BBC4 Thinking Allowed: Global inequality - Signs of 'nation'

Global inequality: is the Global South catching up with the North, as many corporations and governments have claimed for the last 30 years? Laurie Taylor talks to Jason Hickel, fellow in anthropology at the LSE, who argues that the divide is actually greater than ever. They're joined by Marian Tupa, Senior Policy Analyst at the Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity at the Cato Institute, Washington DC.

Also , Michael Skey, Lecturer in Communication and Media Studies at Loughborough University explores the markers and symbols of nation and national identity across Britain.

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openDemocracy: Can there be a progressive patriotism?

Whatever the slogan—‘American exceptionalism,’ ‘Rule Britannia,’ or ‘it is sweet and right to die for one’s country’—the essence is the same. Patriotism is “a conviction,” in George Bernard Shaw’s words, that “a particular country is the best in the world because you were born in it.” Shaw’s definition places the concept firmly in the category of the irrational, tribal, or even barbarous. From this perspective, love of one’s country comes at the expense, not only of love for other countries, but also of individual reason, critical thinking, class solidarity and a sense of common humanity.

Rosa Luxemburg saw patriotism as part of the “bestial chorus of imperialist war-mongers” and “the shrill cry of capitalist hyenas;” Bertrand Russell bristled at its teaching in schools as “the willingness to kill and be killed for trivial reasons;” and Frantz Fanon powerfully articulated how “national consciousness” could be turned into a “cruel and fragile travesty” by a self-serving “national middle class.” [...]

It is hard to argue with the sense that—expressed in these terms—patriotism is irrational, but is it inherently regressive? Intense attachment to the concept of a ‘nation’ has always had the potential to frustrate social and economic progress. However, patriotism is not only a widespread and unavoidable political force; its unique combination of myth, history and emotion can also be central to the task of building a progressive vision that appeals to both our reason and our passions. Shaping this vision requires a fresh and critical assessment of our past in ways that speak to current struggles against racial injustice, inequality and militarism. [...]

A more common contemporary puzzle—particularly for political pundits—is the tendency of low-income people to seemingly ignore their economic interests and vote instead for abstract commitments to defending or strengthening their country. Whether it’s  a vote for the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP), which has called for privatising the National Health Service and reducing corporation tax, or a Republican Party offering up tax cuts for the rich and the de-funding of public services, the response is often: ‘How can people be that stupid?’ It’s like ‘turkeys voting for Christmas,’ or even “Voters are making a mess of democracy.”

Yet the basic fact is that all of us frequently act on emotion, impulse and gut instincts as much as rational calculation. Put another way, “Human beings don’t only want comfort, safety, short working hours, hygiene, birth control and, in general, common sense; they also, at least intermittently, want struggle and self-sacrifice, not to mention drums, flags and loyalty-parades.”    

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The Atlantic: How ISIS Survives the Fall of Mosul

Since October 2016, when the campaign to retake Mosul was first launched, ISIS has been putting up an immensely stiff resistance: thousands of its fighters have been killed by coalition forces, and hundreds more blown up in suicide operations. But no matter how fiercely it fought, the group was never realistically going to repel the onslaught. The few thousand fighters that ISIS had holed up in the city faced about ten times as many members of a reconstituted and determined Iraqi security forces that was backed by U.S. air power.

What, then, were the strategic objectives of ISIS’s doomed resistance these last few months? While its leaders persistently proclaimed that victory was just around the corner, and while the rank-and-file were probably fighting under the pretense that they might actually win, something more abstract seems to have been driving the battle. At its heart has been a compulsive obsession, not so much with defense as with narrative—the caliphate has been doing all it can to make sure it could be seen to be putting up a fight. In that sense, much of what has happened since late 2016 can be seen as an exercise in propaganda—expensive, wasteful propaganda, but propaganda all the same. [...]

If statehood was indeed the Islamic State’s aim, it has resoundingly failed. However, if it really hoped to establish a lasting, viable administration, it would not have raped, murdered, and terrorized its way across the Middle East and North Africa in the way it did, let alone systematically provoked the international community into forming a coalition to destroy it.

What if, more than anything else including territory, the group just wants permanence, to be the ideological hegemon of global jihadism? In this pursuit, the realization of ideological aspirations is far more important than the permanent administration of any piece of land, even if it comes at great material cost.

Viewed through this lens, ISIS’s most counter-intuitive acts become intuitive, if not ingenious, parts of a narrative-led strategy, one that prioritizes conceptual longevity over anything else.

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The Atlantic: The Souring of American Exceptionalism

But most of the compliments Americans paid themselves half a century ago ring hollow in the 21st century. In 2010, as a rising star in the Tea Party movement, Marco Rubio delivered the keynote address at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington. He told his own inspiring personal story and credited it to the unique opportunities of the United States. "The result is an America where—which is the only place in the world where it doesn't matter who your parents were or where you came from. You can be anything you are willing to work hard to be. The result is the only economy in the world where poor people with a better idea and a strong work ethic can compete and succeed against rich people in the marketplace and competition.” None of that is true, and in important ways it is the opposite of the truth. Who your parents were and where you came from matters probably more in the United States than in most other advanced economies, at least if statistics on upward mobility are to be believed.

America’s uniqueness, even pre-Trump, was expressed as much through negative indicators than positive. It is more violent than other comparable societies, both one-on-one and in the gun massacres to which the country has become so habituated. It has worse health outcomes than comparably wealthy countries, and some of them most important of them are deteriorating further even as they improve almost everywhere else. America’s average levels of academic achievement lag those of other advanced countries. Fewer Americans vote—and in no other democracy does organized money count for so much in political life. A century ago, H.L. Mencken observed the American “national genius for corruption,” and (again pre-Trump) Transparency International’s corruption perceptions index ranks the U.S. in 18th place, behind Hong Kong, Belgium, Australia, Canada, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Germany—never mind first-place finishers Denmark and New Zealand. [...]

Nor has that elite learned its lessons. Look at the progress of the Republican health-care bill through the House and Senate. The authors of the bill are acutely aware of how despised it is, how much more despised it will be once it goes into effect: That’s precisely why they have broken through all normal legislative processes, why they do not hold hearings, why they conceal its elements, why they outright lie about its effect. Even so, only fewer than one in five Americans support what they wish to do. Rather than make any attempt to build consensus—never mind to make adjustments that could gain broader consent—a small leadership group is pushing through. Some of those leaders are dogmatically sure that they are correct, no matter what anybody else thinks. Others are heedless of consequences for anyone but their supporters and donors. Still others feel cynically certain that if they can prevail now against the numbers, they can use the inertia of the American system to prevent the large majority who opposed them from reversing their actions.

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