (and secretary, Condorcet wrote from prison) Auguste Comte saw a species of secular religion, organised in an authoritarian way in accordance with rational (not liberal or democratic) ideals as the way forward. Since then, we have seen in the last century numbers of political and social movements that transcend, or purport to transcend, nation-states – such as international socialism, Islam, Fascism, liberal democracy – all dedicated to monolithic ideologies, all attracting vast numbers of people.

These transnational ideologies would bring about a rational and radical reorganization of society; and a great harmonious – and universal - system could be established. Prejudice and superstition would dwindle and vanish; there would be an end to the stupidities and cruelties of oppressive regimes. Just: find the basic human needs, and the best means of satisfying them. There would be no room for nationalism here.

This is “globalisation” with vengeance. There are solutions to the world's problems; those solutions can be discovered; there is only one correct solution, all the rest being erroneous, we can with reason and the application of rational scientific methods find the ways to those solutions; the answer to this social problem will be compatible with answers to that one, and this one… for truth is a single whole, and one truth cannot be inconsistent with another.

With a correct understanding of the rules that guide the physical and the psychological-social world, we can have a view of a perfectly harmonious way of life, and set out to realise it. Only intellectual weakness – because it was never thought to be easy – or natural sinfulness or corruption, can stand in the way. In Britain, Bentham and Macauley, for instance, were sure of realizability of such a “swept and garnished” world. Certainly, some – while agreeing with the main thrust – thought it would not be quite so simple. For them (Hegel and Marx, for example) truth was not timeless. There is historical change and development; human ambitions changed, and progress could be set back by wars, revolutions, violent upheavals between nations, cultures, classes; there could be return to barbarism and nationalism. But, eventually, we would begin to get universal harmonious cooperation. Nationalism was there, but was an aberration, a throwback; and its overthrow is just unfinished business. Marx thought that one day international class loyalties would prevail over inter-class national loyalty. This was overconfident; he would have been sadly disappointed by the way that workers flocked to the side of their national flags in World War I; the war (to a large extent concerned with capitalist empire-building and economic control) should have been something that had nothing to do with international worker solidarity.

Today; liberal democrats, for many of whom nationalism is also anathema, for their part think - with some reason, it may be said – that theirs is the best political ideology. Or, at minimum, that it is probably the least bad (as Winston Churchill put it). Qua ideology it has, after all, defeated another ideology - communism. The two were widely seen, during the cold war, as opposite poles of a titanic ideological struggle for hearts and minds. Liberal market-driven democracy was explicitly opposed to the global ambitions of communism, and, like it, did indeed seek to be global. Both had a sort of missionary zeal. However, this claim for the superiority of liberal democracy has to be carefully qualified. It can be, and has been, argued against liberal democracy that various nation-state will understand “liberal democracy” in various ways; that the liberal ideas of the West in fact rest in part on an implicit intolerance of non-Western values; that the stress on liberty and human rights (when set against equality, or state security, for instance) is too Eurocentric, or American-centric, for countries such as China, Israel, or Bangladesh. Furthermore, there is a feeling amongst those resistant to globalization -even if they are not nationalists in any shape or form – that the individual citizens, and hence democracy itself. are being sidelined by the ever-increasing economic clout of the multinationals, by the faceless bureaucrats in Brussels, in the World Bank, the IMF, or the World Trade Organisation. All the same, there is this underlying (perhaps implicit) assumption, even if overtly denied: that national sentiment is by and large, an unimportant and secondary factor, not worth taking into consideration except as an irritating complication on the progress of liberal democracy. Multinational institutions, rather than history or geography, now do and should govern us. There is and should be a steady surrender of state sovereignty to these global institutions, as nation-states retreat before the new supranational restructuring of the globe.

Many, though, are horrified by this transfer of power from accountable nation-states to global and unaccountable institutions and the monolithic universalism it fosters – fosters, by simply ignoring or trampling underfoot local or national loyalties and the variety of ways of doing things. It directly hits at the heart of an individual's identity. What is more, it seems to be factually false – between 1990 and 2000 more than 20 new sovereign states have appeared, with or without violent bloodshed, from he former USSR, the former Yugoslavia, from Czechoslovakia, we find Eritrea; East Timor … etc. City-states and transnational structures just don't seem to be the way of the future Maybe Singapore is the exception that proves the rule; but consider Hong Kong: a city-state recently absorbed by a nation-state. Further, globalization seems not so much amoral as sometimes positively immoral: moral considerations barely feature, unless lip service to them is the most efficient way of realizing the ends that globalization sets itself. For example: America's engagement in Kuwait was “the right thing to do” – Kuwait was about to lose its independence to a bullying neighbour. But far more importantly: Kuwait had oil. By contrast, during the war between Eritrea and Ethiopia, there was a time when it seemed that Eritrea was to be overwhelmed by the larger and stronger Ethiopia; but no Western country raised a finger. To take this further, I shall look at just three areas where the profit motive can be seen as ignoring or dismissing long term and “human” concerns in favour of short term economic gain, at whatever cost to needs and interests of those in the poorest countries.

The ceremony at the University of Zagreb

Please, go to the next page below.

Kathy Wilkes at the University of Zagreb in 2001, part 2

Zamislite najprije kojom brzinom zemlje mogu ulagati i prestati ulagati u zemlje u razvoju – ogromne količine kapitala (procijenjenog na oko 1.500 milijardi dolara dnevno u vanjskoj trgovini) mogu obići oko Zemlje tek "klikom" na tipku kompjutora. To može razoriti zemlje u razvoju. Kada se za Indoneziju mislilo da je potencijalni gospodarstveni "tigar" Istoka, ulaganja su pritjecala. Kad su se banke uznemirile zbog visine duga, ulaganja su presahnula gotovo preko noći. Dioničari su slijedili svoj instinkt krda i zajednički su se povukli. Cijene azijskih dionica su pale, a tečaj je obezvrijeđen. Plan spašavanja MMF–a bio je brz i nesmiljen; veliki zajmovi, svakako, ali uz potraživanja nametnuta tim zemljama bez osvrtanja na narav društva i njegove potrebe, čime su se posve zanemarile bilo kakve društvene posljedice nametnute politike. Točnije, provedena je prisilna privatizacija, a za povrat duga nametnut je strog vremenski raspored. Rezultat: u Indoneziji je privremeno otpušteno 20 milijuna ljudi. Četvrt milijuna klinika moralo se zatvoriti, UNICEF je procijenio da će smrtnost djece skočiti 30%. Više od 6 milijuna djece napustilo je škole. Prema procjeni OXFAM-a (međunarodna organizacije Oxford Committee for Famine Relief) više od 100 milijuna Indonežana živi u siromaštvu – četiri puta više nego što je to bilo 1995. Još je jedna posljedica: u mnogim se pogođenim zemljama beznađe pretvorilo u rasno prinošenje žrtava. U Indoneziji su prodavaonice etničkih Kineza trgovaca bile opljačkane i spaljene; skupine nasilnika premlaćivale su i ubile stotine Kineza. U Maleziji su teret rasizma podnijeli Židovi: bili su okrivljeni za destabilizaciju zemlje.

Ovdje vidimo lošu stranu nacionalizma koji pojačava (ali ne započinje) razaranje kakvo su izazvali uvjeti nametnuti od MMF-a. Kad god postoje pobjednici i gubitnici, gubitnici su uvijek najprije zemlje koje se bore sa siromaštvom.

Razlika (sve veća) između bogatih i siromašnih zemalja poslužit će mi kao drugi povezani primjer. Uzmimo sasvim nedavni slučaj. Prije tjedan dana mogli ste zapaziti da na tržištu kave postoji višak i kako se uzgajivačima kave (većinom iz siromašnih zemalja, na sitnim posjedima) cijena kave prepolovila – 2 dolara za kilu 1999.– 2000., a 1 dolar za kilu 2000.–2001. Za tipičnog malog zemljoposjednika u Tanzaniji vrijednost glavnog uroda kave (od 30 grmova) spala je s 13 funti prošle godine na 6,21 funtu ove godine. Farmeri u Latinskoj Americi bili su poticni na uzgoj kave (umjesto unosne koke) i obećana su im početna sredstva; otuda povećanje zaliha kave. No prijelazna sredstva zapravo se nisu pojavila; tako su oni, naravno, propali i vratili su se ili u bili u iskušenju vratiti na svoj već isprobani uzgoj koke.

Ipak, bogati zapadnjaci i dalje plaćaju 2,70 dolara za šalicu kave u Starbucksu, a direktor je iskazao dobitak od 40% u prvom tromjesečju 2001.; uzgred rečeno, on sam sebi isplaćuje 1,5 milijuna dolara godišnje. Bilanca profita mu je zapanjujuća, a njegovi dioničari su prezadovoljni. Mogla bih reći i više o tom skandalu s kavom, ali vrijeme je ograničeno. Smisao je samo pokazati kako jaz između bogatih i siromašnih zemalja raste sve više. Prosječni dohodak per capita u podsaharskoj Africi, nakon dva desetljeća Ťstrukturalnih podešavanjať od strane MMF–a i Svjetske banke, niži je nego 1970. No, suprotstavimo im bogate zemlje: koncentracija ekonomske moći u rukama multinacionalnih korporacija, odgovornih samo svojim dioničarima, u ogromnoj je mjeri povećala njihovo bogatstvo. Stanovništvo bogatih zemalja imalo je 1960. godine 30 puta veći dohodak nego ono u najsiromašnijim zemljama. Do 1997. jaz se povećao 74 puta. Niti sredstva MMF–a i Svjetske banke nisu dobro iskorištena. Procijenjeno je da je četvrtina od gotovo 500 milijardi dolara potpore Trećem svijetu u 2000. godini otišla kao podrška diktatorima u nekih 25 zemalja. Moguće je još i gore: mnoge zemlje bile su prisiljene utrošiti mnogo više na vraćanje dugova nego što su primile u zajmovima. Kao rezultat toga, između 1990. i 1997. netotransfer iz zemalja u razvoju u razvijene zemlje iznosio je 77 milijardi dolara. To smatram šokantnim, štoviše sramotnim.

