Why rising nationalism across the world is a worrying trend

Their language may be different. The targets of their euphemism may be different.

By Suresh Pattali

Published: Mon 3 Jun 2019, 10:49 PM

Last updated: Tue 4 Jun 2019, 12:50 AM

Steve Bannon, the new-age messiah of nationalism across Europe, says the days of the political elites are over. Narendra Modi, the second-time populist prime minister of India, says the days of the 'Khan Market Gang' are over.

Their language may be different. The targets of their euphemism may be different. But the ideal that fuels their cognitive mechanism is the same: nationalism.

In the final days of the election campaign recently, which Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won by a landslide, Modi used the 'Khan Market Gang' jibe to mock his elite political adversaries. Khan Market is a small shopping centre nestled amid the bungalows and apartments reserved for lawmakers and bureaucrats in New Delhi and mostly frequented by members of the elite class. So the joke was not lost on the hoi polloi who celebrated the anti-elite fulmination to the fullest.

Just when the European parliamentary elections were taking place last week, Bannon, former White House chief strategist and self-declared linchpin of a populist revolution, prophesied that his forces would pen a new charter to the benefit of the middle-class and working-class people throughout the world, but Europe wouldn't embrace his made-in-America social ideology so easily.

Like how the BJP prescribed a concoction of nationalism and religion as an elixir for all of India's ills, Bannon also made an effort to influence conservative thinking in the European church. He was helping to craft the curriculum for a leadership course at a right-wing Roman Catholic institute near Rome, but the Italian government delivered a fatal blow to Bannon's plans by revoking a lease granted to him.

During a panel discussion, 'Crisis of Trust - Global Power Balance', at the 16th Eurasian Media Forum in Almaty, Kazakhstan, last week, Bannon said that the political elite had "gutted" the working-class people for decades. "People around the world are saying, 'we've had enough'."

The narrative was similar, if not the same, in the Indian elections that returned Modi to power with a majority that's unheard of in Indian politics. While people at the commentariat deemed the elections as the last chance to save the world's biggest democracy from the "clutches of nationalism and fascism", a brute majority of the electorate endorsed the new direction that Modi and his party chose for the nation.

"I see the rise of nationalism as something positive," Bannon was quoted as saying. "It unites people." It does, indeed. It's this populist march against elitism that brought Trump and Modi to power. Trump was able to rally the support of majority petty bourgeois and the White working-class under the "America First" banner in the 2016 presidential election, while Modi consolidated the public sentiment against dynasty rule, endemic corruption and India's age-old minority vote bank politics.

However, Mark Siegel, head of NYU's Centre for Global Affairs, binned Bannon's argument. "Nationalism is not meant to unite, it's meant to divide by colour, ethnicity, religion etc. It's an ideology of us versus them. How can that be positive?" he questioned at the Eurasian Media Forum.

Siegel explained that the reasons for the right-wingers in Europe to unite against an immigration influx were purely economic. He argued that it was unproductive to use fears triggered by xenophobia and racism for the purpose of boosting popularity among voters.

Bannon's presence itself was divisive in nature at the forum where some of over 600 international experts from 50 countries regretted his participation. Bannon described the rise of nationalism as a "reassertion of the Westphalian system" and a "positive phenomenon that would give citizens the best level of control over politics". Bannon reckoned that the rules-based world order since World War II was over and the world would witness the reinforcement and restructuring of the rules around nation-states.

Benita Ferrero-Waldner, former Austrian EU Commissioner, now president of Euroamerica Foundation, described the loss of jobs, migration and terrorism as the root-causes of the rise of nationalism in Europe. "The EU is supporting a rules-based order and not a jungle-based one. We recognise the need for reform at the EU and international level but the international law is the basis for everything. Otherwise, we have struggles and conflicts," she warned.

The forum heard that Brexit is a classic example of how nationalism could dump a state in an abyss of uncertainties. Two years after opting to leave the EU, Britain's political leaders have been running around in circles not knowing how to get the hell out of the bloc. Hardline Brexiteer George Galloway blamed the EU institutions for much of the problems faced by the working class in England. "I'm a working-class person, more or less like Steve Bannon. We're tired of the elites." But he was unable to explain what EU legislation had stolen the British lunch.

Waldner refuted Galloway's argument saying that it was the UK policy, not the EU policy, that made the people in the England rust-belt worse off.

Many speakers at the forum opined that the concept of globalisation was not showing signs of a burnout. Armenian President Armen Sarkissian said despite concerns about trade wars and rising populism, globalisation was not over. If anything it would continue at a faster rate. He pointed out that globalisation was not new. It started with Alexander the Great and the old Silk Road.

"In the new world everybody is connected through digital systems. This is why globalisation will continue to grow. The fact that we don't know how to manage it is another question," he said.

However, globalisation of nationalism is more alarming than de-globalisation of world economies. From the US to Brazil, Hungary to Italy, India to Sri Lanka and Myanmar to the Philippines, there seems to be no stopping the juggernaut. Bannon may be right after all. Nationalism unites - but it's uniting the dark forces that are finding mainstream support across the world.

- suresh@khaleejtimes.com