Defending Identity & Nationality

Two stories today for your consideration. The first is a review at Gates of Vienna of an article by Victor David Hanson discussing the book Defending Identity: Its Indispensable Role in Protecting Democracy by Natan Sharansky.

Basically Sharansky points out that a democratic national government is crucial in channeling the expression of natural allegiances in reasonable directions. Without democratic government and constitutionally protected freedom, we devolve into gangs and cliques and tyrannize smaller and weaker groups.

Or to put that another way, multiculturalism is a recipe for disaster; it will create or promote tribes which will then begin (as in Lebanon or Bosnia) killing each other. So nationalism, in a democracy, is a good thing as it enforces a supra-tribal allegiance.

The other story is an article by somone I normally detest, Doug Saunders of the Globe & Mail. In Pip pip, Mr. Harper: Even Britain is going off the 'British Way', Saunders says post-nationalism as practiced in Britain has the effect of hollowing out a country by removing control over its businesses and institutions. In effect, it allows some people to get very, very rich by selling off the national assets:

An estimated 1,000 people in the Square Mile got bonuses of $10-million to $40-million each last year. Despite the near-collapse of the British economy and property market during the past year, those bonuses did not decrease: Lots of foreigners are still buying lots of companies and lots of money is still being made, by somebody.

Why does this matter? Well, take a look at the current financial crisis in the United States and what it means for Britain. Here's Saunders again:

Now, Britain is waking up too. The City of London is no longer a great anchor of stability: Because of Mr. Brown's hands-off approach, it is being gutted, possibly more than any other capital, by the subprime-mortgage disaster. Britain wasn't just exposed to bad American mortgages - it wrote enormous numbers of its own, and foreclosures are now rife here. Canada's far-more-regulated system kept us much safer. Suddenly, British observers are beginning to fret over the loss of intellectual and entrepreneurial capital in all those foreign sales. And Mr. Brown no longer seems a genius, but rather a yes-man who once had lucky timing.

Who would have thought it? National identity is essential to maintain control of national assets and democracy is essential to deflate religious, ethinic and tribal differences.

It's too bad Canadians are fast running down the road the leads in the opposite direction: multiculturalism, internationalism, the denial of identity in the face of section 13(1) of the Human Rights Act.