Ponekad, istina je, neke nadnacionalne institucije prihvate problem svjetskog siromaštva kao globalni problem koji treba globalno riješiti – i pretpostavljam da bismo mogli pomisliti da je riječ upravo o tome i da bi se globalizacija upravo tu trebala pokazati u dobrom svjetlu. UN su 1990. godine uvele kategoriju Ťnajmanje razvijenih zemaljať s nešto više od 20 nabrojenih zemalja. Pametni ljudi u Svjetskoj banci, WTO-u i MMF-u izradili su pakete za pomoć, ali svaki od njih imao je krute i kulturalno slijepe uvjete – globalni odgovor na globalni problem. Rezultat? Nakon deset godina, 2000. godine, broj zemalja na popisu više se nego udvostručio – dosegao je broj 49. Nadalje, nije jasno je li ta promašena strategija prihvaćena iz nekih posebnih razloga. Beznadno siromašni ljudi ne mogu sebi priuštiti da se ponašaju kao pravi, efikasni potrošači, pa će uvoz u njihove zemlje drastično pasti. Da su se pametni kalkulanti sa Zapada zamislili o karakterističnim obrascima i načinima života tih nezapadnih nacija – drugim riječima, da su gledali kroz naočale umjerenog nacionalizma i shvatili ga, tada bi željezna šaka profitom vođene globalizacije mogla biti blaža, a rezultat je lako mogao biti smanjenje siromaštva. No čini se da su potrošački zahtjevi i traženje brzog profita bile jedine motivacije koje globalizacija priznaje.

Treće, razmislite o učinku globalizacije na okoliš, osobito s posljedicama koje ima na građane najsiromašnijih nacija – pljačkanje ogromnog i jeftinog blaga sirovina. Složila bih se da se uništavanje prašume, pretvaranje u pustinju dotad produktivne zemlje, pretjerani ribolov u jezerima, rijekama i obalnim vodama, nestajanje prirodnih habitata ugroženih vrsta događalo i prije nego su multinacionalisti doista počeli iskorištavati nacije u razvoju zbog jeftinih prirodnih dobara. Priznajem, postoje naznake zabrinutosti – globalno zatopljenje, primjerice, brine svakoga izuzev Georgea W. Busha. No iskorištavanje tih prirodnih izvora, koji se ne mogu obnoviti kako bi neki optimisti htjeli da vjerujemo, nikada prije nije bilo tako nemilosrdno.

Međunarodna proizvodnja izjeda prirodna bogatstva zemalja u razvoju a ekosustavi i habitati nestaju zabrinjavajućom brzinom. Kako sam napomenula prije, kruti uvjeti pod kojima MMF i Svjetska banka daju svoje zajmove te raspored njihova otplaćivanja stvaraju dodatne probleme. Siromašne zemlje moraju podmiriti dugovanja prije nego što tim sredstvima riješe vlastite potrebe: ceste, škole, bolnice (i skupe lijekove), zbrinjavanje onih koji su ostali siročad zbog AIDS-a ili jednostavno preživljavanje najsiromašnijih. Njihova je jedina opcija – jer uvjeti MMF/Svjetske banke ostavljaju malo mogućnosti ili nijednu – pojačati uništavanje kopna, rijeka i mora kako bi još više prodali na svjetsko tržište. Međutim, javlja se prezasićenost, prevelika ponuda i cijene padaju. Dakle, dvostruko više treba izvoziti kako bi se zaradio jednak iznos u stranoj valuti. Multinacionalnim korporacijama ide sasvim dobro. Njihovi dugovi su riješeni, profiti rastu, dioničari su zadovoljni a inflacija se drži pod kontrolom. (Sjetite se prijašnjeg primjera s kavom.) Ipak, to nije slobodna trgovina. Slobodu imaju multinacionalne korporacije. Gubitnici su i opet zemlje u razvoju, s opustošenim šumama, pesticidima zatrovanim priobaljem, iscrpljenim lovištima ribe. U Džakarti je prošle godine u 70% uzoraka vode dokazan visok stupanj kemijskog onečišćenja, a 30% šuma u Sarawaku je nestalo. Primjeri bi se mogli beskonačno umnožavati.

Sasvim odvojeno od ugroženosti divljih životinja i činjenice da postoji globalno zatopljenje (itd.) zamjećujemo uništavanje ili opasnost od uništenja načina života, tradicija, elemenata plemenske ili nacionalne kulture. Ribarska naselja u dijelovima Azije postala su sablasno prazna: nema kupaca jer onečišćene vode i pretjerano ribarenje znače da više nema ribe. Zbog toga očajni ljudi pokušavaju emigrirati.

Za temeljitije razmatranje kako na to reagira nacionalizam i kako to može zaustaviti, vratimo se u osamnaesto i devetnaesto stoljeće. Znanstveni racionalizam onih poput Condorceta ili Benthama duboko su uznemirili Milla i Tocquevillea uglavnom iz istih razloga kao što je poslije strah od njegovih posljedica u odnosu na društvenu kontrolu hranio satiričke Utopije Orwella i Huxleyja. Carlyle, Ruskin, Disraeli, Thoreau i Fourier osjećali su prema njemu odbojnost ili su ga žestoko napadali. Nemir ili odbojnost bili su izazivani smislom sadržanim u ideji "jedan pravi put do samo jednog pravog cilja"; društvena kontrola bila bi ozakonjena, a pojedinac sveden samo na šahovsku figuru u toj igri. Ako je cilj određen, i to određen (u današnjem svijetu) od nepoznatih stranaca koji nisu izravno odgovorni, onda jedino što je preostalo jest pronaći najdjelotvorniji način postizanja tog cilja. Primjedba Ťznanstvenomť planu ostvarenja ljudskog dobra kako ga vide Condorcet ili Bentham bila je da pojedincu nije ostavljena mogućnost izbora, prostor za imaginaciju, za raspravljanje o ciljevima i temeljnim vrijednostima. On je trebao biti manipuliran za neki ideal u čijem stvaranju nije imao udjela, žrtvovan na oltar apstrakcija. To su Orwell i Huxley tako ogorčeno i briljantno napali. To je užasnulo tako mnogo ljudi kada su postale jasne prave ambicije biheviorizma; obratite pozornost na to da je naslov jedne od knjiga B. F. Skinnera IZVAN slobode i dostojanstva, a gotovo jedina značajna razlika između njegove utopije u Walden Two i utopija Orwella i Huxleyja jest ta što on doista misli da je to idealan svijet.

Prema pesimistu, pojedinac iz bilo koje zemlje – zahvaljujući nekontroliranoj globalizaciji – danas nije u boljoj situaciji nego što su bila imaginarna bića u tim utopijskim satirama. On je samo još jedna karika u lancu, i to zamjenjiva karika: motiv profita zahtijeva jeftin rad, a ne mari radi li se o Indonežaninu, Filipincu, Meksikancu, Afrikancu. Ako je potrebno što jeftinije proizvoditi obuću Nike, nogometne lopte ili zatvarače za boce, tada treba prenijeti posao u Bangladeš radije nego u Kaliforniju – u Bangladešu će se složiti s manje od 2 dolara na sat. Ima li izgleda da bi radnici na Filipinima pristali potkopati Bangladešane, u redu, posao će se prebaciti tamo. Radnici kao pojedinci jednostavno su sredstvo za postizanje cilja profita. To izravno negira najosnovniju Kantovu temu: središte njegova etičkog sustava jest da se ljudi ne smiju smatrati tek sredstvom, već ih uvijek treba priznavati kao ciljeve same po sebi. Nesposobnost shvaćanja značenja koje to ima vodi u bestidnu eksploataciju; to je zaista "izvan" slobode i dostojanstva.

Isaiah Berlin nalazi u Machiavelliju nekoga tko je jednostavno zanijekao da su ciljevi ili vrijednosti jedinstveni i univerzalni. Baš Machiavellija izabrao je iz osobnih razloga; Machiavelli je slučajno bio prvi kojeg je pročitao, a da je uzdrmao njegovu vjeru u dominantne monolitske poglede na nešto što je slično ili je proizišlo iz Platonovog ideala Ťjednog pravog državnog sustavať; univerzalnog i svuda valjanog. U Machiavelliju nalazimo "rimski" način života koji zagovara hrabrost, domišljatost, ponos, sposobnost iskorištavanja prilika, političko lukavstvo, spremnost na primjenu sile – odlike lava i lisice usmjerenih na moć i slavu državne politike. Suprotno tome i u neskladu s tim jest pojam kršćanskih vrlina: poniznost, prihvaćanje trpljenja, samo–žrtvovanje, krotkost, duhovna usmjerenost, usredotočenost na savršenstvo života pojedinca. On nije rekao da je netko pravedan, iskren, besprijekornog ponašanja, a netko drugi nepravedan, lažan, nepriličnog ponašanja. Nije teško zaključiti kakva je osoba njemu draža, ali nema jedinstvenog kriterija koji između njih odlučuje na temelju ičeg drugog do istine. Ipak, ne može ih se kombinirati; njihove su vrijednosti nezdružive.

Misli poput ove postale su sve utjecajnije vodeći pokatkad ravno u kulturalni relativizam. O kulturama se – što god da je obuhvaćeno tim škakljivim izrazom – ne može suditi kao o "ispravnim", "neispravnim", "lošim" ili "dobrim". Svako društvo ima svoj obrazac, vlastitu viziju stvarnosti (svijeta oko sebe), vlastite prirode, svojih ciljeva ili sudbine. To se iskazuje u svemu što ljudi u toj zajednici rade,
misle, osjećaju ili kažu. To nadahnjuje masovnu odanost u mjeri u kojoj to ne mogu nadnacionalne institucije. Španjolac će se boriti ako je Španjolska napadnuta, ali nije vjerojatno da će se izlagati opasnosti za Europsku zajednicu. On može ponosno stajati za vrijeme španjolske nacionalne himne, ali neće čak ni prepoznati Ťhimnu EZť. Štoviše, te vizije mogu biti neusporedive ili uzajamno isključive (kao što je to s Machiavellijevim "rimskim" i Ťkršćanskimť vrijednostima). Stoga je povučena razlika između prirodne znanosti (kako su je tada shvaćali) i humanističke znanosti; dogma da sveukupno znanje tvori jedinstvenu cjelinu Ťbez šavovať odbačena je. Iako utopije mogu poticati imaginaciju, one su opasne i navode na pogrešne zaključke; srećom, uz ljudsku prirodu kakva ona jest potpuno su neostvarive. Ipak, ne treba ići tako daleko u relativizam. Bolje je to nazvati Ťpluralizmomť. Razlika u odnosu na relativizam postoji tek zbog ograničenja naše opće ljudske prirode – ona ograničavaju raspon shvatljivih opcija.

