The Struggle between Nationalism & Globalization

(Part 1)

By Colin Godfrey*

The world of today is insurmountably different to the world of the past. At present people who have the technology can communicate with other people all around the globe making the issue of distance merely a physical obstacle. Vast multi-national companies use their influence to have poorer third-world governments allow them to set up factories in their countries with the promise of (cheap labour) jobs. Companies like Nike etc, create these 3rd World factory “sweat shops” for the reason that they don’t have to pay their workers as much as they would in more advanced Western nations that actually have more rights. In my opinion globalization seeks to destroy the heritage and cultures of ALL the different ethnic groups around the world. Globalization will cause us to mutate into a hodge-podge race of mongrels that wear Adidas clothing, listen to our iPods, watch MTV, eat McDonald’s and drink Starbucks coffee or Coca Cola. The language we will speak will be a bizarre mixture of Americanized English with “ghetto slang” and our writing will be dumbed-down to the level of a mobile text message (Wotz up m8? How r u?). Could this nightmare really happen? It could if we don’t try to fight back against globalization and the evils that it can introduce. It must be acknowledged that the danger of globalization doesn’t just face Nationalists who are of European decent. It affects Nationalists internationally, whether they are Asian, Arab, and African etc. Nationalism is in itself an international ideology, which can be used by ANY people to promote and defend its heritage, culture and way of life.

People from third world countries who migrate to Western nations to seek a better life for themselves and their families are a result of globalization. Partly because of globalist policies, for example how African farmers can’t afford to grow crops anymore because of United Nations bringing in food cheaper than their own crops! There is constant violence and poverty in many 3rd World nations which creates a lot of heartache and grief. They want to leave the horrible conditions they live in and seek betterment. They see on television and other forms of media how we “Westerners” live and they want to live like we do and have the higher standard of living and leisure we enjoy.

There is nothing wrong with this every human being wants to have a better life. However, it would be better to stay put and help their respective nations. But it’s not that simple if there is a great hardship (e.g. war or famine) going on is there? We need to be understanding of people who only wish to have better lives and escape the problems in their homelands. Unfortunately in the long term, all this does is drag down the new host nations they migrate to because their ability to live in an advanced Western society falters. This in turn creates social conflict and leads to racial/cultural tensions just as we see in many parts of Europe, America and Australia (e.g. the Cronulla uprising, December, 2005). It is quite pointless to blame individual migrants for wanting to live in our Western nations because we are blaming the wrong people. It is the immigration policy makers, corrupt governments, pro-immigration lobby groups, bleeding-heart liberals and big businesses that want MORE immigrants to flood into our countries for the sake of the economy. How is the economy more important than our heritage and culture?! The globalists only want more consumers and cheap labour to keep the economy going.

The minute amount of refugees we allow into our countries for the sake of humanitarian reasons is nothing compared to the hundreds of thousands of economic migrants we allow in. People get into a huge fuss about a boatload of refugees landing on our shores, when at the same time, planeload upon planeload of economic migrants are coming in. And I assure those Australians who read this article that most of those migrants would not pass the (unfortunately) now defunct White Australia Policy requirements! The immigration restriction bill, also known as the White Australia Policy should never have been made redundant in my opinion. Although, in that regard I can also sympathize with any Nationalist around the globe who wants to keep the homogeneity of their nation the way it is and free of being demographically taken over by a different ethnic group just like what happened when Kosovo become independent from Serbia.

Keeping on track, we need to realize that immigration is one of many issues that make up the problems with globalization. Nationalists from all around the world realize the problems that come with globalization.

