Revenge Of The Sovereignistas – OpEd
They were all buddy-buddy for the cameras,going for a joy ridein a deluxe limo and toasting each other at a gala dinner. In June, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un was determined to welcome Russian President Vladimir Putin in grand style on his first visit to Pyongyang in 24 years. A red carpet,flowers, and champagne: it was a veritable romance of rogues.
In reality, the two autocrats make a very odd couple. Kim is still a youngish man with a few extra pounds on his frame, while Putin is in his seventies and loves to appear shirtless on horses, the better to showcase his judo-trained body. Kim is the dynastic ruler of a small, isolated, homogeneous country that remains formally communist. By contrast, Putin presides over a multiethnic empire that stretches across 11 time zones and has formally turned its back on its communist past. Kim disparages religion but maintains a suffocating cult of personality, while Putin, who embraced religion to boost his own popularity, has yet to force Russian officials towear pinswith his face on them.
Sure, Putin and Kim have some friends in common (China’s Xi Jinping and America’s Donald Trump), some shared enemies (the West, most democracies), and a fondness for making threats (bombastic, sometimes nuclear). But what really binds them together is a seemingly antiquated belief system whose origins stretch back two centuries.
Kim and Putin are both ardent nationalists.
The two of them believe fervently in the supremacy of the nation-state, specifically their own. They also assert the superiority of their particular ethnic groups, with Putin increasingly usingrussky(ethnic Russians) instead ofrosissky(citizens of Russia)in his speechesand Kim following the official North Korean tradition of purging the language and culture of all outside influences.
Above all, those two leaders are united in their opposition to outsiders — other countries, international organizations, non-governmental do-goodniks — having any say over what takes place within their borders. Putin and Kim are, in other words, spokesmen for what I callthesovereignistas, a class of world leaders who insist on their sovereign right to be exceptions to the rules that govern the rest of the planet.
In reality, ultra-nationalists like Putin and Kim hold sway over much of our world and come in all too many shapes and sizes. China’s Xi, for instance, resurrected nationalism to revive the fortunes of a communist system whose ideology no longer seemed to motivate the Chinese masses. In Germany, Sahra Wagenknecht has started a new party that officially identifies as left-wing but hasright-wing nationalist takeson border controls, globalization, and green politics. Meanwhile, at the other end of the political spectrum, India’s Narendra Modi has adapted nationalism to the needs of his right-wing party’s religious chauvinism devoted to making Hindu India great again.
Far from just patrolling the edges of their societies, such nationalists are increasingly prospering at their political centers. Just ask Joe Biden, who tried to counter Trump’s populism by beefing up his own nationalist credentials throughnew restrictionsat his country’s southern border and onerousnew tariffs on China. Indeed, such nationalism has been part of the mainstream since revolutionariestook overthe kingdom of France in the late eighteenth century and German romantics began championingdas Volk(the people) around the same time. Some political scientistshave even arguedthat nationalism was the essential ingredient in the establishment of modern democracies — that, without its ideological glue, a state couldn’t have mustered enough of a consensus to govern.
In today’s world, think of nationalism as a distinctly old-fashioned liqueur, like absinthe, that’s enjoying a burst of renewed popularity. Politicians of all stripes have recently been adding a splash of it to their policy cocktails to get the public’s attention. Worse yet, some of the more aggressive politicians like Modi, Putin, and Donald Trump are drinking the stuff straight. Beware: undiluted nationalism can go right to the head and make you do crazy things likeinvading neighboring countriesor trying tooverturn elections.
So, here’s a question to consider: at a time when the most extreme problems facing the world — climate change, resource depletion, and a possible nuclear Armageddon — know no borders, why has such a parochial philosophy once again become the global ideologydu jour?
Not So Flat
Like colonialism, nationalism was supposed to be extinct by now, a relic of another century, an ideology that should emit a distinct odor of mothballs. After all, over the past hundred years, the prerogatives of nation-states have been gradually eroded by U.N. treaties, the growth of transnational corporations, and the spread of a global civil society.