Može postojati neograničen broj različitih biljaka u šumi, ali sve one pripadaju jednoj šumi i ovise o istom tlu. To govori, što čini se nije slučaj s relativizmom, da možemo – bez potrebe da dijelimo ili da nam se dopadaju vrijednosti koje susrećemo u drugim društvima – barem postići (vjerojatno s naporom) razumijevanje tih vrijednosti i vidjeti koju ulogu imaju u tkivu toga društva. Elegantni kozmopoliti Pariza devetnaestog stoljeća mogli bi, uz napor, razumjeti svijet u kojem su živjeli Homerovi ratnici.

Sve dosad imali smo argument za odbacivanje jedne verzije globalizacije, verzije koju bi odbili, ili tvrde da je odbijaju, i oni suvremeni političari koji podržavaju i podupiru stavove globalizacije; to je ideologija s jakim oblikom kulturalnog monizma. Ipak, upamtite, nama ne trebaju različiti nacionalni osjećaji da bi nam nešto dokazali. Veoma je važno uočiti da postoje drugi oblici zajednica, a uz većinu njih moguće je obraniti prije spomenute antiglobalizacijske argumente: klanovi, plemena, društva – čak i organizacije poput mafije – gradovi, pokrajine, kolonije prostranog carstva.

Mnoge vjerske skupine imaju kohezivni i samodostatni način života, kako god neobično to izgledalo nekome izvana; sjetite se zatvorenih amiških zajednica u Sjevernoj Americi u kojima se govorilo njemački.

Čak i vjerske zajednice koje zapravo ne dijele fizički teritorij mogu imati ujednačene kulturalne nazore koji su za njih od prvenstvene važnosti i govore o većini njihovih aktivnosti – mogući primjeri su Jehovini svjedoci ili kršćanski scijentisti. Islamski fundamentalizam veoma je univerzalan; neki ortodoksni muslimani u gradu Bradfordu (Ujedinjeno Kraljevstvo) bili su jednako razjareni "bogohulnom" knjigom "Sotonski stihovi" Salmana Rushdija kao i muslimanski svećenici u Iranu.

Nadalje, kolonije carstava na vrhuncu moći bile su uglavnom zadovoljne s nedostatkom nacionalne svijesti jer je mnoge ionako nikada nisu ni imale, a njihova kulturalna raznolikost mogla je kao i prije nalaziti svoj izraz u podnacionalnom grupiranju s vlastitim načinom djelovanja, vlastitim vjerskim tradicijama, vlastitim jezicima, vlastitim teritorijem – što su razumna carstva mudro dopuštala. ("Uglavnom" stoga što je na svim tim mjestima uvijek bilo nacionalista baš kao što ih ima i danas u državama koje su sastavni dio Britanije (Škotska, Wales i Sjeverna Irska), u Baskiji u Španjolskoj, pokrajini Quebec i mnogim drugima.) Nenacionalističke spone i privrženosti mogu stvoriti uvjete potrebne za postizanje ljudskog dostojanstva i integriteta. Zato je još važnije objasniti nacionalistički osjećaj.

Pogledajmo osamnaesto i devetnaesto stoljeće. Značajna su bila otkrića i potreba izrade zemljovida. Istraživači su se vraćali donoseći novosti o različitim narodima, različitim kraljevstvima i carstvima, različitim etničkim grupacijama i vjerskim tradicijama; novosti o raznim načinima na koje su organizirana druga društva. Putnici su tako pridonosili upotpunjavanju zemljovida koje su i sami trebali.

Zajednice – nacije, kraljevstva – koje su opisivali morale su se na zemljovidu donekle razlikovati od onih susjednih po razlikama među tim zajednicama utemeljenim na etničkim, vjerskim, srodničkim obilježjima, od kojih su neka stvarala neprijateljstvo jedne grupe prema nekoj susjednoj. Nadalje, neki običaji koje su zatekli prilično su ih iznenadili. Herodot je iznio jedan od prvih primjera. Opisao je kako su grčki istraživači sreli pripadnike nekog indijanskog plemena. Nekako su se uspjeli s njima sporazumjeti. Indijanci su bili istinski užasnuti običajem Grka da svoje roditelje spaljuju na obrednoj lomači. Za njih je jedini način izražavanja dužne počasti bio da ih s poštovanjem pojedu.

Ratovi (i prijetnje ratom od susjednih nacija) veoma su značajni za izgradnju osjećaja nacionalnog jedinstva. Kad su se počele koristiti građanske vojske, prije Napoleonovih ratova, mnoge ako ne i većinu napada na druge države vodili su službeni zastupnici uz pomoć plaćenika. (Većinu tih bitaka na britanskoj strani u američkom ratu za nezavisnost vodili su plaćenici.) Kako bi se oduprle velikim Napoleonovim ambicijama, nacije su se morale združiti i odbiti prijetnju. To nije podrazumijevalo samo regrutaciju u svim dijelovima zemlje nego i određivanje poreza na razini nacije radi financiranja borbe. Nacionalne vojske okupile su muškarce iz svake "podređene" društvene grupacije; izmiješali su se sjevernjaci s južnjacima, gradsko i seosko stanovništvo, oni iz pokrajina s onima iz glavnog grada, pripadnici svake društveno-ekonomske skupine, svake ili ni jedne religije. Podređene lojalnosti bile su upravo takve – podređene nacionalnoj lojalnosti koja je u trenucima krize kakvi su snašli zemlju istisnula sve ostale veze. Suvremeni britanski porez na prihod (bilo je poreza i prije) datira od Pitta Mlađeg, a uveden je na razini nacije upravo za financiranje unapređenja vojske i mornarice. Takvo oporezivanje pretpostavlja mnogo više informacija o populaciji u cjelini, pa se tako započinje stvaranje popisa stanovništva.

Napoleon nije bio jedini koji je želio stvoriti carstvo. Za mnoge Europljane ostatak svijeta trebao je biti koloniziran, velikim dijelom u interesu iskorištavanja – izrabljivanje slabije razvijenih naroda postoji u svim političkim ideologijama, a europski trgovci toga doba najgorljivije su podupirali težnju za kolonizacijom. To je značilo ne samo pronaći tko je gdje (opet zemljovidi), kako bi se osnovale kolonije, nego je trebalo znati koje europske snage svojataju susjedna područja – jagma za Afriku sramna je ilustracija toga. Primjenjivani model kolonizacije bio je europski: stvarani su centralizirani glavni gradovi, kraljevine, kneževine, ili su dotad relativno autonomna plemena spajana zajedno kao što je bilo npr. u Indiji ili na Malajskom poluotoku. Kako bi se to olakšalo, izrađena je infrastruktura cesta, željezničkih putova i komunikacije. Također radi lakše kontrole proglašen je jedan "službeni" jezik, uglavnom naravno engleski, francuski, portugalski, španjolski itd., što je zatim pretpostavljalo stvaranje novih obrazovnih sustava.

Crtanje zemljovida, bilo da je uključivalo brisanje prešutno zacrtanih linija između kneževina ili plemena ili crtanje novih oštrijih linija oko "države", presijecalo je elemente koje smatramo sastavnim dijelovima nacionalizma. Vidjeli smo moguće značenje privrženosti religijskom identitetu; čuli smo o panarapskom nacionalizmu. Jednako je tako važno i pomaže objasniti sadašnju groznu borbu u dijelovima Afrike to što su mnoge tamošnje države umjetne tvorevine britanskih ili francuskih kolonijalnih administratora i presijecaju afričke etničke nacije. Tako npr. imamo krvave sukobe u Ruandi i Burundiju između Tutsija i Hutua – to su politički ostaci europskog kolonijalizma.

Consider, first, the speed with which countries can invest and disinvest in developing countries – huge amounts of capital (estimated at about $ 1,500 billion daily, in foreign trading) can ricochet around the globe with a click of a computer button. This can devastate developing countries. When Indonesia was thought to be one of the potential “tiger” economies of the East, investment poured in. When banks became nervous about the level of debt it drained out again, almost overnight. Shareholders followed their herd instinct, and pulled-out in droves. Asian stock prices plummeted, and their currencies were devalued. The IMF's rescue-plan was swift and brutal; large loans, sure, but with demands imposed upon the countries concerned that ignored the nature of the society in question and its needs, and so entirely disregarded any of social consequences of the policies which it imposed. In particular, enforced privatisation; a strict timetable imposed for debt-repayment. The result: in Indonesia 20 million people were laid off. A quarter of a million clinics had to close; UNICEF estimated that infant mortality would jump by 30%. More than 6 million children dropped out of school. Oxfam estimated that more than 100 million Indonesians were living in poverty - four times more than there were in 1995. Another consequence: in many of the countries affected, desperation turned to racial scape-goating. In Indonesia the shops of ethnic Chinese merchants were looted and burned; gangs of thugs beat and killed hundreds of Chinese. In Malaysia the Jews bore the brunt of racism: they were blamed for destabilizing the country.

Here we see the bad side of nationalism reinforcing (not, however, initiating) the devastation wrought by the IMF-imposed conditions. When there are winners and losers, the losers are always countries that are struggling with poverty to start with.

