Williams Zemi

NATIONAL VERSUS GLOBAL

There is a prevailing belief amongst liberal thinkers that nationalism does not possess a global political agenda and nation states may soon be absorbed in the larger global reorganization. We are told through various think tanks that the power of nation states and the concept of nationality are over. But nation states from the US to BRICs still rule the roost in formulating immigration and economic policies. Individual and national interests force us to agree with slogans in newspapers such as “America Today” or “China Tomorrow,” but our lived experience is somewhat different. We may embrace multiculturalism and global egalitarian movements but in our daily lives we still have to reckon with the coercive power of nation states. Nationalism and nation states are very much here in their muscular power and singularity, and they are here to stay.

Eric Hobsbawm argues that both nation states and nationalism are on the decline. In his book Nations and Nationalism since 1780: Programme, Myth and Reality, he defines the tradition of nationalism as it existed in the nineteenth century and as it exists now. In the nineteenth century nationalist movements were both liberal and democratic and nationalists were busy constructing the identity of the nation, but today the nationalist movement attempts to split the nation. His opponents argue that this may not be possible in the near future. Both ethnicity and religion resist the notion of a modern universalism.

The withering away of the nation-state must be understood in the framework of global capitalism and post-modernity. The three forces of globalization, capitalist economy, mass communication and modern technology, have not only homogenized systems but also made national borders porous. The authority and reach of the nation state has become fuzzy. We have been told that the march of globalization will further erode nationalism and nation states. But this has not happened. On the contrary new nation-states are becoming more and more muscular. Within nation states ethnic and cultural issues have increased and outside nation states political and territorial assertions have multiplied. Issues connected with globalism and nationalism are hotly contested and fought.  

Political nationalism has morphed and multiplied into religious nationalism, ethnic nationalism, fringe nationalism and identity politics, which also functions as identity regionalism turning nationalist. Both separatist terrorism and religious terrorism is growing virulently in Asia and other parts of the world aided by a capitalist economy, communication networks and the electronic media. The unequal development of globalization has given rise to a growing discontent with hegemonic and capitalist enterprises. This discontent finds expression in fundamentalist ideas aided by religious or cultural transnationalism.
 

Today nation states wish to conduct global business but not at the cost of compromising geopolitical sovereignty. The example of EU is a delicate balance of economic interests of European nations always threatened by national interests. Undoubtedly it s a global world but the borders of this global world are predominantly national. On the one hand nation states are globalizing but on the other they are tightening immigration laws. Therefore capital and information are allowed to move but not individuals.
 

The individual seeks his interest not in multinational organizations but in the nation state. Most public interest can be explained in terms of national interest. The Anglo-American world which is so keen to globalize finds outsourcing to India and China rather unsettling. The capitalist countries wish to globalize but find reverse globalization threatening.

In India we dislike the nation state but we lay our trust in it. Urban India seeks the economic rubric of liberalization while the rural Bharat distrusts it. The anti-land acquisition movement in Nandigram and Singur reveal these contradictions. We may have imagined the nation state as Anderson would like us to believe but we still somehow trust in its centrality. We might like to believe that the concept of the nation state is over but its coercive power still directs our lives.