Financial Times
2-1-17
Trump, Putin, Xi and the rise of nostalgic nationalism
Beware of leaders’ pledges to build a future inspired by past
glories
Gideon Rachman
America is used to setting global trends. But long before Donald
Trump vowed to “Make America Great Again”, China, Russia and Turkey had already
established the fashion for nostalgic nationalism.
The Chinese version of Mr Trump’s famous pledge was President Xi
Jinping’s vow to lead a “great rejuvenation of the Chinese people”, which was
made in 2012. That same year, Vladimir Putin returned to the Kremlin as
president and embarked on a national project easily summarised as “Make Russia
Great Again”. In Turkey, meanwhile, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan seeks
national inspiration from the glories of the Ottoman Empire.
The political climates in China, Turkey and Russia provide clear
warning about the dangers of nostalgic nationalism. In all three countries a
yearning to restore national greatness is combined with a government-promoted
campaign against hostile outside forces and a focus on antinational “enemies
within”.
America’s robust institutions and free press will make it much
harder for Mr Trump’s nostalgic nationalism to suppress domestic political
opposition, in the manner of presidents Putin, Xi or Erdogan. But the idea that
democracies are somehow immune to milder forms of the nostalgic nationalist
revival is demonstrably false. Just look at Japan, India, Hungary and Britain.
Shinzo Abe, the Japanese prime minister, is leading an energetic
campaign for national revival. He has cited the Meiji Restoration of the 19th
century, which made Japan the leading power in Asia, as his inspiration. In
India, prime minister Narendra Modi leads a Hindu nationalist movement that
simultaneously seeks to modernise India while appealing to Hindu pride in a
glorious (and sometimes mythologised) past. In Hungary, prime minister Viktor
Orban is a nationalist who looks back wistfully at the territories his country
lost after the first world war.
And then there is Brexit. Nostalgic nationalism also played its
part in Britain’s decision to quit the EU. The Leave campaign’s stress on a
“Global Britain” appealed to memories of the time when the UK was a dominant
world power, not just a member of a club of 28 European nations.
With Russia, China, the US, the UK, Japan and India all embracing
forms of nostalgic nationalism, it is tempting to regard the phenomenon as
ubiquitous, and therefore unremarkable. But that would be a mistake. Most
established western democracies have not yet followed the trend. Canada,
Australia and most of the EU have not succumbed to nationalism. France is
vulnerable: Marine Le Pen’s National Front is a classic example of a nostalgic
nationalist party. But on the other side of the Rhine, it is hard to envisage
any party successfully campaigning on the slogan “Make Germany Great Again”.
In many countries where it has taken hold, nostalgic nationalism
is still a new force. In Britain and the US, the most successful politicians
were, until recently, forward-looking. Bill Clinton talked of building a
“bridge to the 21st century” and Barack Obama campaigned on “hope and change”.
In Britain, Tony Blair burbled about Cool Britannia, while David Cameron
positioned himself as a modernising Conservative, comfortable with contemporary
society. Even Russia, before the Putin era, seemed more interested in forging a
new future than in recapturing past imperial glories.
So what has happened? One familiar, catch-all explanation is
globalisation. The dislocating effects of global capitalism, including mass
migration and the 2008 financial crisis, have probably increased the nostalgic
appeal of a more stable, homogeneous and nation-centred past. Nationalist
revivals in one country may have encouraged emulation elsewhere. Mr Trump cited
Brexit as an inspiration — and he is also an unabashed admirer of Mr Putin.
A less examined reason for the revival of nostalgic nationalism
could be the shift in political and economic power from the west to Asia. A
sense that the wealth and global clout of the US is eroding underpinned Mr
Trump’s promise to make America great again. In rising Asian powers, such as
China and India, the global power shift has inspired ambitions to revive the
national and cultural greatness that was eclipsed during the age of western
imperialism.
Patriotic appeals to the past are a standard part of political
rhetoric all over the world. Nostalgic nationalism only becomes dangerous when
it slides into mythmaking and hostility to outsiders. At that point, the
chances of a clash between rival nationalist ideologies increases. The
possibility of a confrontation between American and Chinese nationalism in the
Pacific seems to have risen since Mr Trump’s election.
It is always much easier for nostalgic nationalists to focus on
wrongs committed by foreigners than to be honest about the complicated history
of their own nations. It is telling that neither Mr Putin nor Mr Xi is keen to
discuss the crimes of those great nation-builders, Stalin and Mao. Previous
eras in which nostalgic nationalism came into fashion are hardly encouraging.
In the 1930s, Mussolini’s Italy appealed to the glories of ancient Rome, while
the Nazis cast themselves as heirs to the Teutonic knights of medieval Europe.
History can indeed be an inspiration for those yearning for
national revival — in America and elsewhere. It should also be a warning.
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