The (increasing) difference between rich and poor countries is my second, related, example. Take a very recent case. You may have seen, a week ago, that there is a glut on the coffee-market, how coffee-farmers (mostly from poor countries, on tiny smallholdings) have seen the price of coffee cut in half - $2 per kilo in 1999-2000, $1 per kilo in 2000-2001. One typical smallholder in Tanzania saw the value of her main crop (of 30 bushes) fall: from Ł13 last year to Ł6,21 this year. Farmers in Latin America were encouraged to grow coffee (instead of the profitable coca), and were promised start-up funds, thus an increase in the coffee glut. Yet no transitional funds actually appeared; so – of course – they are out of business; returning, or tempted to return, to heir tried-and-tested coca crop.

Yet the wealthy westerner still pays Ł2.70 for one cup at Starbucks, and the managing director reported a 40% profit in the first quarter of 2001; incidentally, he pays himself Ł1,5m. per annum. His profit balance is astonishing, his shereholders well-content. There’s more I could say about this coffee scandal, but there is no time. The point is simply to show how the gulf between rich and poor countries is growing. The average per capita income in sub-Saharan Africa, after two decades of IMF and World Bank “structural adjustments” is lower than it was in 1970. Yet contrast the richer countries: the concentration of economic power in the hands of multinational corporations, accountable only to their shareholders, has massively increased their wealth. In 1960 people in the rich countries had 30 times more income than those in the poorest countries. By 1997 the gap had widened to 74 times more. Nor are the IMF or World Bank funds well-used. It has been estimated that a quarter of the nearly $500 billion of grants to the Third World in 2000 went to prop-up dictators in some 25 countries. Perhaps even worse: many countries were forced to spend far more on servicing their debts that they received in loans. The result is that between 1990 and 1997 there was a net transfer from developing to developed nations of $77 billion between 1990 and 1997. This I find shocking; indeed, obscene.

Sometimes, it is true, some of the supranational institutions take on the world poverty problem as a global problem needing a global solution – and, certainly, I guess that we would think that it is precisely that, and is just where globalization should be able to show itself in a good light. In 1990 the UN introduced a category of “least developed countries”, with just over 20 countries listed. Clever people in the World Bank, the WTO, and the IMF produced rescue packages, each of course with its stringent and culture-blind conditions – a global response to a global problem. The result? 10 years later, in 2000, the number of countries on the list had more than doubled, to 49. Furthermore, it is unclear whether this failed strategy was adopted for any particularly sensible reasons. Desperately poor people can’t afford to behave like proper, efficient consumers, so imports to their countries will drop off drastically. If the clever Western number-crunchers had stopped to think about the characteristic patterns and ways of life of these non-Western nations – in other words, if they had looked through the spectacles of, or understood, a moderate nationalism – then the iron fist of profit-driven globalization could have been tempered, and the result might easily have been a diminution of poverty. However, consumer demand and short-term profit-seeking seem to be the only motivations that globalization acknowledges.

Third, consider the effect that globalization has on the environment, especially with its consequences for citizens of the poorest nations – the rape of huge and cheap treasuries of raw materials. I would agree that the culling of the rain forests, the desertification of hitherto productive land, the overfishing of lakes, rivers, and coastal waters, the loss of habitats for endangered species, had been going on before the multinationals had really started to exploit the developing nations for cheap natural goods. I admit too that there are some signs of concern – global warming, for example, is bothering everyone except George W. Bush. But the exploitation of these natural resources, which are not as “renewable” as some optimists would have us believe, has never been driven so ruthlessly before.

International production is eating away at the resources of the developing world, and ecosystems and habitats are disappearing at an alarming rate. As I’ve suggested already the stringent conditions that the IMF and the World Bank put on their loans, and the timetables for repayment, add to the problems. Poor countries have to service their debts before spending their funds on their own needs: roads, schools, hospitals (and expensive drugs), the welfare of those orphaned by AIDS, or the simple survival of the worst-off. Their only option – the IMF/World Bank conditions leave few if any alternatives – is to increase the ravaging of the land, rivers, and sea, so as to sell even more on the world market. But then there’s a glut, an oversupply; and prices fall. So twice as much has to be exported to earn the same amount of foreign currency. Multinational corporations do just fine. Their debts are serviced, profits are up, the shareholders happy, and inflation is kept under control (Remember my earlier example of coffee.) But this is not free trade. The freedom is that of the multinational corporations. The losers are, again, the developing countries, with plundered rainforests, seacoasts poisoned with pesticides, fisheries exhausted. In Jakarta last year over 70% of water-samples proved to be highly contaminated by chemical pollutants; and 30% of the forests in Sarawak have disappeared. Examples could be multiplied indefinitely.

Quite apart form the threat to wildlife, and the fact of global warming (etc.) we can see the destruction, or threat of destruction, of ways of life, traditions, elements of tribal or national culture, in this. The fishing villages in parts of Asia are ghost-villages: there are no buyers, because polluted waters and overfishing mean no fish. Hence: desperate people trying to emigrate.

To consider more fully how nationalism reacts to this, and might act as a check on it, let us go back to the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The scientific rationalism of such as Condorcet or Bentham deeply disturbed Mill and Tocqueville, for much the same reasons as, later, the fear of its consequences with respect to social control fuelled the satirical Utopias of Orwell and Huxley. Carlyle, Ruskin, Disraeli, Thoreau, and Fourier ware either repelled by it, or fiercely attacked it. The unease, or the repulsion, was due to the implication inherent in the idea of the “one true part to the only true goal”, social control would be legitimised, and the individual relegated to being just a pawn in the game. If the goal is fixed, and fixed (in today’s world) by unknown and unaccountable strangers, then all that is left is how to find the most efficient means to it. One objection to the “scientific” plan for human good seen in such as Condorcet or Bentham was that it left the individual no room for choice, for imagination, for debating ends and fundamental values. He was to be manipulated, for an ideal in whose construction he played no part, sacrificed on an altar of abstractions. This is what Orwell and Huxley attacked so bitterly and brilliantly. This is what horrified so many people when the true ambitions of behaviourism became clear, note that the title of one of B.F. Skinner’s books is BEYOND Freedom and Dignity; and almost the only significant difference between his Utopia, in his Walden Two, and those of Orwell and Huxley, is that he does think that this is an ideal world.

According to the pessimist, the individual, from whatever country – thanks to unchecked globalization – is now no better off than are the imagined creatures in these utopian satires. He is just another cog in the wheel, and an interchangeable cog at that: the profit motive demands cheap labour, and does not care if that be Indonesian, Filipino, Mexican, African. If the demand is to produce Nike shoes or footballs or bottle-tops as cheaply as possible, then take the business to Bangladesh rather than to California – they will agree to less than $2 an hour in Bangladesh. If it seems that in the Philippines the workers would agree to undercut the Bangladeshis: then OK, shift the business there. Individual workers are simply means to the global profit seeking end. This directly denies a most central Kantian theme: the heart of his ethical system is that people must not be treated simply as means, but must always be recognised to be ends in themselves. Inability to comprehend the force of that gives us unashamed exploitation; indeed it is “beyond” freedom and dignity.

Isaiah Berlin finds in Machiavelli someone who simply denied that ends or values were single and universal. It was for personal reasons that he chose Machiavelli in particular, Machiavelli happened to be the first person he read who started to shake his faith in the dominant monolithic views of something like, or descended from, the Platonic ideal of “one true state system”, universally and everywhere valid. We find, in Machiavelli, the “Roman” way of life: advocating bravery, resourcefulness, pride, the ability to seize opportunities, political guile, willingness to use force – the qualities of the lion and the fox, aiming at the power and the glory of the body politic. Set against this, and incompatible with it, is the notion of the Christian virtues: humility, the acceptance of suffering, self-sacrifice, meekness, unwordliness, aiming at the perfection of the individual life. He did not say one is right, true, correct, and the other wrong, false, incorrect. It is easy to see which he prefers. But there is no overarching criterion which decides between them on the basis of anything like truth. They can’t however be combined; their values are incompatible.

Thoughts such as this became increasingly influential, sometimes getting right in to cultural relativism. Cultures – whatever is included in that slippery term – are not the sorts of things to be judged “correct”, “incorrect”, “bad”, or “good”. Every society has its own pattern, its own vision, of reality (of the world around it), of its own nature, of its aims or destiny. This shows itself in everything the people in that community do, think, feel, or say. This inspires mass loyalty, as transnational institutions cannot. A Spaniard would fight if Spain were attacked; he would be unlikely to risk his life for the EU. He might stand proudly for the Spanish national anthem, but not even recognise the “EU anthem”. What is more, these visions may be incommensurable, or exclude each other (as with Machiavelli’s “Roman” and “Christian” values). Thus a distinction has been drawn between science (as then conceived), and the humanities; the dogma that all knowledge forms a seamless whole is rejected. Utopias, although they may stimulate the imagination, are dangerous and misleading; fortunately, given human nature, they are ultimately unrealizable. But it is not necessary to go all the way into relativism. It might be better to call it “pluralism”. The difference from relativism is due simply to the constraints of our common human nature – these limit the range of intelligible options.

There may be an indefinite number of different plants in a forest, but they all belong in the one forest, and depend on the same soil. This suggests, as seems not to be the case with relativism, that we can – without needing to share, or even like, the values we find in other societies – at least come (perhaps with an effort) to understand them and see what part they play in the warp and weft of that society. The elegant sophisticates of nineteenth-century Paris could, with an effort understand the world which Homer’s warriors inhabited.

So far we have an argument to repudiate one version of globalization, a version that contemporary politicians, who endorse and support globalizing attitudes, would also repudiate, or say that they repudiate:

and ideology that involves a strong form of cultural monism. But, remember, we do not need diverse national sentiments to make the point. It is very important to note that there are other forms of community, and most of these could be used to defend the anti-globalization arguments rehearsed above: clans, tribes societies – even societies such as the Mafia – cities, provinces, the colonies of a far-flung empire.

Many religious groupings have a cohesive and self-sufficient way of life, however strange they might appear to an outsider, think of the self-contained, German-speaking, Amish communities in North America.

