Has Pratap Bhanu Mehta got stupider since he managed to run away from Haryana to gain asylum in Amrika? This is his essay on 'the spectre of nationalism' in Foreign Policy magazine. Amazingly enough, it is more ignorant and vacuous than the shite he wrote while at Ashoka.
The world is embarking on a critical year for the future of democracy.
Nonsense! Democratic countries will stay democratic because that is the cheapest way to run them and non-democratic countries will stick to what currently works- unless they can't. What makes 2024 unusual is that some 4 billion people- half of humanity- are expected to cast their ballot in general elections. across the globe.
Elections in India, Indonesia, South Africa, and the United States—to name just a few prominent countries headed to the polls in 2024—would normally be routine affairs.
That is certainly true of the Indian and Bangladeshi elections. Pakistan may have to postpone elections till they can be rigged in a proper manner.
But many of these democracies are at an inflection point.
None are. America will see a Biden-Trump face off. Dishy Rishy may lose to Starmer unless he is done in by Tory rivals before that. South Africa will continue to go down the toilet. Indonesia will do fine.
Can the strengthening tides of polarization, institutional degradation, and authoritarianism be reversed?
All this shit only exists in the minds of shitheads.
Or will democracy reach a breaking point?
No. Fuck off.
Every democracy has its own particular set of characteristics.
Because every country is different.
In each country holding elections this year, voters will judge incumbent governments on familiar issues such as inflation, employment, personal security, and a sense of confidence about their future prospects. But the foreboding that accompanies the world’s elections in 2024 stems from one singular fact: The uneasy accommodation between nationalism and democracy is coming under severe stress.
Nonsense! Mehta is a nutter who made a fool of himself in India and has run away to America. But American Professors, too, are clutching their pearls and shitting themselves about the fate of its Democracy. Trump is so nasty! As for that Vivek dude- don't get me started.
The crisis in democracy is in part a crisis in nationalism,
there is no such crisis
which today seems to revolve around four issues: how nations define membership;
Citizenship. They all have immigration and naturalization laws. Nothing much will change in this respect. There will be some attempt to tighten border controls but it will fail.
how they popularize a version of historical memory;
they don't. They leave that to Netflix.
how they locate a sovereign identity;
the same way it has always been located. Fuck is wrong with this retard?
and how they contend with the forces of globalization.
Which they have been doing ever since the time of Christopher Columbus and Vasco da fucking Gama.
In each of these, nationalism and liberalism are often in tension.
Liberalism is dead. Get over it.
Democracies tend to navigate this tension rather than resolve it.
In which case there is no fucking tension.
Yet, around the world, nationalism is slowly strangling liberalism
since around 1848 in Europe.
—a trend that could accelerate in a damaging way this year.
if Modi is re-elected Mehta will shit himself so incessantly that his bowels will be damaged.
As more citizens cast their ballots in 2024 than in any other year in the history of the world,
because the world population is growing
they will be voting not only for a particular leader or party but for the very future of their civil liberties.
Nonsense! If their civil liberties really are under threat, voting one way or another won't make a difference. Only fighting a fucking civil war will.
Let’s first discuss how societies set parameters for membership.
They don't set parameters. They set eligibility criteria. The Greek word for this in Plato's time was δοκιμασία (dokimasia). Parameters which affect eligibility can't be set by the Society. They pre-exist. Thus, the parameters which pick me out uniquely are not set by British Society. However, I fulfil an eligibility criteria to be defined as a British citizen with certain rights which make me a member- however repulsive- of British society.
If a political community is sovereign, it has a right to make decisions on whom to exclude from or include in membership.
It may do or it may not. A sovereign country, like UK, may be bound by international treaties such that it can't deprive a person of citizenship if that would render her stateless.
Liberal democracies have historically opted for a variety of criteria for membership.
No. There is only one criteria for membership in any type of polity- viz. being a fucking member. Eligibility criteria for naturalization is a different matter.
Some have privileged ethnic and cultural factors,
for eligibility to take domicile and gain naturalization
while others have picked civic criteria that merely demand allegiance to a common set of constitutional values.