For example the Bulgarian National Alliance believe that -

‘We, the nationalists from BNS, have adopt a course toward formation of united nationalists front against globalization, NATO, EU in its current form, corrupt Bulgarian politics, and rebirth of a traditional Bulgarian moral issues.’[1]

The continuous problems from globalization have caused quite a reactionary outcry by Nationalists over the last few decades. Douglas Kellner explains that

‘Missing from both Marxist and liberal models has been an understanding of how race, ethnicity, and nationalist sentiment might intersect with class to produce local, political struggles with complex causes. Indeed, from the late 1980s to the present, there has been a resurgence of nationalism, traditionalism, and religious fundamentalism alongside trends toward growing globalization. The explosion of regional, cultural, and religious differences in the former Soviet Union and Yugoslavia -- as well as explosive tribal conflicts in Africa and elsewhere -- suggests that globalization and homogenization were not as deep as its proponents hoped and critics feared. Culture has thus become a new source of conflict and an important dimension of struggle between the global and the local. National cultures have produced confrontations between Serbs, Muslims, and Croats, Armenians and Azarbaijanis, Mohawk First Nation peoples and Quebecois, and in South Africa struggles between the Umkatha tribe and the African National Congress. Thus, both culture and nationalism turned out to be more enduring, deeper, and fundamental than expected and clashes between the global and local and various national cultures with each other continue in a supposedly globalized world.’[2]

Douglas Kellner is implying that no matter what the globalists try and do their will always be outcry and rebellion from different cultural and ethnic groups who are Nationalistic and want to preserve their identity and do not want to follow the destructive agenda set out through globalization.

The traditional Left selfishly believe that they somehow “own the rights” to issues such as the environment, animal rights and globalization but this is a lie they want everybody to believe. The truth is these issues affect everybody! No matter what you’re political persuasion or heritage may be. At the APEC demonstration in Sydney, September 2007, a group of New Right activists and National Anarchists also decided to make a bold statement by creating banners and doing some protesting with the rest of the march. One of the reasons this was done was to show that Nationalism is also against the scourge of globalization. As Nationalists we believe we have the only true moral right against globalization because we are concerned about our culture, heritage, and identity, while the traditional Left use globalization more as an issue for the sake of political opportunism. The deceitful “international socialists” believe that they are trying to defeat globalization, when if you actually take a historical look at Communism then you can see this was very much an ideology that wanted to enforce its views around the rest of the world (just like Islam and Capitalism does in some respect)! So these people are very hypocritical because Communism is technically a globalist/universal view! History shows that Communist machinations, of course, played a part in the Cold War after World War 2 and led to many proxy wars being fought between the U.S.A. (The Capitalists) and the Soviet Union (The Communists). Let us not believe for one second that the traditional Left doesn’t have the agenda of creating some sort of “socialist utopia” around the globe just like big-businesses want globalization to continue for creating more profits.

Once the New Right activists and National Anarchists were seen as not supporting the same Marxist-friendly views as the rest of those people organising the APEC demonstration they were ostracized and labelled the same tired old names that the traditional Left use against those they don’t agree with such as; fascists, racists and nazis. The traditional Left also had plans to commit violence against the small group of New Right activists and National Anarchists. Why? Because even though the group were against globalization the traditional Left took on the totalitarian view that because the New Right activists and National Anarchists didn’t follow similar views they must be made to feel unwelcome no matter what, because their own view must be the ONLY one. This is a very Trotskyite in nature and just goes to show that the traditional Left is ridden with contradictions and hypocrisy. One of the most obvious examples of their hypocrisy is the way some of the quasi-Anarchists had the audacity to say that the New Right activists and National Anarchists STOLE their symbols? How can any genuine Anarchist say they have the “rights” to any particular symbol? Do they have some sort of copyright? I think not! The quasi-Anarchists were merely jealous and scared of the New Right activists and National Anarchists and because they cannot argue with us on an intellectual level they have to resort to the actions of immature name-calling, taking photos and threats of violence. If they are so assured that the New Right activists and National Anarchists have no idea what they are on about and are basically trying to “steal their thunder” then why do they give us so much attention (free publicity)? All I know is that we do appreciate the fact that the quasi-Anarchists and various Communists are talking about us so much! It makes our job of self-promotion so much easier. The May Day protest in Melbourne, May 2008, also saw the same pathetic tactics by the Communists of; name-calling, swearing, threats of violence and even whinging to the police (using the state authorities they hate so much!).

