A Renewed Nationalism Is Stalking Europe
Nationalism is one of modern Europe’s strongest traditions, but it fell into disrepute after the second world war. Amid the avalanche of crises that have struck the EU over the past decade, of which Britain’s vote to leave the bloc is the latest example, nationalism is making a reappearance.
It takes a different form from the nationalism born in the 1789 French Revolution and buried in 1945. Today’s political and economic conditions are a world apart from those of 19th-century Europe, when many peoples rising to national consciousness had no state of their own. They are a world apart, too, from the 1918-1939 age of ideological extremes — fascism and communism — and severe economic hardship.
Contemporary Europe is, fundamentally, a peaceful and prosperous continent. The EU provides a framework for extremely close co-operation among national governments. It entrusts considerable power to supranational institutions, such as the European Commission, the European Parliament and the European Court of Justice. At a popular level, too, European societies are better acquainted with each other than ever, thanks to advances in communications, education and the ease of mass travel.
Yet nationalism, in new guises, is back on the stage. Its most obvious manifestations are, firstly, a stronger determination on the part of governments to defend their national self-interest within the EU and, secondly, the rise of rightwing populist nativism.
MORE...
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/53fc4518-4520-11e6-9b66-0712b3873ae1.html#axzz4E8qR7lwr
= new reply since forum marked as read