Nonsense! No country says you are a citizen or can become one even though you live far away just on the basis that you give allegiance to something. I may be a devoted to the Emperor of Japan and everything he stands for, but that doesn't make me Japanese.
In practice, a range of considerations have guided the immigration policies of liberal democracies, including the economic advantages of immigration, historical ties to particular groups of people, and humanitarian considerations.
But those considerations cease to matter if there are strong enough 'push' and 'pull' factors. Sealing the borders costs a lot of money.
Most liberal societies have dealt with the membership question not on a principled basis but through various arrangements, some more open than others.
Pragmatism is itself a principle.
The question of membership is increasing in political salience.
The cretin means voters are worried about immigration.
The causes may vary. In the United States, a surge of migrants at the southern border has politically foregrounded the issue, forcing even the Biden administration to reverse some of its promised liberal policies. To be sure, immigration has always been an important political issue in the United States.
Brexit had a lot to do with fears about immigration. So what? How has this imperilled democracy or civil rights? Oh. I see. Rishi is a Nazi just like Modi. Now there is Vivek Ramaswamy. Mehta is worried that these fucking Hindus are going to turn even his beloved Amrika into just another RSS controlled concentration camp.
But since the political arrival of Donald Trump, it has acquired a new edge. Trump’s so-called Muslim ban—even though it was eventually repealed—raised the specter of new forms of overt or covert discrimination forming the basis of a possible future U.S. immigration regime.
In Mehta's world, someone or other is always raising spectres. Why not raise bhoots or vetalas? Or does Mehta think Hindu ghosts and vampires are crude and vulgar? Nice Inglis spickin gentlemin should only be haunted by spectres and wraiths.
Europe’s refugee crisis—induced by global conflicts and economic and climate distress—is inflecting the politics of every country. Sweden has grown deep concerns about its model of integrating immigrants, ushering in a right-wing government in 2022. In the United Kingdom, Brexit hinged in part on concerns over immigration. And in India, the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi will implement the 2019 Citizenship Amendment Act, which excludes Muslim refugees from certain neighboring countries from a pathway to seeking citizenship.
Which has been Indian policy since 1948. Mehta may be surprised to learn that Europe and America had stricter border controls and immigration rules when he himself first went West to study. Back then few asylum claims, at least from darkies, were accepted.
For New Delhi, membership concerns are driven by the need to prioritize a large ethnic majority.
Whereas in Sweden, worries about immigration are driven by the need to prioritize the needs of a tiny minority of lesbians who are also goats.
Similarly, the status of migrants in South Africa is being increasingly contested.
I suppose that is a polite way of saying that, since 1994, black South Africans have been attacking black immigrants with as much vim and vigour as they display in looting Asian shops. Operation Dudula is one such vigilante force which may enter the political fray.
The increasing salience of membership is worrying for the future of liberalism.
You can't be liberal if you are overrun by hordes of refugees.
Since liberal values have historically been compatible with a variety of immigration and membership regimes, a liberal membership regime may not be a necessary condition for creating a liberal society.
Having open borders may mean being conquered or demographically replaced.
One could argue that not having a well-controlled membership policy is more likely to undermine liberalism by upsetting the social cohesion on which liberalism relies.
If you don't have social cohesion, you don't have a fucking society- liberal, conservative, theocratic or anything else.
But it is a remarkable fact that many of the world’s political leaders who endorse closed or discriminatory membership regimes, from Hungary’s Viktor Orban to the Netherlands’s Geert Wilders, also happen to oppose liberal values.
In the opinion of this nutter. Guess who supports unrestricted immigration? ISIS. Come and be our slaves or capture slaves for us.
That makes it harder to create a distinction between being anti-immigration and anti-liberal.
Why create such a distinction? Why not stop being a Professor of useless shit and get a proper job delivering pizzas?
Memory is a kind of eternal truth about one’s collective identity, to keep and carry forward.
No. Memory is about helping you find your car keys and then recalling you don't have a car because you are as poor as shit.
The second dimension of nationalism is the contest over historical memory.
Fuck off! Nationalism has to do with being able to defend your nation. Ukrainians fighting the Rooskis may have different 'historical memories'. What unites them is their desire to get back their land and property and send a clear signal that any future invader will have his fucking head kicked in.