The point of this article must be reiterated, globalization is an issue that affects all of us, no matter what that person’s political persuasion or heritage. Nationalists have as much right, if not more, to protest against globalization as anybody else! The traditional Left has invidiously had a strangle-hold of this issue for far too long and their grasp will now start to loosen. Historically it is well known that Nationalists win the street-battles against the traditional Left and once we are large enough this will happen again in due time. In the near future we shall see Nationalists organizing more rallies against globalization (and other issues) just like the NPD does in Germany.

As Nationalists we have an obligation to be concerned about how our country is being affected via global forces. Often massive multinational companies will take full advantage of these poorer nations by offering slave-labour jobs which pay next to nothing but the inhabitancy have no other option to accept for the sake of survival. I believe that globalization IS genocide for the simple fact that it will eventually cause us to lose our cultural and ethnic uniqueness. Multiculturalism as subscribed by The System is nothing but mono-culturalism. We will become a milieu of coffee-coloured people who have no identity or culture of our own and everything we know and love about our nation and culture will be lost to greed and consumerism.

The diversity of people will be abolished because of globalization as everything will inevitably become the same. Being proud of your heritage and culture has already become a taboo in many respects. Particularly if you are of White/European heritage because we are seen as the evil, colonial imperialists who must be “punished” for our past wrong-doings and must be wiped off the planet by those who have a global mono-culturalist agenda. Many of them have the insidious view that ONLY White/European people can be guilty of racism which is a despicable outright lie! As Nationalists it is our duty to fight against globalization and these ill-informed people. We must promote diversity, legitimacy, pride and difference between races and nations.

When it comes to combating globalization it is important to understand what it actually is and doing some in depth research on the topic. That way you can not only physically protest against globalization via demonstrations, but as a Nationalist you can also enter intelligent debate on globalization and discuss what issues concern you using a Nationalist perspective. As Nationalists we have to take out the emotion from a debate and equip ourselves with the right facts and information to discuss the issue intellectually.

Douglas Kellner argues that -

‘In a sense, there is no such thing as globalization per se. Rather the term is used as a cover concept for a heterogeneity of processes that need to be spelled out and articulated. The term is not innocent nor neutral in many of its uses and often serves to replace older discourses like "imperialism" but also "modernization." As a replacement for imperialism, it could displace focus on domination of developing countries by the overdeveloped ones, or of national and local economies by transnational corporations. Moreover, it could serve as a cover to neutralize the horrors of colonialism and could be part of a discourse of neo-imperialism that serves to obscure the continuing exploitation of much of the world by a few superpowers and giant transnational corporations, thus cloaking some of the more barbaric and destructive aspects of contemporary development.’[3]

Now this definition of globalization is one of many examples but it shows how the syntax and semantics of words can mean a number of different things and how a word can be replaced with another word so it seems either better or worse than it truly is. For example; using the word “hate speech” rather than freedom of speech because a particular individual was upset about what another person said. It is all in the eye of the beholder.

Speaking of different viewpoints, I think it is important to include not only a Nationalist point of view that is of White/European heritage but also hear what Nationalists from other races have to say. It is not supremacist to respect other cultures and races but wish for them to stay in their own separate nations and to be proud of whom we are and want to defend our way of life. Now some people would say “who cares what they think?” but that is a negative and counter-productive view that won’t allow us to learn anything new that may help us.
An Asian Nationalist by the name of John Kusumi notes that -

‘Nationalism is a way that society chose to order its affairs. As children, we learn that nations are territories, each under the leadership of its civil and/or military authorities. As territories, they have geographical boundaries, and can be found as shapes on a map. There is far more to know about nations than the simple child's understanding, as above. They are units of community and polity, each with a history and character all of its own. Just as people are unique, so too are nations, and they do have lives of their own. It should be underscored that in nations, people live there -- nations are communities. In each, we can find an economy; a society; and one or more cultures. Every nation will be found to be richly intricate and complex. Each has no shortage of angles for analysis. A nation is an intense thing, not to be trivialized or taken lightly. And -- I am convinced -- a nation is a good thing.’[4]

Now this Asian Nationalist wants to preserve the identity and way of life of his nation just like we here in Australia want to do. The only problem is that Asians do not face a mass influx of White/European immigrants flooding into their countries, for us here in Australia it is the other way around! Coincidentally, in China they have a mass influx of Indians and Pakistanis flooding into their country looking for work, which causes racial problems but this is not reported in the mainstream Western media.

