[BRIGADE] PJB: Globalism vs. Ethnonationalism
Published: Fri, 01/30/09
By Patrick J. Buchanan
January 30, 2009
Standing before the Siegessaule, the Victory Column that
commemorates Prussia's triumphs over Denmark, Austria and France in
the wars that birthed the Second Reich, Barack Obama declared
himself a "citizen of the world" and spoke of "a world that stands
as one."
Globalists rejoiced. And the election of this son of a white
teenager from Kansas and a black academic from Kenya is said to
have ushered us into the new "post-racial" age.
Are we deluding ourselves? Worldwide, the mightiest force of the
20th century, ethnonationalism -- that creator and destroyer of
nations and empires; that enduring drive of peoples for a
nation-state where their faith and culture is dominant and their
race or tribe is supreme -- seems more manifest than ever.
"Vote Reflects Racial Divide" ran the banner in The Washington
Times over Tuesday's story datelined, "Santa Cruz, Bolivia." It
began:
"The Bolivian vote to approve a new constitution backed by leftist
President Evo Morales reflected racial divisions between the
nation's Indian majority and those with European ancestry."
Provinces where mestizo and Europeans predominate voted down the
constitution. But it carried with huge majorities the Indian tribes
of the western highlands, for this constitution is about group
rights.
In 2005, Morales came to office resolved to redistribute wealth and
power away from Europeans to his own Aymara tribe and other
"indigenous peoples" he contends were robbed by the Europeans who
began to arrive 500 years ago, in the time of Columbus.
Pizarro's victory over the Incan Empire is to be overturned.
According to Article 190 of the new constitution, Bolivia's 36
Indian areas are authorized to "exercise their jurisdictional
functions through their own principles, values, culture, norms and
procedures."
Tribal law is to become provincial law, and national law.
Gov. Mario Cossio of Tarija, which voted no, says the new
constitution will create a "totalitarian regime," controlled
through an "ethnically based bureaucracy." To which Morales
replies, "Original Bolivians who have been here for a thousand
years are many but poor. Recently arrived Bolivians are few but
rich."
Bolivia is Balkanizing, dividing up and being divided on the lines
of tribe, race and class. And, hailed by Hugo Chavez, Morales'
Bolivia is not the only place where the claims of ethnicity, tribe
and race are conquering the forces of universalism and globalism.
After a disputed election in Kenya, the Kikyu were subjected to
ethnic cleansing and massacres by Luo. In Zimbabwe, white farmers
are being dispossessed due to their ancestry. In Sri Lanka, the
Tamil rebellion against the ruling Sinhalese -- to create a Tamil
nation, a war that has cost tens of thousands of lives -- appears
lost, for now.
In Vladimir Putin's time, Russians have crushed Chechens,
confronted Estonians over Russian military graves and war
memorials, collided with Ukrainians over the Crimea and bloodied up
the Georgians.
Beijing crushes the Uighurs who want their own East Turkestan and
Tibetans who seek autonomy, flooding both lands with Han Chinese.
In Europe, populist anti-immigrant parties, alarmed at a loss of
national identities, are striding toward respectability and power.
The Vlaams Belang, seeking independence for Flanders, is the
biggest party in the Belgian parliament. The Peoples Party and
Freedom Party are now Austria's second and third most popular. The
Swiss People's Party of Christoph Blocher is the largest in Bern.
In France, the National Front humiliated the government this week,
winning over half the vote in a suburb of Marseilles.
All are unabashedly ethnonationalist. Writes British diplomat Sir
Christopher Meyer, "It is useless to say that nationalism and
ethnic tribalism have no place in the international relations of
the 21st century."
Meanwhile, global institutions, the United Nations, IMF and
European Union, have lost their luster. Czechs -- whose president,
Vaclav Klaus, regards the EU as a prison house of nations -- hold
the EU presidency. When the financial crisis hit, Irish, Brits and
Germans rushed to bail out their own banks, as did Americans, who
rescued Ford, Chrysler and GM, leaving Toyota, Hyundai and Honda
twisting in the wind.
This is economic nationalism.
Inside Ehud Olmert's cabinet, a rising star is Avigdor Lieberman.
What Lieberman's "merry men" advocate, writes the American
Prospect, is "ethnic cleansing: As the creepy name (which
translates into 'Our Home Is Israel') suggests, Yisrael Beiteinu
believes the million-plus Arab citizens of Israel must be expelled."
Barack won the African-American vote 97 percent to 3 percent over
John McCain, and 90 percent to 10 percent over Hillary Clinton in
the later primaries. McCain ran stronger than George W. Bush only
in Appalachia, the laager of the Scots-Irish.
In Jerry Z. Muller's "Us and Them: The Enduring Power of Ethnic
Nationalism," in Foreign Affairs, his thesis is summarized:
"Americans generally belittle the role of ethnic nationalism in
politics. But ... it corresponds to some enduring propensities of
the human spirit. It is galvanized by modernization, and ... it
will drive global politics for generations to come. Once ethnic
nationalism has captured the imagination of groups in a multiethnic
society, ethnic disaggregation or partition is often the least bad
answer."
Disaggregation or partition, the man said.
Are we really in a post-racial America, or is our multicultural
multiethnic America, too, destined for Balkanization and break-up?
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