All nations need something of a usable past—a story that binds its peoples together—that can be the basis of a collective identity and self-esteem.
No. How a bunch of people respond to an invasion or other existential threat determines whether they will be bound together. It is said that a sense of Jordanian identity was only forged after Black September while a sense of Kuwaiti identity was created after Saddam's cruel occupation.
The distinction between history and memory can be overdrawn, but it is important.
No it isn't. Historians are useless tossers.
As the French historian Pierre Nora put it, memory looks for facts, especially ones that suit the veneration of the main object of recollection.
Historians look for facts. Memory confabulates.
Memory has an affective quality: It is supposed to move you and constitute your identity.
No. That is oikeiosis. You are supposed to love your mummy and daddy and family and relatives and community etc. However, you have a separate identity. This is because you have a separate body.
It draws the boundaries of communities.
No. Memory may recollect where boundaries used to be but it can't draw them.
History is more detached; the facts will always complicate both identity and community.
No. Facts simplify both. You may think you were popular at school but also that you often felt lonely. Then you discover the fact that you are actually a chicken. Chickens don't go to school.
History is not a morality tale as much as it is a very difficult form of hard-won knowledge, always aware of its selectivity.
No. It is low IQ shite taught by cretins to cretins.
Memory is easiest to hold on to as a morality tale.
What his guy finds easy to hold onto is his dick.
It is not just about the past. Memory is a kind of eternal truth about one’s collective identity, to keep and carry forward.
No. Either you have kids and grandkids and bring them up to be patriots or your 'collective identity' lapses when you die. Memory can't do shit in this respect
Memories are increasingly being emphasized in the political arena.
No. Politicians may dwell on historical grievances or accomplishments. They may also appeal to people's memories to recollect how bad or good things were under a previous administration. But nobody is saying 'remember what happened before you were born'.
In India, to take the most obvious case, historical memory is central to the consolidation of Hindu nationalism.
Islamic and Sikh terror strikes have consolidated Hindu nationalism in the past. Previously, some people had memories of the freedom struggle and this could be appealed to. Nowadays, people are asked to remember how bad things were under Congress, Left Front, etc, etc.
In January, Modi will open a temple to the god Ram in Ayodhya, built on the site where Hindu nationalists demolished a mosque in 1992. It is an important religious symbol. But it is also central to the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party’s narrative that the most salient historical memory for Indians should not be colonial rule by the British but a thousand-year history of subjugation by Islam.
That is not a memory. It is merely a historical fact which Muslims are constantly quoting when they speak of a revival of their 'Khilafat' in India.
Modi declared Aug. 5, the day the foundation stone of the temple was laid in 2020, as being as important a national milestone as Aug. 15, the day of India’s independence from the British in 1947.
So what? Why is Mehta getting his knickers in a twist about this? It is usual to say 'this is an important milestone' if you have been invited to a foundation stone laying ceremony.
In South Africa, questions of memory may seem less pronounced.
People remember a time when they had electricity 24/7. Some are coming to the conclusion that majority rule was a bad idea- for the majority.
But the compromise of the Nelson Mandela years, which some now see as sacrificing economic justice for the cause of social solidarity, is increasingly being interrogated.
Why not just run amok killing and raping and looting?
Faced with continuing inequality, economic worries, and declining social mobility, many South Africans are questioning the legacy of Mandela and whether he did enough to empower Black people in the country.
Why have all the Whites and Asians not been raped, killed and looted? How is it fair that only a few politicians and bureaucrats have got rich by extorting the productive section of the population? Should not all black South Africans have the chance to rape and kill and loot?
This reflects some disillusionment with the ruling African National Congress. But this reconsideration could also potentially redefine the memory in terms of which modern South Africa has understood itself.
It had understood itself as a democracy with shared and rising affluence. Then it started laughing and began looking for avenues of emigration to places still ruled by White people.
In the United States, the contest over how to tell the national story goes back to the Founding Fathers.
It goes back to a time when that story wasn't told in English. Mehta doesn't know that America has indigenous people with their own languages.
But debates around this are more politically visible than ever, with politicians from Trump to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis basing their candidacies in part on what it means to be American and how to “make America great again.”