As I reiterate, there is one problem that Nationalists do have in common all around the world and that is globalization. It does not matter where in the world you are the affects of globalization can be felt. In many ways globalization is the new arch-enemy of Nationalism. Forget the Communists with their tired old ways of Trotsky, Lenin and Marx. Globalists who want to destroy everything unique about your culture, heritage, society, and your whole country are now are more dangerous threat. As Nationalists here in Australia, immigration is often our number one issue that we discuss but it is mainly globalization which causes this immigration to happen in the first place!

John Kusumi acknowledges that -

‘...globalization is the antithesis of nationalism. Globalization suggests that there are no boundaries, just one globe. Globalization would put all ambassadors out of a job, because who are they? --Aren't they just people who shuttle back and forth between those nation-states, which are thought, under globalization, to be passé?’[5]

Now this is to a certain extent a trivial comment but it does make a good point that without nations we would just be a global empire run by a few enormous corporations. In a completely globalized world, we would have no sense of national pride or identity we would merely be a mongrelized mass of mindless workers who are told what to do, given emotion suppressing drugs for our “health” and constantly monitored on cameras and supervised by robotic police like in the movie THX 1138 (Directed by George Lucas), which is set in an Orwellian future. I’m not saying that this would happen, but a future with globalization paints a grim picture for all of us around the world. The path of globalization and the gloomy picture it paints for all races, especially those of European heritage, was one of the key reasons the New Right activists and National Anarchists chose the phrase “globalization is genocide!” on their banner at the APEC protest back in September, 2007.

Numerous people involved with the New Right Australia/New Zealand realise that Nationalism is an international ideology and therefore are Pan-Nationalists. Meaning they support Nationalist movements around the world. Although, we are all of White/European heritage and our primary concerns are Australia and New Zealand and those people who share the same heritage as us. We believe that the diversity and difference of White/European peoples has the right to exist just as any other racial/ethnic group and should not be inter-mixed making us all the same. This is something which long term globalization will cause and we must strenuously rebel against.

John Kusumi argues that –

‘...globalization and nationalism are like oil and water. You can have one, but not both. They are concepts in conflict. An international nature includes nations; a global nature contains some intellectual aggression against the boundaries that we draw on the globe. A robber can ask you to choose between giving up "your money or your life." Similarly, globalization requires that you choose loyalty to "your globe or your nation."Globalization threatens the identity of one and all. It tries to say to (e.g.) Americans, "you are not Americans -- rather instead, you are just the collateral consequences of corporate decisions." Likewise, it says to Chinese that you are not Chinese; to Russians, that you are not Russian; etc’.[6]

We can see from this quote that globalization eventually intends to destroy any sense of Nationalism altogether in preference to a “global community” and we become merely collateral or consumers for corporations. State authorities are told to ‘crack down’ on any political groups that dare to criticize and rebel against globalization and this is doubly so for us as Nationalists because we are seen as “hateful” and are against mass floods of immigrants pouring into our country. When the truth is we are merely proud of our heritage and want to preserve our way of life, our culture and do not want our nation to be overwhelmed by cheap labour and being irreversibly transformed from a homogenous predominately Western/European society to a hodge-podge of different races and cultures that will all be mixed into one all encompassing consumerist “mud society” with no real identity in a globalized world. Numerous anti-globalist organizations fail to see the obvious connection between globalization and immigration because they are blinded with their bleeding heart humanist views of all people being part of the “human race” rather than understanding the genuine diversity amongst peoples in the world, which acknowledges racial differences and that they are worth preserving. For argument’s sake we could even say that those who believe in everybody being part of the “human race” are therefore forsaking what it really means to be different and unique in the world and want everything to be bland and all the same. Their bizarre idea of multiculturalism will only lead to a global mono-culture.

