For this last part of my threefold contribution I will try to clarify what exactly is meant by populism, nationalism and independence. In my previous contributions, I have been rather harsh on both populism and nationalism, and have not been very elated about any separatist and independence groups either. As a result, some people thought me to disapprove of any kind of local or regional identity, to condemn anyone who politically defends or represents regional interests, or to appreciate only that which is European or international in nature. However, nothing could be further from the truth.
Politicians or journalists often use these concepts to explain their own identity or that of their adversaries. Recently, the Flemish nationalists called the left-wing government ‘Marxist’, while many left-wing groups condescendingly call the nationalists ‘populists’, something many true Marxist would not take too kindly. On top of that, vagueness surrounding the end goal of many nationalist groups all over Europe, from Scotland to Italy and Spain to Poland, generated a range of debates on separatism without any real sense of direction. Some groups would be proud to be called separatist, while other would feel them misjudged. For all these reasons I will try to briefly clarify the often used but often misunderstood concepts of nationalism, populism and separatism.
All these concepts are difficult to capture purely by definition, but are best understood through their use. Nationalism, in its most basic form, is nothing more than the political expression of patriotic feelings and principles, and an identification of your individual personality with a bigger nation. Depending on your personal understanding of this nation, nationalism could range from association with large units, e.g. the United Kingdom, over regional units, e.g. Wales, to local units, e.g. Cardiff. However, nationalism could also take more extreme forms that go well beyond the ‘harmless’ patriotic feelings of local/regional pride, degenerating into feelings of superiority over others. This negative form in turn generates feelings of xenophobia and promotes separatist ideas, whereby the superior ‘us’ wants nothing to do with the inferior ‘them’. Separatism of course does not necessarily have to be of such a xenophobic nature, and could in certain cases be a just claim for independence from an oppressive tyrant. As such, nationalism and separatism are not essentially ‘bad’ things.
Furthermore, even without the presence of tyrant, it can be argued that if part of a country unanimously prefers independence, then the principles of democracy and self-determination support their claims – as long as they are peaceful. However, such a course of actions requires massive popular support and, in my opinion at least, cannot be decided upon one-sided by simple majority of votes. This is where populism comes in. In its most basic definition, populism means looking after the interests of the ‘ordinary people’ – another such vaguely defined term. I suppose that originally it referred to the working class people who were being repressed by employers, banks, politicians, foreign powers and other culprits. The problem here is that most everybody belongs to the ‘working class’ in one way or another – or is being repressed for that matter. Traditionally, ‘the common people’ form the electoral support for left-wing or socialist parties. However, the legacies of communism, fascism and Nazism have painfully shown how ‘the people’ can easily be corrupted.
So although nobody can be opposed to a political group that looks after the working class’ interests, populism, today and to me, is a whole different thing. Many left-wing and progressive parties would wear the name ‘populist’ with just pride, but in my personal interpretation, populism, polluted by a dubious legacy, is used to describe parties that abuse reference to ‘the people’ and unrightfully claim broad popular support based on volatile electoral backing and semantic games. Indeed, when linking populism and nationalism, populist support is obtained more often that not by playing on the misfortunes of unhappy citizens, not necessarily belonging to the working class, and the strategic use of scapegoating. As such, exploiting the more extreme forms of separatism, nationalism and populism can lead to explosive situations. One factor that seems critical to the modern success of these strategies is the level of democracy and political participation. When ‘the unhappy’ are unable to ventilate their grief through elections, voting away unsatisfactory politicians, populist nationalism would seem to be the only alternative, often interpreted as ‘protest votes’.
This is the situation in the EU, where ‘Eurocrats’ remain almost unaffected by European elections. Should the people’s vote be actually heard and implemented, they might feel more connected to Europe and turn their ‘negative’ populist nationalism into a ‘positive’ inclusive patriotism. I don’t know the exact situations in Scotland, Catalonia or Lombardy, but I suppose there also many people feel ignored by the ruling government. Such a situation can be found in Belgium, where many unhappy Flemish people are unable to vote against Walloon politicians which they see as a source of trouble. (The reasons for their unhappiness, however, are a mystery to me as the Flemish are the richest people in all of Europe, thus supporting my impression that it is an illusionary unhappiness fabricated by populist quacks.) So I say, instead of splitting up the country even further, let’s unite again and have genuine Belgian elections instead of separate Flemish and Walloon elections – we might learn one thing and another from each other.
I guess this has been my message all along, to all of Europe: unite, don’t divide. Working together to reach a common goal is so much more rewarding than working against each other trying to get the biggest piece of the cake, or make sure that others have the littlest piece possible. As T.H. White, one of my favourite authors and convinced pacifist in the face of the Second World War, already said more than fifty years ago: “I never could stomach these nationalists. The destiny of Man is to unite, not to divide. If you keep dividing you end up as a collection of monkeys throwing nuts at each other out of separate trees.” I couldn’t have said it better.
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