Even religious communities that do not physically share territory may have a consistent cultural outlook that comes first with them and informs most of their activities – I am thinking as possible examples, of Jehovah’s Witnesses or Christian Scientists. Islamic fundamentalism is very universal; some orthodox Muslims in the city of Bradford (in the UK) were as outraged by Salman Rushdie’s “sacrilegious” book, Satanic Verses, as were the mullahs in Iran.

Moreover, colonies under empires at the height of their powers were, for the most part, content with the lack of full nationhood, since many had never had it anyway, and their cultural diversity could be expressed, much as before, in their subnational groupings, with their own ways of doing things, their own religious traditions, their own languages, their own territory, which sensible empires prudently allowed. (“For the most part”, because there were always nationalists in all these places, just as there are nationalists today in constituent states of Britain (Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland), in the Basque region of Spain, the province of Quebec, and many others.) Non-nationalist ties and loyalties can provide the conditions required to realize human dignity and integrity. So more, then, is needed, to explain nationalist sentiment.

Consider the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Exploration, and the need for mappings were relevant. Explorers returned with news of different peoples, different kingdoms and empires, different ethnic groupings and religious traditions; with news about the various ways in which other societies were organised. Travellers thus contributed to the improvement of maps; and of course they also needed them.

The communities - nations, kingdoms - they described had to be distinguished from the ones next door, by maps based in part on the distinctions that could be found between these ethnic, religious, kinship-based communities; by which group was hostile to which of its neighbours. Moreover, some of the customs they found considerably surprised them. Herodotus provides one of the first examples. He describes how some Greek explorers met members of an Indian tribe. Somehow they managed to make themselves understood by the other party. The Indians were truly horrified by the Greek habit of burning their parents on a ceremonial pyre. The only way, for them, of showing due respect was, reverently, to eat them.

Wars (and threats to and from neighbouring nations) are highly significant to the forging of a sense of national unity. At least when citizen-armies started to be used; before the Napoleonic wars, many if not most assaults against other states were conducted by proxy, through mercenaries. (Most of those fighting on the British side in America's war of independence were mercenaries). But, to resist the grand ambitions of Napoleon, nations had to rally themselves to meet the challenge. Not only conscription from all parts of the country; but nation-wide taxation to finance the struggle. National armies bring together men from every “subordinate” social grouping; mixing northerners and southerners, urban and rural peoples, those from the provinces and those from the capital; from every socio-economic group; from all religions or none. Subordinate loyalties were just that: subordinated; to a national loyalty, which trumped, in times of crisis facing the country, all other ties. The modern British income tax (there were of course taxes before) dates from Pitt the Younger, introduced nation wide precisely to fund the improvement of the army and navy. Such taxation presupposes much more information about the population as a whole; so we start to see censuses taken.

Napoleon was not the only one to want an empire. The rest of the world, to many Europeans; was there to be colonized, to a great extent in the interests of exploitation of underdeveloped peoples is seen in all political ideologies, and the European merchants of the time were indeed those who must ardently supported the colonizing drive. That meant not only finding out who was where (maps again) to establish their colonies; but also to know which European power was claiming adjacent areas - the “scramble for Africa” is one infamous illustration of this. The model of colonization used was European: centralized capitals were created, princedoms, principalities, or tribes that had hitherto been relatively autonomous were drawn together, as for instance in India or the Malay peninsula. To facilitate this, an infrastructure of roads, railways, and communications sprang up. Again for ease of control, one “official” language was declared, preferably of course English, French, Portuguese, Spanish etc; and that, of course, presupposed the provision of new educational systems.

Evidently this map-drawing, whether it involved the rubbing-out of lines implicitly drawn between principalities or tribes, or the drawing of new sharper lines around “a state”, cuts across elements we think to be parts of nationalism (s). We have seen the possible significance of allegiance to a religious identity, we have heard about pan-Arab nationalism. Just as important, and helping to explain the current appalling struggle in parts of Africa: many of the states there are artificial creations of the British or French colonial administrators, and cut-across the map of African ethnic nations. So in Rwanda and Burundi, for example, we have bloody violence between Tutsis and Hutus – the political relics of European colonialism.

Please, go to the next page below.

Kathy Wilkes at the University of Zagreb in 2001, part 3

Carstva su obično i iz razumljivih razloga obeshrabrivala nacionalističke pokrete u zemljama ili kolonijama pod svojom kontrolom, pa u razdoblju kad je carstvo bilo na vrhuncu moći nisu ni bili značajni većini ljudi u pripadajućim kolonijama. Vladajuće snage mudro su im ostavile njihova lokalna središta gdje su imali svoj identitet i svoj "dom" – sa svojim obiteljima, klanovima, plemenima, religijskim grupacijama, jezicima (iako su se trebali koristiti "službenim" jezikom za suradnju s "vlastima"); oni su zadržavali svoje komadiće zemlje, svoje vođe klanova ili plemena, svoje gradove i sela. Privrženost gradu bila je doista jaka i u Europi. Vjerojatno je da je Machiavelli o sebi mislio više kao o Firentincu nego kao o Talijanu; Samuel Johnson zasigurno je bio prvo Londonac, a tek onda Englez; činjenica da je Britanac bila je tek na skromnom trećem mjestu. Danas u Pakistanu (nekad, naravno, koloniziranom) to vidimo u primjeru 72–godišnjaka Nawaba Akbara Bugtija, koji je upravljao područjem od 400 četvornih milja (oko 1.000 četvornih kilometara) Balocha sve otkako je s dvanaest godina postao poglavar: "Stoljećima sam Bugti i Balochar, a Musliman sam 1.400 godina. Pakistanac sam tek 50 godina". U vlastitom samoodređenju pripadnost Pakistanu bila je tek na četvrtom mjestu. Tako je i s njegovih 200.000 ljudi koji više vjeruju njegovoj procjeni i ispravnom djelovanju nego pakistanskoj vladi. Sve te "alternative" nacionalnog osjećaja pojavile su se zato što su osim tradicionalnih dijelova zemljoposjeda zadržali i cjelokupno kulturno breme – pjesme i priče, zajedničke uspomene, mitove i legende, načine djelovanja.

Takve nenacionalističke spone stvarale su uvjete potrebne za ostvarenje njihova identiteta, dostojanstva i integriteta. (Ponovno bih vas podsjetila na samodostatne amiške zajednice u SAD i Kanadi.)

Dakle, osvrt na slom carstava trebao bi nam pružiti daljnje objašnjenje za uspon nacionalizma. U svima od njih oduvijek je bilo nacionalista. Ponekad zbog korupcije ili nesposobnosti, a ponekad zbog toga što su se previše proširila, carstva poput nekadašnjeg habsburškog ili otomanskog oslabila su i počela gubiti snagu; osjećajući to nacionalisti su brojčano ojačali i povećavali pritisak u smjeru vlastite vladavine. Općenito uzevši, sve se više širila želja za većom autonomijom i saznanje da su bili potlačeni i izrabljivani. Ali ta želja za autonomijom i demokracijom (tu se pojam nacionalizma ponovno javlja) nije bila tek apstrakcija. Bilo je to mnogo više za njihove narode: Poljake, Litvance, Ukrajince. Ideja revolta postala je još privlačnijom zbog činjenice da je u posljednjim izdisajima (recimo) Otomansko Carstvo trebalo reagirati na vlastite nedostatke projicirajući ih izvan centra, stežući čvršće podčinjene narode: Otomansko Carstvo u svojim je posljednjim godinama bilo najmanje tolerantno prema nekonformizmu i oštrije u kažnjavanju nepokornosti nego ikada prije. Tako su podčinjeni narodi doista bili potlačeni. Neka su se carstva raspala dosta mirnije; npr. sovjetsko carstvo – mnogi su ostali iznenađeni njegovom relativno mirnom dezintegracijom. Mnoga carstva i stvarno umjetne tvorevine, kao što je bila bivša Jugoslavija, smatrali su se nepoželjnima i nepotrebnima kada se njihov glavni razlog postojanja – stvaranje kišobrana radi zaštite svoje kolonije od stvarne ili izmišljene vanjske prijetnje – počeo smatrati pretjeranim. Bez neprijatelja (a Gorbačov je uspio uvjeriti građane SSSR–a da Zapad ne planira pod svaku cijenu baciti na njih nuklearnu bombu) takva u osnovi umjetna jedinica shvaćena je onakvom kakva je doista i bila – umjetnom, a konstituirajuće države su uvidjele da bi im bilo bolje da brinu same za sebe, za svoje građane i svoje gospodarstvo uz punu nezavisnost.

Zbog arbitrarnosti mnogih kolonijalizmom nametnutih podjela, nakon povlačenja kolonizatorskih snaga često ostane malo toga što bi podržavalo bilo kakvu lojalnost prema umjetno stvorenim kolonijalnim jedinicama.

Ponekad neka vanjska prijetnja pomogne taj proces; Eritrejci su npr. postali čvršće "Eritrejci" kad su se morali udružiti kako bi se borili protiv velikog susjeda Etiopije. Bilo zbog pobune ili složnosti, nove nezavisne države moraju iznaći kako ujediniti svoju zemlju i upravljati njome. Bilo je potrebno uzdati se u vlastite snage, što prije nije bilo potpuno iskušano.