The shadow of globalization on the world does no favours for either the Western World or the 3rd World.

As Aruni Mukherjee, an Indian Nationalist, suggests –

‘The most potent and long-lasting effect of globalization as it stands today has been on the realm of ideas that has been straitjacketed into a certain mould, which reduces options for weaker countries to devise their own solutions to the various perplexing problems that they face. For example, multinational companies often have to alter their marketing strategies according to the cultural tastes of a particular country. However, this ignores the fact that the hegemonic presence of Western brands not only homogenizes the structure of the market globally, but also creates an illusion of superiority for such products. The newfound consumer culture in China and India and the hankering for foreign goods is a good example of this tendency’.[7]

This shows a really good example of how globalization wants to impose an imperialist global hegemony over all cultures around the world and how so-called “designer brands” such as Adidas, Nike, etc are made to seem better than local brands of products. How can a particular cultural or ethnic group hold onto their identity if they believe that imported, foreign products are seemed to be far superior to the original ones they make for themselves? For example should “Australian Made” products be seen as inferior products compared to those made in China just because of a certain brand name? Why can people feel that a “brand name” means more to them than wanting to buy products that will help keep jobs in your own country? To me it is ridiculous to constantly buy things that the big multi-national companies want you to buy (who in all honesty do NOT care about you, your country or your heritage and culture!) rather than buying products that will help your people and your country. As Nationalists we need to try and think more before buying products and make sure we check where they are made and who it is that makes them and who gets the profits. It also needs to be remembered that all nations around the world are adversely affected by globalization.

As Aruni Mukherjee mentions –

‘...globalization – in its current avatar – does not offer developing countries the chance to make their own choices about major economic and political policies’.[8]
This means that globalization merely keeps 3rd World nations the way they are without developing into more technologically advanced societies, which would increase the standard of living in these countries. Therefore, the positive flow on effect would be less people from 3rd World nations wanting to migrate to Western countries such as Australia, Britain, Sweden, Italy, Germany, The Netherlands etc.

This now leads onto our prime concern in relation to globalization which is how it is interconnected with immigration. As we all know, immigration seems to be the sole concern of Australian Nationalists, especially when it comes to the threat of Asianisation. However, I would disagree and say that is one of many issues that affect all of us here in Australia. As Nationalists we need to be versatile and have knowledge about a number of different issues which include health care, education, defence, the environment, globalization, economics, as well as immigration. Now globalization, in particular, leads to many things. Not only does it harm our society with big multi-national companies being set up that merely want us to become mindless consumers but it allows these companies to lobby Western governments to have cheap labour brought into countries to help the economy of a particular nation.

The old adage of wanting workers rights but if the wage rate goes too high than greedy companies that only care about their shareholders will “pull out” to go countries that have cheaper (lower) working conditions. To combat this Western governments allow mass amounts of 3rd World people to migrate to their countries that will work for less and keep the economy successful.

The University of Iowa states that –

‘..although the creation of migration cannot be attributed to globalization, the globalization process has given rise to a new kind of immigration. Prior to the 21st century, immigration meant leaving one's home to become a member of another community. Travelling between one's homeland and a recipient country was both time-consuming and expensive. Written correspondence did not allow for people to remain current with the events in one's home country and other means of communication were relatively expensive. With advances in technology, today's immigrants can maintain ties with their home countries. Changes in technology and globalization make full assimilation into the recipient country less necessary. Several countries encourage immigrants to maintain ties with their home country by creating laws that protect property rights of absent individuals and laws that enable immigrants to be dual citizens’.[9]

From this quote we can see how globalization also allows immigrants to have dual loyalties and that assimilation is no longer required. This leads to alienation of particular ethnic and/or cultural groups who set up their own alternative societies or create ghettoes. A prime example of this here in Australia are the Chinese, Aboriginals or Muslims (of various ethnic/racial groups) who follow their own cultural rules and have separate morals and values compared to the average Australian who is of Anglo-Celtic/European background.