That's a slogan which goes back to the Thirties. How fucking ignorant is Mehta? It is one thing for an Indian Professor to be ignorant of India. But to display ignorance of America when you actually teach in America makes the rest of us darkies look bad.
Florida, for example, created dubious standards for the teaching of Black history, seeking to regulate what students learn about race and slavery.
Why did the tax-payers in Florida object to their kids being brainwashed by crazy Black Supremacists?
This is not just a contest over the politics of pedagogy; behind it is a larger, anxious political debate about how the United States remembers its past—and therefore how it will build its future.
Mehta thinks that his stupidity and ignorance qualifies him to take part in this debate. He wants America to build a future more like that of Venezuela.
The third dimension in the surge of nationalism is the contest over popular sovereignty, or the will of the people.
Which happened centuries ago. This man is a cretin.
There has always been a close connection between popular sovereignty and nationalism, as the former required the formation of the concept of a people with a distinct identity and special solidarity toward one another.
Previously there was a close connection between monarchical sovereignty and nationalism. The English King was English and thought the greater glory of England required holding large parts of France. The French King was French and had the opposite idea.
During the French Revolution, inspired by the ideas of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, the popular sovereign was supposed to have a singular will.
No. The general will should be singular and encompass the common good. But this must exist side by side with the will of all which permits self-interested action. Mehta is a cretin.
But if the will of the people is unitary,
it isn't. The general will of a Nation would be unitary in connection with the interests of the nation- e.g. the need to defend against invasion or internal insurrection. Can there be a general will of the comity of nations? Sure. That was Liebneiz's big shtick. Europeans could get on fine with each other. The French could go invade Egypt to let off steam.
what explains differences?
There was a separate discourse about 'national characteristics'- the melancholy Englishman, phlegmatic Dutchman, volatile Frenchman, etc.
Furthermore, if there are differences among people, as there naturally are, then how is one to ascertain the will of the people?
The general will is concerned with the well being of the nation as a whole. One can ascertain the general will of a family or an enterprise easily enough though, obviously, members of that family or enterprise may have different, even conflicting, self-interests.
One way out of this puzzle is to see who can effectively perform the will of the able
the ablest can perform the will of the able and the disabled.
—and in doing so represent the other side as betraying that will, rather than as merely carrying an alternative interpretation of it.
That's how politics works. You say 'I'd be great as President. The other guy will be utterly shit.'
In order for such a performance to take place, one has to castigate anyone who represents an alternative viewpoint as an enemy of the people.
But you also do this when competing for a job or a contract or a chance to fuck a person you meet at a party. You suggest that you will perform very well if chosen. Others are bound to disappoint.
In that sense, rhetorical invocations of “the people”—understood as a unitary entity—always run the risk of being anti-pluralist.
Only in the sense that invocation of anything always runs the risk of being a turd sandwich. Don't do it unless you are paid to do it or have no other way to pass the time because you teach a shite subject.
Even when democracies around the world have embraced a pluralist and representative conception of democracy, there is a residual trace of unity that gets transposed to the nation. The nation is not a nation, or cannot acquire a will, unless it is united.
No. A nation may be enslaved and or dispersed. By some great effort they may reunite and take control of territory to create their own nation-state.
As a political style, national populism thrives not so much by finding enemies of the people but enemies of the nation.
It may thrive without jingoism of any kind. Mehta is a cretin.
People rally around a unitary will by benchmarking their national identity: We are Indian by virtue of X or American by virtue of Y.
Nonsense! We can rally around anything we like no matter what characteristics we have. Annie Beasant was British, not Indian. Yet she became the leader of the Indian Home Rule League. We are welcome to support Israel or Palestine without being either Israeli or Palestinian or having any connection whatsoever with that part of the world.
Sometimes, this kind of benchmarking of identity can be quite productive;
where has it ever happened? I am British by virtue of naturalization. No further 'benchmarking' for any political or legal purpose occurs even though I don't conform to any cultural 'benchmark' of Britishness- e.g. a desire to consume warm beer and eat Cornish pasties (which aren't actually made from genuine Cornish patsies as I was led to believe).
it is a reminder to citizens of what gives their particular community a distinct identity.