Novooslobođene države morale su se nadati da će nacionalna odanost zajedno s građanskim identitetom vezanim baš uz neku određenu nacionalnu državu, postati "adutom" svih ostalih vrsta odanosti, bez obzira na to je li riječ o privrženosti manjim (kao klan ili pleme) ili većim zajednicama (poput nostalgije za bivšim SSSR-om, bivšom Jugoslavijom ili Britanskim Carstvom). Možda su naučeni smatrati da se njihovo središte identiteta i mogućnost demokratske samouprave temelje na državi i da to ne mogu uvijek lako "preuzeti", osobito ako su prethodne lojalnosti i identiteti jaki, a neke nove nacionalne države umjetne i proizvoljne tvorevine nastale kao pogodnost kolonizatorskim snagama. (Prisjetite se riječi 72–godišnjeg Naswaba Akbara Bugtija: za nj, biti Pakistanac bilo je tek na četvrtom mjestu.) Ne treba pokušavati ukloniti te druge spone – zapravo svaka takva ambicija bila bi doista uzaludna. Međutim, u trenucima nacionalne krize, nada nacionalista, zapravo njihovo očekivanje jest da nacionalni osjećaj nadvlada sve druge privrženosti. Ipak, i oni mogu imati svoje manje teškoće usporedive problemima carstva. Mnoge nacionalne države imaju poddržavne nacionalističke grupe, obično etnički zasnovane ili izražavane na temelju povijesti: sjetite se Flamanaca, Škota, Velšana, Bretonaca, Korzikanaca, Baska, Kurda. Uopće, današnje nacionalne države imaju sve više teškoća s pravom etničkih ili vjerskih manjina unutar svojih granica, pojačanih proteklih godina masovnim povećanjem broja onih koji traže azil i donose sa sobom kulturu koja je starosjediocima potpuno strana. Različite nacionalne države rješavaju takve probleme različitim strategijama, a vrlo ih malo može potvrditi barem nekakav uspjeh.

Još jedan razlog zbog kojeg je teško postići da nacionalizam "nadjača" ostale privrženosti jest što se ljudi međusobno žene i sele. Kojoj nacionalnoj državi treba biti privržen Židov majke Rumunjke i oca Velšana koji živi u Francuskoj? Vjerojatno najviše problema s izdvajanjem "glavne" lojalnosti imaju obrazovani i prostorno pokretljivi pojedinci s višestrukim i preklapajućim izvorima identiteta u svojoj državi, svojoj vjeri, svom gradu, svojoj pripadnosti npr. pokretu zelenih; eurofili će se rado prozvati Europljanima, a isto tako i Francuzima. Klasična populacija seljaka kao što su kosovski Albanci ili Rusini mogu htjeti zaštititi svoj identitet na jedini njima dostupan način: državom. To je očajnička težnja koja zajedno s dubokim osjećajem nepravde i mržnje prema okupatorskoj moći potiče palestinsku intifadu. Istinski pobornik globalizma gledao bi na te nacionalističke osjećaje sa zbunjenim prezirom; oni su površni, predstavljaju zadršku, prolaznu fazu, nevažni su. Optimisti su vjerovali da će se iznenadni procvat ekstremnih nacionalističkih osjećaja i (česta) netrpeljivost prema svemu što nije s njima u skladu smanjiti i ugasnuti: ako je nastalo kao posljedica tlačenja ili prijetnje, sigurno će nestati kad se jednom uklone te prepreke? Zapravo, prvo bi trebalo ostvariti te nove nacionalne države, na temelju njihova vlastitog iskustva, poniženja i težnje za autonomijom i jednakošću vlastitih manjinskih zajednica. Dakle, i opet mnogi liberali i socijalisti slično misle da je nacionalizam stranputica – možda posve razumljiva, ali da je on nešto što bi novooslobođene države trebale i morale prerasti. To je bila prolazna, privremena faza. Nacionalni osjećaj, domoljublje – i to je posve razumljivo, ali nacionalizam, ekstreman i potencijalno opasan jer je netolerantan – to je nažalost ljaga nacionalne države. Globalizacija je ovdje korisna obuzdavajući prevelik ili netolerantan nacionalizam time što otkriva sve oblike nacionalizma – smatrajući ih tek zamornom smetnjom.

Naravno, tako se ne događa; netolerantni nacionalizam bio je tijekom dvadesetog stoljeća čimbenik – ponekad razarajući, ponekad u pozadini – koji je kulminirao takvim nesrećama kao što su genocidi, rat u Ruandi i Kongu te u različitim fašističkim ili drugim ksenofobičnim i/ili rasističkim predrasudama. Ako se druge nacije smatraju preprekom ili prijetnjom tijeku sudbine moje nacije, onda je moja obveza prisiliti ih na uzmak, ako treba i silom. Ako njihove vrijednosti nisu i moje vrijednosti, to gore po njih.

Kao nenacionalistička strategija pokazala se potpora liberala multikulturalizmu (gdje je metafora za naciju da je poput miješane salate prije nego melting pot, tj. "lonac za taljenje") potičući programe poput afirmativne akcije koja traži npr. određeni broj upisnih mjesta na sveučilištima, zakone o zapošljavanju – čak i na račun dominantne većine; izravno prkoseći "monokulturalizmu". Jedan od najznačajnijih učinaka imalo je to na obrazovanje (što je osobito jasno u SAD). Tijekom 1970–ih, nakon (dugog) razdoblja u kojem se analogija s "loncem za taljenje" smatrala jedinim načinom postizanja harmoničnog nacionalnog jedinstva, počelo se smatrati da je školski program previše anglo– ili eurocentričan. Njime se doseljenicima onemogućavalo shvaćanje vrijednosti vlastite kulturne baštine, namećući im samo povijest, književnost i pretpostavke anglosaksonskog protestantizma – sliku bijelog anglo–saksonskog protestanta (WASP, prema White Anglo-Saxon Protestant). Taj zastarjeli program trebalo je zamijeniti radikalno restrukturiranim programom koji uzima u obzir posve različite kulturalne i društvene tradicije i običaje koje učenici donose u učionice; školske lekcije koje jednako značenje pridaju neeuropskoj koliko i europskoj povijesti i književnosti, naglašavajući postignuća nebijelaca i nezapadnjaka te koja ističu tamniju stranu američke povijesti – primjerice trgovinu robovima i odnos prema autohtonim Indijancima. Smatralo se da bi se shvaćanjem bogatih raznolikosti svjetskih povijesnih i kulturnih tradicija razbila uskogrudnost koja je navodno obilježavala američke stavove i stvorila nove tolerancije i poštivanje kulturnih razlika. Liberali koji su sve to zastupali bili su stoga teško razočarani kada su neki pripadnici imigrantskih zajednica reagirali sami krajnje kvazinacionalistički. Oni su npr. inzistirali da Muslimani moraju imati vlastite prostorije na sveučilištima, da ne bi obvezno trebali prisustvovati satovima američke povijesti – zapravo da bi trebali imati (isključivo) svoje škole; da bi predavanja trebala biti na njihovom materinjem jeziku, da bi trebalo prihvatiti zakone koji bi im dopustili poligamiju. Paradoks je da su američki antinacionalisti tako frustrirani nacionalističkim lojalnostima (uglavnom etničkih) manjina u svojoj sredini.

Ironično, rasistički nacionalist Le Pen pronašao bi mnogo toga s čime bi se složio u tom pritisku separatizma. On je predložio da bi neeuropljanima koji žele živjeti u Francuskoj trebalo dopustiti život u vlastitim getima u kojima bi mogli raditi što im drago; samo da se drže podalje od nas ostalih. To je svakako bio oblik priznavanja razlika između kultura, ali ne i poštovanje prema njima; to je prije izraz prijezira – vrsta kulturalnog apartheida. Ako se takva getoizacija prihvati, ideja o jedinstvu nacije-države bit će stvarno odbačena.

Reakcija protiv multikulturalizma donijela je sa sobom tamniju stranu nacionalizma uključujući predrasude i ksenofobiju te dovela do rasizma i u krajnjim slučajevima do genocida ili etničkog čišćenja. Ipak, dio te reakcije vrijedan je poštovanja ukoliko proizlazi iz potrebe za kritičkim razumijevanjem različitih kultura, uključujući domorodačku kulturu. Na primjer jaki argumenti koje netko postavlja trebali bi biti univerzalno prihvaćeni nasuprot "tradicionalnih" običaja kao što je klitoridektomija (obrezivanje žena; genitalno sakaćenje). Trebali bi biti univerzalno prihvaćeni stoga što teško nanošenje tjelesne
boli jest ili bi trebao biti zločin u svakoj zemlji i na svakom jeziku. Slično, običaj dogovaranja brakova u Indiji, Pakistanu i Bangladešu zaslužuje barem preispitivanje, kao što zaslužuje i običaj obrednog klanja koji slično nalažu židovstvo i islam – za neke je to duboko uvredljivo. Tolerancija je naravno dobra – tko bi se hvalio time što je netolerantan? Tolerancija očito ne može tolerirati netoleranciju, ali to nije sve što ne bi trebalo tolerirati: neki su običaji, ili se može raspravljati jesu li, neprihvatljivi poput ljudožderstva, ropstva, mučenja ili čedomorstva. Dio istine je u mišljenju da postoje neke činjenice o ljudskoj prirodi koje ograničavaju izbore načina života. Da ponovim prije izrečenu metaforu: svim biljkama u šumi zajedničko je isto tlo. Promijenim li to u vodenu metaforu: postoji talog zajedničkih vrijednosti koji moramo priznavati jednostavno zbog činjenice o našoj ljudskoj prirodi.

Dio reakcije koji se ne može zanemariti nastaje zbog straha i negodovanja. Negodovanje zato što (recimo) postoji afirmativna akcija u zapošljavanju; ona neizbježno donekle umanjuje prilike onima u dominantnoj većini. Inzistiranje na tome da se prema nekom postupa kao prema posebnom i drukčijem u nekima stvara kritičnost ili odbijanje njihove (većinske) kulture. Ponašanje prema islamu i židovstvu kao da su jednaki npr. kršćanstvu čini se da svodi kršćanstvo na "tek još jednu religiju". "Ne postoji put do Oca osim kroz mene" – mora nijekati kršćansku toleranciju prema ostalim "putovima". Nadalje, tu je i bojazan da će biti "progutani" – osobito u gradovima u kojima su pridošlice gotovo jednako brojni kao i većinska populacija. Budući da sva grupiranja (bilo na razini nacionalne države ili na razinama vjerskih ili plemenskih ili etničkih zajednica) moraju neizbježno biti jednim dijelom prikazivana kao ono što ona nisu - uplašene ili ogorčene pridošlice mogu biti demonizirane. Javljaju se stereotipi; sve Muslimane sumnjiči se za fundamentalizam, svi crnci su kriminalci; pred početak hladnog rata MacCarthy je lako mogao prikupiti potporu za progon osumnjičenih komunista: komuniste se smatralo opasnim "drugima". Bez takvog stereotipiziranja (sjetite se samo protuhrvatske propagande ovdje 1990. i 1991.) "moja" skupina ne može biti spremna za borbu. Kada nije u pitanju nacionalni interes i kad se ne osjeća opasnost, teže je okupiti vojsku. Otuda i NATO-vi zračni napadi u ratu zbog Kosova; SAD je želio rat bez žrtava jer ih javnost ne bi prihvatila. Mnogi su Škoti pitali zašto škotski bataljuni moraju uopće biti tamo; u svijesti javnosti njihova nacija nije bilo ugrožena. Velik dio otpora u vrijeme vijetnamskog rata bio je posljedica pitanja: Zašto smo ovdje? Rat se ipak nastavljao jer je za vrijeme hladnog rata dovoljno Amerikanaca iskreno vjerovalo u stvarnu komunističku prijetnju Sjedinjenim Državama da bi "naše momke" zadržalo tamo.