The major concern in relation to immigration and globalization is how a mass flood of different cultures and ethnic groups will cause the original culture and ethnic group to be made a minority in the nation that they created. The hegemony of a nation, such as Australia, will change from being predominately Anglo-Celtic/European to something which is a mongrelized amalgamation or foreign races and cultures. This result will surely happen to numerous countries, cultures and ethnic groups around the world, as globalization seeks to create a “one-world culture” and make us all global citizens (or should I say slaves of globalization?).

The University of Iowa also claims that –

‘...discussing the role of immigrants in globalization requires one to engage in two discourses: "(i) the discourse of globalization as a cultural phenomenon and (ii) the discourse of difference." In the same way that proponents of immigration argue that the integration of immigrants contributes to the diversity of a population, immigration critics argue that immigrants change the culture of the population to which they are migrating simply by bringing their own culture with them’.[10]

The question needs to be raised to those proponents of immigration that they need to realise that their misunderstood view of “diversity” may sound like a good idea (to them!) short-term but in the long run, through the influence of globalization, we will all lose that genuine diversity and become mongrels that have no unique identity. We will be a mass of “coffee-coloured” people that become a mono-cultural society that is no longer unique or diverse whatsoever!
In many ways it has been globalization and its influence of immigration that has caused animosity and friction in different societies around the world. Millions of people are migrating to start a “better life” particularly those from 3rd World countries.

As Catherine Tactaquin says –

‘…the over 150 million people in migration every year are contributing to a "demographic shift" in countries throughout the world. At the same time, globalization 's impact in migrant-receiving countries, such as in the United States or in Europe, has stirred economic uncertainties and heightened racial and anti-immigrant hostilities as predominantly white native populations seek economic security. High-tech communication, low transportation charges and boundless free trade allow the world to fuse into a single market. This also creates severe global competition even on the labour market. German businesses will only create new jobs in low-cost foreign countries. Deregulation instead of state supervision, liberalization of trade and capital transactions as well as privatization of state enterprises were the strategic weapons in the arsenal of market-fundamentalist governments and the international economic organizations supported by them, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Trade Organization (WTO). With these instruments, they fought a struggle for independence for capital that continues up to today. Nothing and no one should evade the law of supply and demand, whether air transport or telecommunications, banks or insurances, the construction industry, software development or the labour forces’. [11]

From this statement we can say how it doesn’t matter to the big multi-national companies if there is any racial or anti-immigrant hostility in a particular country it is about whether or not they are making profits and the economy in that particular country is successful. If a company is paying too much in wages, or costs are too high in another way, they will merely move to country where they can pay lower wages.

Why is it fair to blame “racism” for people reacting naturally to a threat to their financial security and way of life? Are the lives of immigrants worth any more than the lives of the original inhabitants who helped to create that nation, through their blood, sweat and tears in the first place? As Nationalists it is our duty to defend against those people who wish to impose harm or take advantage of our nation and in particular it seems that the globalists are the ones implementing these insidious changes.

*** I will discuss more in my second part of this article about the struggle between Nationalism and globalization. This will include the issue of how globalization can lead to the creation of a 20 – 80 society, along with what a few New Right intellectuals have to say about globalization and the thoughts of other racial Nationalists. There will also be a concluding statement about how Nationalists should tackle the issue of globalization.


REFERENCES

1 http://www.bgns.net/En/actual/posit/200904.html
2 http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/courses/ed253a/dk/GLOBPM.htm
3 http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/courses/ed253a/dk/GLOBPM.htm
4 http://www.asianresearch.org/articles/2261.html
5 http://www.asianresearch.org/articles/2261.html
6 http://www.asianresearch.org/articles/2261.html
7 http://www.boloji.com/perspective/198.htm
8 http://www.boloji.com/perspective/198.htm
9 http://www.uiowa.edu/ifdebook/issues/globalization/readingtable/immigration.shtml
10 http://www.uiowa.edu/ifdebook/issues/globalization/readingtable/immigration.shtml
11 http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=375

*Colin Godfrey is a supporter of the New Right Australia/New Zealand and can be contacted through the NR website.