Fuck does this mean? If benchmarking has occurred then membership of a particular identity class has been certified and has become 'common knowledge'. No fucking reminder is needed for a qualified Accountant to know he is a fucking Accountant.
Yet one of nationalism’s features is that it struggles to make room for its own contestation.
Only in the sense that it is a feature of anything which has features that it struggles to make room for its own contestations while Muggles break wind upon its incontinent protestations and Harry Potter stands by playing with his little wand.
The opposition is delegitimized or stigmatized not because it has a different point of view on policy matters but because its views are represented as anti-national.
Having policies which harm the nation is anti-national. Fuck is wrong with this cretin?
It is not an accident that the rhetoric of national populists is often directed against forces that are seen to challenge their version of the national identity or their benchmarking of nationalism.
Mehta himself did this when he objected to the building of the Ram Temple in Ayodhya. He said that his own beloved Ram had no need for Temples. God was being 'belittled' by the cry of 'Victory to Lord Ram'. Strangely, Mehta did not oppose the cry 'Allah is Great' or the building of mosques. He has now found refuge in Amrika where evil Hindus are putting up Temples. Sleepy Joe or comatose Kamala must take urgent action to prevent Ram being addressed as Lord Ram. Also all Hindu temples must be immediately razed to the ground.
As national identities become more contested, there are increasing chances that unity can be achieved only by being imposed.
Imposing shit costs money. Sod that for a game for soldiers.
As a political style, national populism thrives not so much by finding enemies of the people but enemies of the nation, who are often measured by certain taboos.
Enemies of the nation are enemies of its people. Mehta is a cretin.
Almost all modern populists—from Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan to Modi, Orban, and Trump—draw the distinction between people and elites not in terms of class but in terms of who authentically represents the nation.
No. Populist politicians say that the establishment has been captured by vested interest groups. If this is true- if the Army really did have too much power, which it misused, in Turkey, or if the soi disant Left Liberal Lutyens elite really was out of touch and corrupt in India, or the Soros-backed neoliberals wanted more immigration in Hungary, or if Biden really would let in hordes of refugees in America- then the nation needed to get behind candidates and parties who authentically represented their interests.
Who gets benchmarked as the true nationalist?
Nobody. There is no fucking benchmarking.
The cultural contempt for the elite gets its strength not just from the fact that they are elites but that they can be represented as elites who are no longer part of the nation, as it were.
No. Cultural contempt for elites gets its strength from the fact that elites are shit. Turf them out of their sinecures. Claudine Gay, this means you.
This kind of rhetoric increasingly sees difference as seditious rather than merely a disagreement.
Mehta is against the prosecution of Capitol Hill rioters- right?
In India, for example, national security charges are deployed against students who question the government’s stance on Kashmir.
No they aren't. Mehta is mad. All the high school and college kids in Kashmir Valley would have national security charges filed against them if this was true. It's like saying people who commented approvingly on the Capitol Hill rioters actions are currently being investigated by Homeland Security.
This is seen not just as a contestation—or possibly a misguided view—but an anti-national act than needs to be criminalized.
Fuck off, you lying sack of shit! You also pretended you were hounded out of India by a Fascist regime. The truth is you wanted to run away from rural Haryana and get a sinecure on an Ivy League Campus.
The fourth dimension of the crisis of nationalism relates to globalization. Even in the era of hyperglobalization, national interest never faded away. Countries embraced globalization or greater integration into the world economy because they thought it served their interests. But a critical question in this year’s elections in all democracies is a reconsideration of the terms on which they engage the international system.
Nope. That question was settled eight years ago and then was reinforced by COVID. Mehta is behind the times. Globalization ended when TTP and TTIP crashed and burned. Previously, it was thought that 'multi-dimensional' trade deals would give the US 'agenda control' and thus ensure an ordoliberal world order. But, what it amounted to was us pretending we don't know you are pretending we are pretending you are pretending everybody is pretending everybody isn't cheating at every step of the game.
Globalization created winners but also losers. The loss of manufacturing jobs in the United States
between 2000 and 2010
or premature de-industrialization in India
fuck is this nutter talking about?
was bound to prompt a reconsideration of globalization—and all of this was happening even before the COVID-19 pandemic, which accentuated a fear of dependency on global supply chains.
