While speaking in front of 70 world leaders, French
President Macron did not just recall past tragedies and remember the victims of
World War I but he criticized nationalism and viewed it as betrayal of
patriotism. His reprimanding address was directed to one man present in front
of him, Trump who days before said: “Really, we’re not supposed to use that
word. You know what I am? I’m a nationalist, ok? I’m a nationalist.” Macron’s
speech however stirred wide uproar in terms of the concept and reality.
What’s the difference between nationalism and patriotism?
Did he mean globalization or universality? What is Macron’s concept of liberal
globalization? There is this confusion in definitions and terms and part of it
is due to Macron’s passion for linguistic gibberish and speeches that are
delivered the academic way.
It’s clear that ties between the US and French presidents
are at their worst since the honeymoon period ended, when Trump announced the
US's withdrawal from the nuclear deal. It’s difficult to imagine Macron saying
these words a year ago when he aspired to influence the US president with logic
and embraces to stay in the deal. However he decided to anger his guest by
talking about the European army to protect Europe, not just from China or
Russia but also from America, the country that saved Europe from itself twice.
No one took Macron’s talk about the European army seriously, including Trump
who mocked the idea and said first pay your share to the NATO then build
whatever army you want.
However what does Macron mean by nationalism and patriotism?
If we take direct definitions, we cannot find a clash
between nationalism and patriotism. A nationalist character is based on a
patriotic sentiment. We live in the era of the nationalist state or what’s called
the nation state. It’s difficult to exit this concept, i.e. imagine a president
who does not put his country first otherwise why was he elected? To serve the
interests of other countries? Macron himself puts France’s interests before
other states on several levels. He embellishes its language, promotes its
companies and defends its sovereignty. Would that make him a traitor of
patriotism? Of course not.
Nationalism is not evil within its correct borders. It
played a strong role in the liberation and salvation of countries from tyranny,
like what happened in eastern European countries which destroyed the Soviet
iron curtain by first relying on the national sentiment and second by relying
on the religious sentiment like what happened in Poland. It’s understandable if
this statement was made by a leader who believes in anarchy or chaos that
opposes the national state but it’s difficult to comprehend that this is said
by a president whose country changed the concept of the world after the French
Revolution and whose country had an important role in the 1648 Peace of
Westphalia which planted the first seed of the modern national state. Macron
hinted the emergence of figures like Hitler, but the German dictator spread
chaos by relying on racist and ethnic theories. With all the changes in the
world since 70 years, it’s difficult to imagine a new Mussolini in 2018.
Macron may be saying the famous statement “patriotism is the
last refuge of the scoundrel” in another way. The sentence means that
patriotism or nationalism is a fabricated product and an alternative to the
tribal and religious identity, i.e. after the religious and tribal identity
which was the reason behind wars disappeared, the national identity was created
to play the same role. Hence, after we were religious and tribal clans, we
turned into nationalist clans whose fate is eternal conflict. This is a perfect
speech that suits lecture halls but the reality is different. We live in a
world of nationalism and countries and it’s difficult to overcome this with the
political concept. It’s difficult to imagine a country without a nationalist
identity even if individuals are capable of abandoning it or replacing it with
a different form of nationalism.
Macron was reprimanding Macron
The other explanation is that Macron may have meant
extremist and not soft nationalism, i.e. putting your country first and
destroying other countries. He is right in terms of this but this reprimanding
does not apply to Trump and his foreign policy. It’s clear that there’s a
difference between Twitter Trump and the real Trump. Twitter Trump is angry and
isolationist and he does not want to pay money and he demands other countries
to pay, like he said two days ago while addressing rich European countries.
However, the real Trump is different. He did not exit NATO like he threatened
he would and he did not isolate himself from the world as he sealed a deal with
North Korea, the world’s most isolated regime. The slogan America First did not
prevent him from imposing the harshest sanctions on the Iranian regime. America
did not turn into a colonial country that occupies other countries and steals
their wealth. America’s nationalism is moderate despite the fuss of alerts on
its president’s Twitter account.
The third interpretation of exiting nationalism and
patriotism may refer to the liberal world order. A condition to preserve this
liberal order is the presence of a nationalist state that believes in it and
protects it, like Great Britain did before and America did after World War II.
Once again and apart from the Trumpism political rhetoric, what Pompeo and
Bolton are doing these days in terms of suffocating Tehran maintains this
liberal order and protects it from cracking and also protects it from the
emergence of other powers that spread terrorism and shed blood – unlike the
French president who fought to protect the Iranian regime for several reasons
of which the most important is protecting the interests of French companies,
i.e. for the sake of nationalist financial French interests, even if this leads
to supporting the force that destroys globalization and universality and the
co-existence he preaches. Without actually knowing it, Macron was reprimanding
Macron. This is the harmful and isolationist nationalism which Macron was
talking about, in which he was alluding to Trump. He is making the same mistake
of President Barack Obama and he’s singing the same tune, using different
lyrics. The rhetoric is global and the approach is isolationist. The words are
eloquent as they call for peace and humanity while children in eastern Ghouta
powerlessly and helplessly suffocate by poisonous gas.
