National Identity, There and Here

Featured

Sep 24

It’s no surprise that at times other countries provide cautionary tales for our own country. This has been the case with the concept of “national identity” which has been criticized—by Americans—over the last two to three decades. The entity providing the teachable moment is the twenty-seven-country European Union. Since “nationalism” has become a dirty word, I used the terms “national identity” and “patriotism” here.

Our teachable moment is the chaos that broke out on July 31, 2016 when as many as 80,000 Moroccans swam over five kilometers along the Mediterranean coast to the Spanish autonomous enclave of Ceuta, situated on the northern coast of Africa. Over one hundred died in the attempt. The majority were turned back but those who successfully evaded the Spanish Guardia Civil and Spanish military, have hopes of a better life in Spain or in any of the other EU countries to which they will be able to freely travel given the EU’s open borders policy. Some may travel unrestricted as far north as Finland and as far west as the Republic of Ireland, both EU countries.

It appeared that virtually all of the illegal immigrants were young men, which suggests that many have hoped to establish themselves in the EU and then bring their families over as well. The rest of the EU countries to which the illegal immigrants might travel—all 26 of them—have harshly criticized Spain’s Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez for this disaster in the making.

The EU’s Cautionary Tale

The EU is the entity that conservatives love to hate. To be sure, there is plenty to criticize, but there is plenty to criticize in the U.S. as well. The EU was formed in the mid-1950s for several reasons, but the most important reason—let’s not mince words— was to keep Germany from going to war against other European countries. The EU founders had the Franco-Prussian War, WWI, and WWII in mind. In this respect, it seems the EU has been a smashing success. Aside from the bloodshed spilt among Balkan countries when the Soviet Union released its stranglehold on Yugoslavia in the 1990s, there has been no war in Europe for 75 years; and, despite misgiving about the EU, it is hard to imagine any European country going to war with another in the foreseeable future. Time will tell.

There are other features of the EU project: trade, the common currency, and agriculture. One thing however, that has not worked out has to do with sentiments of national identity and the attempt to create a common culture among the member countries. For quite a while proponents of the EU hoped that a Europe-wide culture would emerge to which the individual country sense of national identity would be subordinate. On one of several visits to the EU Commission, an official admitted to me, “We haven’t quite figured out the common European culture thing.” “How naïve I thought.”

National identity and Immigration

National identity is alive and well in the EU. To be sure, in one of the core members of the EU, France, patriotism is as fierce as ever. Several years ago, Great Britain left the EU—Brexit—because of questions of national sovereignty—which is integral to a national culture. In addition, Germany is also experiencing a backlash as the right-wing Alternatives to Germany (AfD) is making impressive political gains, in part because of concerns over the European Union and national identify. Political parties that are decidedly right of center are also gaining strength in Austria, the Netherlands, Slovakia, just to name a few.

One area, then, illustrated by the recent debacle in Ceuta that has become increasingly contentious is immigration policy. In 2015, Germany startled the other EU countries by allowing almost one million Syrian refugees into the country, and in doing so, bypassed certain EU regulations.

The upshot of all of this is that Europe is learning a hard lesson; namely, that for a country to remain healthy it must preserve its national identity and ensure that any non-nationals who enter the country properly assimilate with the rest of the country—learning its language, adopting its culture, understanding its manners, and respecting its laws.

That can’t happen if immigrants pour into a country willy-nilly, especially under cover of darkness. It also can’t happen if citizens of each respective country don’t have the will to insist upon, and maintain, their own culture and sovereignty. If they do not, at some point they will pass a point of no return, especially if, assimilation is abandoned and the immigrant population grows faster than the native population—which is the case in most of the European countries since the birth rate for the immigrant population is considerably higher than the native birth rate.

Are these concerns xenophobic? No, quite the contrary. Every country under discussion has a practice of welcoming migrants under the rule of law, and, especially if there is a commitment by those coming in, and those already there, to make France a greater France, Germany a better Germany—in the best sense of the phrase. The concept of national identity is not dead, but in too many places, it is under attack. Some people are paralyzed by cowardice, afraid that if they insist on preserving the national identity in their country, they will be ridiculed and ostracized.

Back Across the Atlantic

What does all of this mean for the U.S.? Is there is a cautionary tale? Indeed, there is. We have always been a nation of immigrants, but, until the last two decades, immigration has, more or less, followed the rule of law. Since then, the policy has, too often, not been enforced as it should. This is in part because certain elements of our population, and of our leadership, believe sentiments of national identity are crude and backward. People are more mature now, better educated, so we should not hang on to backward, old fashioned ideas like patriotism. Such critics argue that “globalism” is what is important—whatever globalism actually means. Globalism in, national identity out.

Accordingly, some argue that it is now inhumane to enforce national borders, especially when people are in need and so the lawless strategy has been to turn a blind eye to border enforcement, and to hinder the efforts of those who disagree. Consequently, the Pew Research Center estimates that we now have 14 million illegal/undocumented/unauthorized—choose your preferred adjective—people in the U.S. Like Europe, the birthrate in the U.S. is also below the “replacement level,” 2.1 per 1,000 people. Our current birthrate is around 1.6 per 1000, which further complicates out situation.

The American Founders and Nationalism

The American Founders knew that the success of the new country would depend on developing a national identity, especially when the new country found itself fragmented after the Declaration and under the Articles of Confederation. George Washington urged citizens in his Farewell Address to cherish a "cordial, habitual, and immovable attachment" to the national union, for therein was the safeguard of independence and liberty. Alexander Hamilton advocated a strong centralized government and commercial network that would bind the separate in 51 states into a powerful, respected global republic.

None of this means, “My Country Right or Wrong!” Although Thomas Jefferson, together with James Madison, evolved into champions of states’ rights, Jefferson nonetheless argued in his discourses on education that students should learn at least these two things: an affection for their country and the capacity to criticize it when necessary. One of our greatest Americans, Frederick Douglass, once a slave, rejected blind, uncritical nationalism and instead championed a nation built on freedom and guarded by robust self-critique. He emphasized the strength that immigrants brought to the U.S. Like Jefferson, he thought patriotism meant criticizing one’s own country for its shortcomings, even to the point, in his “Fourth of July Oration,” of rebuking the country for its “sins” and its hypocrisy.

It hasn’t been easy to make it to the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. It would take far less time to throw it all away and this time it might take nothing more than bad ideas.