November 08, 2019
National Outlook
Nationalism is now a dominant trend. Hindu nationalism, white nationalism, Catalonian nationalism. Then there was Arab nationalism, which brought about the June 1967 disaster. Narrow nationalism has been the bane of Lebanon since 1975, bringing misery to a nation split into a three-way bloc between Shia, Sunni, and Christian. Now, there is a slow realization of being in the same boat facing common afflictions.
In South Africa, transition to majority rule has been accompanied by the ‘transformation process’ – a euphemism for a racially-allocated quota system. In its aftermath, it has left once mighty South African cricket in ruins.
There is no simplistic pathway forward. It has to do not with giant leaps but taking small steps consistently for the betterment of daily living. Misplaced hopes on the West haven’t worked before and won’t work now. The West itself is in a state of disarray.
Disparity persists expedited by a lack of distributive social ethic. In America, the health care system, in the eyes of impartial pundits, is simply not working, with doctors inaccessible when they are most needed, and private insurance costs high. Nor is there distinct improvement seen in administration of justice, where mass incarceration is unacceptably high, particularly for nonviolent offenses by nonwhites. Incendiary demagoguery is igniting fires rather than dousing them.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, behind the false façade of newness, there is no noticeable tapering in the old vindictive way of doing things. People tend to be swayed by fiery speeches and tall pronouncements until they begin to match words with actions. Despite exultation of the new, there is very little evidence of new treatment plans.
Multiple blocs work at cross-purposes to indulge in divide and conquer. Hate continues to accelerate. And narcissism takes center stage. Lost in this crescendo of turbulence and tirade is the absence of national outlook.
Despite all the ups and downs in Pakistan’s polity, there is a common thread of continuity – a chastening one – running through its 72-year history: no head of government exits gracefully.
Conflict now mars the West just as does in the Mideast. These are signposts of a crumbling order. The influx of social media, instead of broadening minds, has been closing minds. Tongues may have been loosened, but minds remain incarcerated.
The spread of narrow xenophobic ethno-nationalism is becoming the new normal.
Those who were fanning Islamophobia are now witnessing the concurrent upsurge in anti-Semitism: the blowback impact of unintended consequences. It dips into the same poisoned well.
One pays the price for what one unleashes. Sometimes, it takes an independent third-party evaluator to ascertain what is wrong.
Exclusive nationalism is one of the signposts to decline, be it in the West or the East. It has limited the clout of the West and it has kept caste-ridden India, despite its mammoth size and technical adeptness, shackled, in effect, to its South Asian territorial sphere. The Brexit conundrum in Britain poses a threat to the well-being and unity of the United Kingdom. As a new security campaign, British Rail continually exhorts its passengers to “See it. Say it. Sorted.”
New isn’t necessarily better. But what does need to be sorted out are new strains in the virus of ethno-nationalism, which undermine the nation-building ethic for a national outlook.
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