|
|
|
Nation states are necessary creations allowing varied and formulaic control over political, legal and economic processes for a defined geographically bound group of people. Nation states are more however than economic unions, common spaces, and constitutional mandates. They are organisms. Cultural mores, emotional attachments, and collective understandings are far more important to the development and maintenance of a nation state than elitist documents; arcane legal statutes; or multi-cultural inspired concepts of being nice, diverse or happy. A nation state is a collection of people with shared linguistics, histories, aptitudes, and objectives. Yet here we have the soft modern Western mind and state, engaged in a war with Islamic fascists, erecting more mindless mommy-state programs, secularism and destroying civilisational concepts and nation state creations through Islamic immigration, appeasement, multi-culturalism and post modern socialist management and ethos. It is a highly disturbing and enraging scenario.
European civilization strode on to conquer the world after establishing and agreeing upon a nation state structure. The nation state concept was ratified by the European powers in the 1648 Westphalian accord which stated that, ‘there shall be a Christian and Universal Peace, and a perpetual, true, and sincere Amity, between his Sacred Imperial Majesty, and his most Christian Majesty; as also, between all and each of the Allies…’ A Christian and European form of national determination and governance thus came into acceptance. Within geographical limits a state would have territorial and taxation control and state law within that territory would reign supreme. Though wars did and always will occur, the concept that groups of people could have security, common interests and objectives all freed from wanton anarchy allowed the coming Western revolutions of the mind, spirit, and political-economy to gather strength post 1648. This competitive and secure structure allowed the West to take-off. The rest, including world domination, is history.
Fast forward now to the 21rst century and we have the on-going deconstruction of the nation state. Post modern, anti-reality, anti-Western ‘philosophy’ and anti-Christian dogma mandates the dismemberment of the nation state and the creation of transnational governance. But to get there cultures and ethos need to be eradicated and then re-casted. Post modern socialism and the fetish for all things trans-national is nothing but a lurid attempt to destroy geographically defined accountability and transparency via parliamentary and republican governance and impose an elitist and quite immoral control pattern. The idea that post moderns hold dear is that nationalism and nation statism, along with intolerant Christianity is bad. Chauvinism, pride, nationalism, cultural ignorance and arrogance are all attributed to the nation state and its Christian ideology. World wars, fascism, communism, imperialism and racism according to the post modern elite, emanate from nation states and only from nation states with Christians hosting a goodly display of immoderate barbarism as well. The post moderns seem to posit that racism, wars, tribal conflicts and aggression never existed until post-1648.
This is of course nonsense. Racism and tribalism are phenomena as old as the human race. In the modern period wars of imperialism, racism, religion and ideology have been created by leaders using the nation state structure to gain power and the ability to wage war. Nation states hardly created these ideologies. Intellectuals, academics in the case of communism, fascism and Hitlerism were vital to convince whole populations that tribal, racial, or class creed based systems were part of the ‘darwinian’ or ‘lamarckian’ order and would allow supremity over others. Religion and ideology have always been used by the power mad and the warring to justify their conquests.
Utopian ideologies simply seize the nation state and use the cultural values of the state in question to help the ideology seize power. Fascism took root differently in Germany and Romania for example as it did under communism in Russia or China. Blaming the nation state for wars is simply wrong. Statism, utopian philosophies, empire building dictators, and military castes thirsting for territory and plunder have been the main causes of the bloodiest wars in the past 100 years. The only contribution nation states might have made was in the creation of the modern and now dismembered British and Russian empires driven by trade, geo-political control of key areas, and state competition. Even here the British colonial wars were no more obscene and usually less bloody than the internecine savagery amongst the natives it was busy conquering. In any event it is hard to argue that India, to give just one example, was not better off under British rule especially in light of modern Indian political-economic development. Even here with so-called imperialist white wars, the good outweighed the bad.
Nation states do engage in war, but that is part of the deal. Nation states must secure for a group the rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of whatever it is they want to pursue that does not derange the working order of international relations. If attacked it is assumed that the nation state will defend itself. As nation states become modernized, industrialized and build up a transparent and accountable liberal-democratic order with proper institutions and constraints, it is hard to make the case that the nation state becomes a bellicose war making machine. Facts simply don’t support this. For the post modern elite to presuppose that the nation state is the root of all evil and war, and must pass under the control of a smiling, kind, all knowing elite, is to put it mildly, rather insane. The further that governance passes from the local into the abstract, the more problems and the more treachery that will abound. Yet we are well on the way to deconstructing our modern states. This has nothing to do with globalization or world economics, but it has everything to do with post modern political attitudes.
Take the case example of Islam. Islam is a universal, supremacist ideology of control and power. Yet it eschews the nation state by creating the Muslim Umma or community, and directly tells its followers that there are no nation states just the Umma. In fact the only defence against the Muslims is the Western nation state. In the failure that passes for the Islamic world a Hamas or Hizbollah only needs to become a dual state within a state to have de-facto power. They don’t need to bother with the real thing. All they need are the state resources and like the Nazis in Germany they can steal what they want by creating a parallel state with the national structure and controlling resources and support.
In fighting off Islam what then are Western states doing? They import more muslims from a cultural ethos that is diametrically opposed to Western cultural values and give them multi-cultural protection to set up their own little states within nation states. They fund their schools, mosques, extended family reunification programs, and tell them that Islam means peace. Domestic institutions are being changed to Muslim favor within Western states. In foreign affairs the West tries to wage a necessary war in Iraq and Afghanistan while not offending Muslims; done on the cheap with too few troops, legal restrictions on everything from when to fire to how we can interrogate terrorists, and sensitivity to every death or injury. The softness of the West is self evident for the Islamic jihadists to see. We can thank post modern socialism and the hatred towards Western civilization by the elite for this turn of events.
By allowing the post modern elite to eradicate the basic ideals of the nation state we have fatally weakened ourselves in the face of the Islamic jihad. This says nothing about the loss of liberty, control, and transparency in our domestic daily affairs. The Christian nation state needs to be saved, not destroyed.
|
