What about the apparent rise of nationalism all over the world?

If patriotism appears to be on the rise in many parts of the world it is mainly because the rampage of globalism is threatening national iden­tities as never before.

Take the United States of America for an example. This country today is flooded as never in the past by an ever-expanding stream of immigrants—tourists—outside investors—exchange students—"ille­gal aliens."

The U.S. market is flooded by an avalanche of imports from all over the world. Toyotas—Hondas—Volvos—Sonys—Siemenses—crois­sants—quiches—falafels—Perriers—etc.

The quintessential American dream machine—the automobile—no longer exists. The Detroit car is now a multinational hybrid comprised of parts from Japan and Korea and Germany and France.

More and more U.S. banks—-industries—newspapers—TV stations—film studios—book publishers are now owned or co-owned by outsiders: Venezuelans—Saudi Arabians—Kuwaitis—Iranians— Israelis—English—Germans—Australians—Japanese—others.

These investors exert powerful influences in all areas of American life.

Go through any major American city today and you will find that entire neighborhoods have been taken over by recent arrivals: Mexicans—Central Americans—Cubans—Jamaicans—Vietnamese— Cambodians—Thais—Koreans . . .

"Whose America Is It Anyway?" and "Is America Becoming a Foreign Country?"—these titles of recent TV network programs are recurrent questions on many people's minds.

Several states have considered passing laws to declare English the official language of the U.S.!

American patriotism is chiefly an attempt to compensate for the steady blurring of national identity and the diminution of the relative power and influence of the United States in an increasingly assertive world.

Gloatings of some Americans over being "number one" in the world—for example in an international sports arena—are evidence— not of national confidence—but compensations for loss of national self-esteem.

This global incursion is going on everywhere. "Will We Still Be French in Thirty Years?" a recent French TV program wondered as more and more Africans and Asians and fellow Europeans pour into that country.

Israelis wonder out loud if their country will "still be a Jewish state in thirty years." Meanwhile more and more Jews leave to settle else­where and Arabs proliferate all around them.

Nearby in Arab countries Moslem fundamentalists rail against "West­ern influences" that they believe dilute their national and religious identities.

In the 1950s and the 1960s alarmists the world over worried about the alleged "Americanization of the world." Today American alarmists worry about the "Latinization of America." Others worry about the "Orientalization of America."

The fact is that the world is not being Americanized or Latinized or Orientalized or Europeanized or Sovietized. We are all being globalized.

For the first time the forces of global integration are gaining over age-old territoriality and segregation.

As we all steadily outgrow the tribal programmings of millenniums and develop global instincts and institutions patriots everywhere will grow more strident.

Date: 2015-02-28; view: 899