They were all buddy-buddy for the cameras,going for a joy ridein a deluxe limo and toasting each other at a gala dinner. In June, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un was determined to welcome Russian President Vladimir Putin in grand style on his first visit to Pyongyang in 24 years. A red carpet,flowers, and champagne: it was a veritable romance of rogues.
In reality, the two autocrats make a very odd couple. Kim is still a youngish man with a few extra pounds on his frame, while Putin is in his seventies and loves to appear shirtless on horses, the better to showcase his judo-trained body. Kim is the dynastic ruler of a small, isolated, homogeneous country that remains formally communist. By contrast, Putin presides over a multiethnic empire that stretches across 11 time zones and has formally turned its back on its communist past. Kim disparages religion but maintains a suffocating cult of personality, while Putin, who embraced religion to boost his own popularity, has yet to force Russian officials towear pinswith his face on them.
Sure, Putin and Kim have some friends in common (China’s Xi Jinping and America’s Donald Trump), some shared enemies (the West, most democracies), and a fondness for making threats (bombastic, sometimes nuclear). But what really binds them together is a seemingly antiquated belief system whose origins stretch back two centuries.
Kim and Putin are both ardent nationalists.
The two of them believe fervently in the supremacy of the nation-state, specifically their own. They also assert the superiority of their particular ethnic groups, with Putin increasingly usingrussky(ethnic Russians) instead ofrosissky(citizens of Russia)in his speechesand Kim following the official North Korean tradition of purging the language and culture of all outside influences.
Above all, those two leaders are united in their opposition to outsiders — other countries, international organizations, non-governmental do-goodniks — having any say over what takes place within their borders. Putin and Kim are, in other words, spokesmen for what I callthesovereignistas, a class of world leaders who insist on their sovereign right to be exceptions to the rules that govern the rest of the planet.
In reality, ultra-nationalists like Putin and Kim hold sway over much of our world and come in all too many shapes and sizes. China’s Xi, for instance, resurrected nationalism to revive the fortunes of a communist system whose ideology no longer seemed to motivate the Chinese masses. In Germany, Sahra Wagenknecht has started a new party that officially identifies as left-wing but hasright-wing nationalist takeson border controls, globalization, and green politics. Meanwhile, at the other end of the political spectrum, India’s Narendra Modi has adapted nationalism to the needs of his right-wing party’s religious chauvinism devoted to making Hindu India great again.
Far from just patrolling the edges of their societies, such nationalists are increasingly prospering at their political centers. Just ask Joe Biden, who tried to counter Trump’s populism by beefing up his own nationalist credentials throughnew restrictionsat his country’s southern border and onerousnew tariffs on China. Indeed, such nationalism has been part of the mainstream since revolutionariestook overthe kingdom of France in the late eighteenth century and German romantics began championingdas Volk(the people) around the same time. Some political scientistshave even arguedthat nationalism was the essential ingredient in the establishment of modern democracies — that, without its ideological glue, a state couldn’t have mustered enough of a consensus to govern.
In today’s world, think of nationalism as a distinctly old-fashioned liqueur, like absinthe, that’s enjoying a burst of renewed popularity. Politicians of all stripes have recently been adding a splash of it to their policy cocktails to get the public’s attention. Worse yet, some of the more aggressive politicians like Modi, Putin, and Donald Trump are drinking the stuff straight. Beware: undiluted nationalism can go right to the head and make you do crazy things likeinvading neighboring countriesor trying tooverturn elections.
So, here’s a question to consider: at a time when the most extreme problems facing the world — climate change, resource depletion, and a possible nuclear Armageddon — know no borders, why has such a parochial philosophy once again become the global ideologydu jour?
Not So Flat
Like colonialism, nationalism was supposed to be extinct by now, a relic of another century, an ideology that should emit a distinct odor of mothballs. After all, over the past hundred years, the prerogatives of nation-states have been gradually eroded by U.N. treaties, the growth of transnational corporations, and the spread of a global civil society.
- This article was published at FPIF and originally published in TomDispatch