Smrt nacionalizma često se predviđa, ali nacionalizam nikada ne nestaje i često ponovno izbije na površinu jakim intenzitetom. Prema nekima, on je glavni izvor njihova identiteta, zajedno sa zemljom koju mogu zvati svojim domom, s međusobno usklađenim načinom života, sudjelovanjem u demokraciji (konačno, demokracija pretpostavlja "demos"), sa simbolima, zajedničkim iskustvima, vjerojatno selektivno obojenom poviješću, zajedničkim jezikom i književnošću, i tako dalje. Za druge to je tek jedan takav izvor i k tome sve manje važan: biti musliman ili kršćanski scijentist može biti gotovo jednako važno; institucije kao što su OSS, UN, WTO, Svjetska banka, MMF, Europski sud za ljudska prava, NATO, ASEAN, itd. postaju sve značajnije. Možda globalizacija, barem u svijesti onih koji uživaju njezine prednosti, ima prije svega svrhu umanjiti značenje nacionalizma. Kao što smo vidjeli, čini se da je sve veća moć multinacionalnih kompanija često jača od moći nacionalnih država, koje se ponekad i previše trude uskladiti sa zahtjevima multinacionalista ili s ograničavajućim uvjetima nametnutim od MMF-a ili Svjetske banke. Kad država gubi punu kontrolu nad nacionalnom ekonomijom, zasigurno gubi i važan element vlastite suverenosti. Odluke koje negdje daleko donose bezlični i neodgovorni pojedinci sve više utječu na stvaranje nacionalne politike, pa što je onda zapravo smisao glasovanja? (Znalci predviđaju rekordni pad u odzivu birača na britanske opće izbore 7. lipnja. "Apatična stranka" dobiva većinu glasova.)

Globalizacija može obuzdati krajnosti nacionalizma raskrinkavajući ga. Ipak, bilo bi bolje kad bi se on sam mogao smatrati internacionalizmom – što pretpostavlja međusobne odnose nacija, a ne transnacionalizmom koji ih nadilazi. Kao transnacionalan, on teži nametnuti nešto što se može nazvati jedino ideologijom; a čini se da smo baš sada siti ideologija bilo zbog internacionalnog socijalizma, ili fašizma ili kršćanskih križara – sve je to stvorilo barem toliko genocida, etničkog čišćenja (itd.) koliko i bilo koji rasistički ili ksenofobički nacionalizam. (Mnogi su umrli u sovjetskim gulazima, a to je bilo zbog ideologije, ne zbog nacionalizma.) Današnja globalizacija također ubija ljude u najsiromašnijim zemljama. Biti kotačić u ambicijama multinacionalne korporacije nije nešto zbog čega bi vrijedilo umrijeti.

Nacionalizam neće nestati. Štoviše, dobroćudni nacionalizam budi se i u zemljama s odavno uspostavljenim granicama ako im se temelji čine poljuljanima – bilo zbog EU ili zbog navodnih muslimanskih fundamentalista, ili kad se – stvarno ili ne – starosjedioci počnu utapati među imigrantima; u takvim se trenucima s nacionalnih zastava otresa prašina i njima se počinje mahati, nacije podržavaju svoga vladara zvao se on Milošević ili Mugabe. No pozitivna strana "dobroćudnog" nacionalizma (za razliku od "negativne") nije ništa lošija od pokušaja da se sačuva identitet relativno male (male u usporedbi s Mitsubishijem ili General Motorsom) etničke, kulturne i jezične zajednice ostvarenjem i očuvanjem nezavisnosti kao suverene političke nacionalne države. Ne postoji proturječje između povećavanja broja nacionalnih država i sve jače međunarodne integracije: za ilustraciju, Slovenija se čim je izašla iz bivše Jugoslavije, odmah prijavila za članstvo u EU i NATO.

Globalizacija i nacionalizam su životne činjenice. Smatram da se nijedno od toga ne može tolerirati u dvadeset i prvom stoljeću ili pak biti korisno osim u neprekidnom dijalogu: tako da globalizacija često kontrolira krajnosti nacionalizma, dok benigni nacionalizam sprječava da se identitet pojedinca svede samo na potrošački. Da završimo gdje smo i započeli: bilo je razloga za prosvjede u Seattleu, Washingtonu i Pragu.

Empires typically, and for obvious reasons, discouraged nationalist movements in the countries or colonies they controlled; and during the period when each was at its height, this didn't matter much to most of the people in the constituent colonies. The ruling powers sensibly left them with their local foci where they found their identity and their “home” – with their families, clans, tribes, religious groupings, language (even if they had to use the “official” language when dealing with “the authorities”); they kept their patches of land, their chieftains, their towns and villages. Indeed, city loyalty was strong in Europe too. It seems likely that Machiavelli thought of himself more as a “Florentine” than an “Italian”; Samuel Johnson was certainly a Londoner first, and Englishman second; being British came a very poor third. Today, in Pakistan (formerly colonised, of course) we find this from a 72-year old man, Nawab Akbar Bugti, who has governed 400 square miles of Baloch ever since he was made chief at the age of 12: “I have been a Bugti and Baloch for centuries, and a Muslim for 1,400 years. I have been a Pakistani for 50 years”. Clearly Pakistan comes fourth in his self identity. So, it seems, do his 200,000 people, who prefer to rely on him for judgement and fair dealing rather than the Pakistani government. All these “alternatives” to nationalist sentiment came not only with them keeping their traditional lands but also with the full cultural baggage - with their songs and stories, collective memories, myths and legends, ways of doing things.

Such (non-nationalist) ties supplied the conditions necessary to realize their human identity, dignity, and integrity. (I'd remind you of the self-sufficient Amish communities in the US and Canada.)

So, looking at the breakdown of empires should give us further clues to the rise of nationalism. In all of them there had always, of course, been some nationalists. Then, sometimes because of corruption or incompetence, sometimes because of being overstretched, empires such as the Habsburg or Ottoman ones weakened and started to falter; sensing this, the nationalists gained in strength of number and increased the pressure for self-rule. More generally, the desire for greater autonomy, and, the perception that they were oppressed and exploited, grew more and more widely. But this wasn't (and here the notion of nationalism reappears) a desire for autonomy and democracy in the abstract. Much more for their people: Poles, Lithuanians, Ukrainians. The idea of revolt was made more attractive by the fact that the last gasps of (say) the Ottoman empire was to react to its own failing by projecting them outside the centre, clamping down hard on the subject peoples: the Ottoman empire in its last years was at its most intolerant of non-conformity, and harsher in its penalties for non-compliance, than it had ever been before. Thus the subject peoples were indeed oppressed. Other empires fell apart rather more peacefully; I think for instance of the Soviet empire – many were surprised by the relative peacefulness of its disintegration. Many empires, and indeed artificial constructs such as the former Yugoslavia, were seen as unwanted and unnecessary when their main raison d’etre- to provide an umbrella to protect their constituent colonies from real or imagined external threats – was seen as de trop. Without an enemy (and Gorbachev succeeded in persuading citizens of the USSR that the West was not imminently planning to hurl nuclear bombs in their direction) an essentially artificial unity was seen for what it was, artificial; and constituent states realised that they could do better for themselves, their citizens, and their economies with full independence.

Because of the arbitrariness of many colonially-imposed divisions, once the colonizing powers retreated, there was often little left to underpin any loyalty to artificially-devised colonial unities.

Sometimes an external threat helped the process; Eritreans for example, became more solidly ”Eritrean” when they had to band together to fight their big neighbour, Ethiopia. Whether by rebellion or agreement, though, the newly independent states had to work out how to unify and run their countries. There was a need, not fully experienced before, to become self-reliant.

The newly-freed states had to hope that national loyalty, and with it one's identity as a citizen of just this nation-state, would come to be seen as “trumping” loyalties of all other kinds, whether smaller (like the clan or tribe) or larger (like a nostalgia for the former USSR, the former Yugoslavia, or the British Empire). They might have to be taught to regard their main locus of identity, and their prospect of democratic self government, to be something that rests with the state, and of course this may not always easily “take”, where pre-existing loyalties and identities are strong, and where some of the new nation-states are artificial and arbitrary constructs, drawn up for the convenience of the colonising powers. (Remember the comment of the 72-year old Nawab Akbar Bugti: for him, being a Pakistani come a poor fourth.) No attempt need be made to remove these other ties – indeed, any such ambition would be vain indeed. However in times of national crisis, the nationalists' hope, indeed their expectation, is that nationalist sentiment will trump other loyalties. They may also have, though, their own smaller-scale analogies to the problems of empires. Many nation-states have sub-state nationalist groups, usually ethnically based or claimed on historical grounds: consider the Flemings, the Scots, the Welsh, the Bretons, the Corsicans, the Basques, the Kurds. In general, today's nation-state have increasing difficulties with the right of ethnic or religious minorities within their borders, intensified in recent years by the massive increase in the number of those seeking asylum, and bringing with them their cultural baggage which can seem wholly alien to the indigenous population. Different nation-states have different strategies to deal with such problems, and very few can claim any degree of success.

