Didn't we once fight a World War at least ostensibly to defend this, historically our principal ally and trading partner on the Continent, an entity not unlike our own United Kingdom, even headed by a monarch of the House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, and with a social democracy based on Christian principles? Yet now cheer, laugh or both as certain people seek to carve her up into neoliberal statelets. Including at least one party with SS roots on the Western Front all the way to the Channel ports.
See quite how small a country is nevertheless intolerably indigestible by global capital. Those who see themselves as Thatcherites and who are now in favour of English independence, take note, for this as for several other reasons: England has five times as many people as Belgium, and covers a vastly larger area. If Flanders and Wallonia are to be the preferred size of unit, then let the thoroughly global-capitalist ruling faction of the SNP ponder that Scotland covers a much greater area than either, and is not far off twice as populous as Wallonia.
What started with the dismemberment of Yugoslavia has still not come to an end. When will it ever? Where will it ever? How will it ever? Will it ever?
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Were we right to fight a world war to defend it, though? I seem to remember that we were only able to create it because we had won a previous world war. And we created it to serve our own national interest. Nothing wrong with that in principle, of course, but no good ever came in practice of artifical nation-building. I am only surprised it has lasted this long.
ReplyDeleteIt has lasted this long by being a British ally and trading partner, an entity not unlike our own United Kingdom, even headed by a monarch of the House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, and with a social democracy based on Christian principles. All of these things are now under threat. Ask not for whom the bell tolls.
ReplyDeleteExactly. National sovereignty is an important bulwark against global capital. People should be wary of attacking the nation-state. Even if it has some problems, it is still our first line of defense against global capital. This is one (among many) reasons why I broke with some Italian friends over Berlusconi and his relations with the Lega Nord.
ReplyDeleteForza Italia, an archetypal neoconservative movement.
ReplyDelete