This is ignorant shit. There was no premature de-industrialization in India. There was a shake out and capital flight from some places to others because of infrastructure and labour problems. The US only became alarmed about 'blue collar' job losses when it became obvious that everybody couldn't get rich flipping property or day-trading or getting a military contract.
Countries are increasingly convinced that the assertion of political control over the economy—their ability to create a legitimate social contract—requires rethinking the terms of globalization.
No they aren't. They know this is just the warmed up sick of the Seventies. Biden may do 'Industrial Policy' but that's because he is as old as fuck. This is like Obama's ' - i.e. boondoggle and colossal waste. It's a gift to Trump.
The trend is to feel more skeptical about globalization and to seek out greater self-sufficiency for national security or economic reasons. “America First” and “India First”
America is high wage. India is low wage. Sadly, because of infrastructure, labour and land problems, it is difficult to shift large parts of it to large scale manufacturing.
are to a certain extent understandable, particularly in a context where China has emerged as an authoritarian competitor.
It could be anarchic for all we care.
But the current moment seems like a much larger pivot in the politics of nationalism.
The pivoting happened in 2016 though the writing was on the wall from about 2009 onward.
Globalization, while seeking to advance national interests, also mitigated nationalism.
This cunt didn't get that invading Afghanistan and Iraq and killing 'towel-heads' was an expression of American nationalism. But it was too expensive.
It presented the global order as something other than a zero-sum game
because Iraqis really benefitted- right?
in which all countries could mutually benefit by greater integration.
Fuck off! The terms of trade are easily skewed so the West hogs the gains from trade.
It was not suspicious of cosmopolitan solidarity.
Which involved killing Muslims in far away places.
Increasingly, democracies are abandoning this assumption, with profound consequences for the world.
Muslims now have to kill each other. They can't rely on Uncle Sam to come and bomb them to shit.
Less globalization and more protectionism will inevitably translate to more nationalism—a trend that will also hurt global trade, especially for smaller countries that need the rising tide of open borders and commerce.
No. There will be trading blocs along geo-political lines featuring some 'Trade Creation' and some 'Trade Diversion'. This cretin is too stupid to understand this.
Each of the four features of nationalism described here
is meaningless shite. There is only one feature- willingness to fight invaders or insurrectionists
—membership, memory, sovereign identity, and openness to the world—has shadowed democracy since its inception.
Nations existed before writing was invented. So what?
All democracies are also facing their own profound economic challenges:
what profound economic challenge is Norway facing?
inequality and wage stagnation in the United States, the crisis of employment in India, and corruption in South Africa. There is no necessary binary between economic issues and the politics of nationalism.
There is a necessary binary between economic and political issues. This man is as stupid as shit.
Successful nationalist politicians such as Modi see their economic success as a means of consolidating their nationalist visions.
Successful people see their success as consolidating their vision. What a great discovery!
And in times of stress, nationalism is the language through which grievance can be articulated.
No. In times of stress, screaming and shitting yourself is how grievance is articulated. Mehta may be different. If he robbed and sodomized he may say 'American populist nationalism has no necessary binary involving your sticking your dick up my ass. Kindly remove it and give me back my wallet. Have a nice day.'
It is the means by which politicians give a sense of belonging and participation to the people.
Without those kind politicians, Mehta would be wandering the streets not knowing where he belonged or what activities he could participate in so as to earn a living.
Nationalism is the most potent form of identity politics.
It is relatively weak compared to gender or sexual preference based identity. As for pigmentation- Niggah puhleeze! Don't even go there.
It views individuals and the rights they have through the prism of the compulsory identity to which nationalism confines them.
It really doesn't. Hitler wasn't a German citizen. Plenty of Nazis were 'White Russians' of one type or another. Bose and Nambiar were Indian. They recruited Indians for the Waffen SS. But there were Americans, like Satyananda Stokes, who turned Hindu and went to prison as part of the Indian National Congress's campaign for Independence.
Nationalism and liberalism have long been competing forces.
Or complementary forces. Liberalism survived in the UK thanks to the 'Celtic fringes'.
It is easier to navigate the tension between them if the stakes around nationalism are lowered, not raised.