Another reason for the difficulty in getting nationalism to “trump” other loyalties is that people intermarry and move. To which nation-state should the loyalty of a Jewish man with a Romanian mother, a Welsh father, living in France, be owed? Possibly these problems of isolating a “trumping” loyalty are chiefly seen in educated and mobile individuals, who have multiple and overlapping sources of identity in their state, their religion, their city, their membership of, say, Greenpeace; Europhiles will be happy to call themselves “European”, as well as “French”. Classical peasant populations, though, such as the Kosovar Albanians or Ruthenians, may want to protect their identity in the only way at hand: through a state. This is of course the desperate longing that, along with a deep sense of injustice and hatred of the occupying power, drives the Palestinian intifada. The true globalizer, of course, would look on these nationalist sentiments with mystified contempt; they are superficial, a throwback, a passing phase, unimportant. However: the optimists thought that the sudden flowering of extreme nationalist sentiment, and the (frequent) intolerance of anything not wholly in tune with it, would abate and wither away; if it had resulted from oppression or threat, surely it would vanish or die back once these obstacles had been removed? Indeed, these new national states should be the first to realise, from their own experience, the humiliation, and the craving for autonomy and equality, of their own minority communities. So, once again, many liberals and socialists alike thought that nationalism was an aberration – intelligible enough, maybe, but something that the newly-freed states would and should soon grow out of. It was a passing phase, ephemeral. National sentiment, patriotism – that may be intelligible enough; but extreme and potentially dangerous – because intolerant – nationalism: that is a regrettable blot on the nation-state. Globalization is useful here, serving to moderate excessive or intolerant nationalism, in that it debunks all forms of nationalism – considering them to be no more than a tiresome irritation.

Of course it hasn't happened that way, if anything, intolerant nationalism has been a factor – sometimes virulent, sometimes in the background – throughout the twentieth century, culminating in such disasters as genocides, the war in Rwanda and the Congo and in various fascist or other xenophobic and / or racist prejudices. If other nations are seen to represent obstacles or threats to the course of my nation's destiny, then I have an obligation to compel them to give way, if necessary by force. If their values are not my values, then so much the worse for theirs.

One non-nationalist strategy is seen in the liberals' support for multiculturalism (where the metaphor is of the nation as a mixed salad rather than as a melting-pot), encouraging policies such as affirmative action, requiring (for example) quota places at universities, employment legislation – even if at the expense of the dominant majority; directly challenging “monoculturalism”. This has had one of its most significant effects (and this is especially clear in the US) on education. In the 1970s, following the (long) period in which the “melting pot” analogy was thought to be the only way to get harmonious national unity, it came to be thought that the school curriculum was too Anglo-, or Euro-centric. This prevented immigrants from coming to understand the value of their own cultural heritage, forcing on them only the history, literature, and assumptions of Anglo-Saxon Protestantism – the WASP picture: “White Anglo-Saxon Protestant”. This outdated curriculum must be replaced by a radically restructured one, one that takes into account the very varied cultural and social traditions and customs which pupils bring to the classroom; school lessons that give as much weight to non-European history and literature as to European, highlighting the achievements of non-whites and non-Westerners; and which emphasised the darker side of American history – for example, the slave trade, and the treatment of the indigenous Indians. Coming to understand the rich diversity of the world's historical and cultural traditions would, it was thought, break-through the parochialism which allegedly characterised American attitudes, and lead to a new thought, break-through the parochialism which allegedly characterised American attitudes, and lead to a new tolerance of, and respect for, cultural differences. The liberals who advocated all this were, therefore, severely disappointed when some members of the immigrant communities reacted as extreme quasi-nationalists themselves. They might insist, for example, that Muslims should have their own halls of residence in universities; that they should not be obliged to attend lessons on American history – indeed, that they should indeed have their own (exclusive) schools; that lessons should be given in their native languages; that laws should be passed to allow them to engage in polygamy. The paradox is that American anti-nationalists are here being frustrated by the nationalist loyalties of the (mainly ethnic) minorities in their midst:

Ironically, the racist-nationalist Le Pen would find much to agree with in this push for separatism. He has proposed that non-Europeans who wanted to live in France should be allowed to live in their own ghettoes, wherein they could do as they pleased; just keep away from the rest of us. This was, certainly, a form of recognition of the differences between cultures, but was certainly not respect for them: rather, it was an expression of contempt – a sort of cultural apartheid. If such ghettoisation is accepted, the idea of the unity of a nation-state will effectively have been abandoned.

The backlash against multiculturalism, then, brought with it part of the darker side of nationalism, involving prejudice and xenophobia, and leading to racism and, in extreme cases, genocide or ethnic cleansing. There is, though a respectable part of the reaction, if it results from a demand for a critical understanding of the diverse cultures, the indigenous culture included. There are, for example, strong arguments that one could claim should be universally accepted against “traditional” practices such as clitoridectomy (female circumcision; genital mutilation) – universally accepted, because “grevious bodily harm” is or should be a crime in any land or language. Similarly, the practice of arranged marriages in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh deserves at least examination: as does the practice of ritual slaughter, demanded by Judaism and Islam alike – this is deeply offensive to some. Tolerance is of course a good – who would boast of being intolerant? It obviously cannot tolerate intolerance, though, but that is not quite all that it should not tolerate: some practices are, or can be argued to be, as unacceptable as cannibalism, slavery, torture, or infanticide. Here is part of the truth in the idea that there are some facts about human nature that constrict the choices of ways of life. To repeat the metaphor given earlier: the plants in the forest all share the some soil. To change to a watery metaphor, there is a sediment of common values which we have to acknowledge, simply because of the fact of our human nature.

The part of the backlash that cannot be condoned, though, is that due to fear and resentment. Resentment, because (say) their is affirmative action in employment; this of necessity somewhat reduces the chances for those in the dominant majority. The insistence on being treated as distinct and different appears to some to constitute a criticism or rejection of their (the majority’s) culture. Treating Islam or Judaism as being on a par with, say, Christianity seems to some to reduce Christianity to “just another religion”. There is no way to the Father except through me” – this must deny Christian tolerance of other “ways”. Then there is the fear of being swamped – particularly in towns or cities where the incomers are almost as numerous as the majority population. Because all groupings (whether at the nation-state level, or the levels of religious or tribal or ethnic communities) must inevitably be characterised in part by what they are not, the feared or resented outsiders can be demonised. Stereotypes spring up; all Muslims are suspected of being fundamentalists, all blacks are criminals; near the start of the cold war, MacCarthy could easily muster support for the persecution of suspected communists: communists were perceived as dangerous “others” Without such stereotyping (and think of the anti-Croat propaganda here in 1990-1) “my” group could not be rallied to fight. When national self-interest is not at stake, and no risk perceived, it is harder to rally the troops. Hence the NATO air-bombardment in the war over Kosovo; the US wanted a war with no casualties, because the public would not have accepted the need for body-bags. Many Scots asked why the Scottish battalions had to be there at all; in the popular mind, their nation was not being threatened. Much of the resistance at the time of the Vietnam war resulted from the question: why are we here? It kept going, though, because during the cold war enough Americans genuinely believed in the reality of a communist threat to the US to keep “our boys” there.

The death of nationalism has often been predicted, but it never disappears and frequently resurfaces strongly. To some it is a main source of their identity, with a land they can call home, with a way of life that is broadly congenial, with a participatory democracy (after all, democracy presupposes a “demos”) with symbols, shared experiences, a - perhaps selectively coloured – history, a common language and literature, and so on. To others it is just one such source, and a diminishingly important one; being a Muslim, or a Christian scientist, may be almost as important; institutions, such as the OSCE, the UN, the WTO, the World Bank, the IMF, the European Court of Human Rights, NATO, ASEAN, (etc.) are increasingly significant. Perhaps above all globalization, at least in the minds of those who enjoy its benefits, tends to diminish the significance of nationalism. As we have seen, it looks as though the increasing power of the multinational companies is often more powerful than is that of nation-states, which sometimes bend over backwards to agree with the demands either of the multinationals, or with the stringent conditions imposed by the IMF or the World Bank. When a state loses full control over its national economy, it surely then loses an important element of its sovereignty.
Decisions made far away, by faceless and unaccountable individuals, determine increasing swathes of national policy-making; so what, really, is the point of voting? (The pundits are predicting an all-time low in the turnout for the British General Election on June 7th. The “Apathy Party” is gaining the most votes.)

Globalization can restrain the excesses of nationalism, by debunking it. But it would do better if it could itself be seen as internationalism – which presupposes relationships between nations – not as transnationalism, transcending them. When transnational, it seeks to impose what can only be called an ideology; and right now we seem to be sick of ideologies, whether from international socialism, or Fascism, or the Christian crusaders – all these have created as least as much genocide, ethnic cleansing (etc.) as any racist or xenophobic nationalism. (Many died in the Soviet gulags; and that was because of ideology, not nationalism.) The present-day globalization, too, is killing people is the poorest countries. Being a cog in a multinational corporation’s ambition is not something to want to die for.

Nationalism is not going to go away. Even “benign” nationalism, in countries with long-settled borders, is aroused if its foundations seem threatened – whether by the EU, or by alleged Muslim fundamentalists, or by a perceived – whether real or not – swamping of the natives by immigrants; at such times national flags are dusted-down and waved, the nation comes out for its ruler, even if he is called Milošević, or Mugabe. But the positive side (as distinct from the “reaction” side) of benign nationalism is nothing more sinister than an attempt to preserve the identity of relatively small (small by comparison to Mitsubishi, or General Motors) ethnic, cultural, and linguistic communities by achieving and maintaining independence as sovereign political nation-states. There is no contradiction between the multiplication of nation-states and increasing international integration; to illustrate this, Slovenia, as soon as it was free from the former Yugoslavia, immediately applied for membership of the EU and NATO.

Globalization and nationalism are facts of life. I suggest that neither, in the twenty-first century, can be tolerable or useful except in perpetual dialogue: globalization often checking the extremes of nationalism, while benign nationalism saves the individual from having no identity other than that of a “consumer”. To end where we began: there was a point to the protests in Seattle, Washington, and Prague.

Formated for CROWN by Darko Žubrinić
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