New ‘Era of Extraterritorial Nationalism’ Will Weaken Most States, Savvin Says

 Paul Goble

            Staunton, March 15 – Only a few years ago, many analysts and commentators were pronouncing nations and nationalism as survivals of the past which would give way to civic identities under the growing impact of immigration and globalization.  But now it is obvious that the prediction of their demise was premature, Dimitry Savvin says.

            Indeed, the Russian nationalist editor of the Riga-based Harbin portal says, there are five compelling reasons why nations and nationalism are even more important now than they were and why it is entirely appropriate to suggest that the world is entering “an era of new nationalism” (harbin.lv/natsiya-v-globalnom-mire-oidzd).

            As he points out, migration doesn’t mean what it once did: people no longer break all their ties with where they are from because of the power of the Internet, and the size of migration flows are such that new arrivals may be acculturated but are ever less likely to be assimilated. At the same time, their arrival provokes a new ethnic assertiveness among the host population.

            His first argument is that “any nation is a political community, but in the future, only those in the basis of which there is a strong ethnic or ethno-confessional core will have a chance to survive. All the rest,” Savvin says, “are condemned to assimilation or disintegration: there further existence has no sense.”

            Second, “the functioning of the nation remains the same as it was earlier: the defense of its own ethno-cultural (ethno-confessional) identity and also the rights and freedoms of its representatives and providing them with the maximum possible favorable conditions. But the role of the state in that will continue to contract.”

            Third, Savvin argues, there will be “a weakening of the ties between the state and the nation as a political subject.” The state on whose territory representatives of a nation are located will become one resource among many for those people and in some cases not the most important.

            Fourth and this is something very new, “the nation is losing its territorial borders as it unites its representatives around the world.” That unity, promoted and maintained by the rapid flow of information and people, will in many cases overwhelm the capacity of the state to control it. The situations of the Armenians and Kurds are especially instructive in that regard.

            And fifth, the new nationalism will be based on securing representation not just in states but in broader institutions, giving it leverage over all the places where its representatives happen to find themselves.  Those nations that are best represented in these institutions will be in the best position to survive and even flourish.