Nonsense! A Liberal party can pursue the national interest just as well as any other sort of party. Navigation requires skill. It doesn't depend on reducing tension in the ocean waves.
Yet it is increasingly likely that in many elections in 2024, the nature of the national identities of these countries will be at stake along the four dimensions listed above.
No it won't. Mehta may pretend that if Trump wins then Jews and Hispanics and African Americans will be slaughtered in Concentration Camps. But this isn't true anymore than the notion that Modi will slaughter Muslims is true. The plain fact is Mehta has chosen to emigrate to America which is responsible for killing over 1.3 million Muslims and displacing tens of millions more. Modi didn't kill Muslim. Bush and Obama and Biden did. Trump made peace with the Taliban and showed no interest in sending troops to shithole countries even if they contained lots of Muslims who might have bombs hidden in their beards.
These contests could invigorate democracy.
Fuck off! In the US two elderly men squaring off once again won't invigorate shit. In India, the Opposition has already fallen apart. Modi gets a walk-over.
But if the recent past is any guide, the salience of nationalism in politics is more likely to pose a threat to liberal values.
Modi got re-elected even though I very clearly said I wanted to see the back of him. This was betrayal of liberal values. My God has been belittled by people who are building Temples to him. Fascist persecution is forcing me to flee from my beloved motherland! Now that I'm in America, I tell you plainly not to nominate Trump or vote for him. If you ignore me, you will have betrayed liberal values. I will go to Canada!
Advancing forms of nationalism that do not allow their own meaning to be contested or that seek to preserve the privilege of particular groups generally produces a more divisive and polarized society.
Unless it has the opposite effect. On the other hand, having open borders may mean getting invaded and enslaved or subjected to genocide. Five hundred years ago very few people in what is now the US spoke English.
India, Israel, France, and the United States each face a version of this challenge.
Muslim countries like Pakistan or Iraq which expelled Hindus or Jews did not face this challenge. It turned out your country can turn to shit if it is badly run or adopts crazy policies.
Issues of memory and membership are the least amenable to being resolved by simple policy deliberation. The truths they trade on are not about facts that could be a basis for a common ground. It is notorious, for example, that we often choose our histories because of our identity rather than the other way around.
Just don't fund the teaching of that shite in Public Schools or Universities. Also defund whatever shite this cretin teaches.
Perhaps most importantly, assaults on liberal freedoms are often justified in the name of nationalism. For example, freedom of expression is most likely to discover its limits if it is seen to target a deeply cherished national myth.
Very true. Telling American football players that it is a myth that they are not incessantly raping their own grandmothers may be injurious to your health.
Every emerging populist or authoritarian leader who is willing to abridge civil liberties or pay short shrift to institutional integrity wears the mantle of nationalism. I
This stupid cunt has never heard of Lenin or Stalin or Mao.
t allows such leaders to crack down on dissent by using the canard “anti-national.”
No. The law may permit the incarceration of seditionists. But this is true of any kind of polity. Equally leaders who slaughter their rivals may say they are doing so because they are 'anti-national' but why should they bother? They have made their point. If people think you kill for the sheer pleasure of it, they will be very sweet and obedient to you.
In many ways,
in none at all
this year’s elections may well decide whether democracy can successfully negotiate the dilemmas of nationalism—or whether it will be degraded or crushed.
The fact is elections will be won by nationalists not guys who say 'we are shit. What we need to do is let in hordes of invaders. I hope they rape us all to death.'
George L. Mosse, the great 20th-century historian of fascism, described this challenge in his inaugural lecture at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1979: “If we do not succeed in giving nationalism a human face,
Hitler's face was human not that of a giraffe. Mosse was a homosexual with rather a low IQ. Still, it is the sort of thing even he might have noticed.
a future historian might write about our civilization what Edward Gibbon wrote about the fall of the Roman Empire: that at its height moderation prevailed and citizens had respect for each other’s beliefs, but that it fell through intolerant zeal and military despotism.”
Fuck off! It fell because of large population movements in Eurasia. If you can't seal your borders, your fate is sealed. Hitler fell because Germany was fucking invaded mate. It wasn't because the Fuhrer had the face of a giraffe or the buttocks of a hippopotamus.
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