Reopening the world and itself after the pandemic

I pondered this question when I decided to drive around the US instead of traveling abroad (due to pandemic restrictions). The rural expanse of the American heartland itself is a somewhat foreign country to people like me—a non-white, college-educated city-dweller from the Northeast. I ran homemade billboards in corn fields condemning abortion and opposing wind farms. I saw giant floodlight crucifixes roam the highways, and more Trump flags than I could count. Returning home 10,000 miles later, I recognized this particular America, at least superficially, as walking through the Capitol on January 6, in red, white, and blue face paint, waving Confederate flags, and chanting. while saying, “USA! USA!”

In a “normal” year, I would have spent a few Januarys in India as a visiting professor at a university in Ahmedabad. In January 2020, I saw Hindu-nationalist thugs threatening student opponents by barging into the campus of Jawaharlal Nehru University. Prime Minister Narendra Modi of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has made himself an outspoken face of Hindu fundamentalism, sneaking up from hoardings and sporting a new lockdown as a long-haired ascetic.

Also, the systematic persecution of minorities by his government includes a legislative attempt to denaturalize millions of Muslims and evict hundreds of thousands of indigenous people from their lands; It has also passed land reforms opposed by Sikh farmers. Just before the massive spring surge of Covid-19, the government suddenly rewrote the rules to something closest to the dual citizenship India offers. “Overseas citizens of India” are now required to obtain special permission for activities such as scholarly research, journalism and travel to sensitive areas – in short, to view or report on anything the government does not want to publicize.

Usually, I would also go to Britain, which was the center of my historical research. There, right-wing nationalism wears the sordid face of Prime Minister Boris Johnson, doing its best to broadcast its cartoonish view of Winston Churchill. It sounds crazy to say it, but Covid-19 has been like a blessing to the beleaguered Brexiteer, both by allowing Britain to set its own vaccination timetable and by allowing distractions – for the time being, at least – Brexit-related trade disruptions. ,

But Johnson’s government has swung from scandal to scandal, each wrought by incompetence, brutality and outright corruption – most recently in awarding Covid-19 testing contracts. In trouble, Johnson turns to Churchill. In October, he duly invited Britain’s World War II leader in his Tory Party convention speech – a lingering celebration of the British “spirit”.

The parties of Trump, Modi and Johnson reinterpret old nationalist scripts, mobilizing racism, xenophobia and Islamophobia to generate an alcoholic beverage of grievance and entitlement. (All three are also fighting a culture war to write and memorialize national history.) Of course, the same governing elite has no problem with foreign connections serving their own interests. The US state of South Dakota – ruled by a Trump loyalist and boasting one of the highest Covid-19 infection rates in the US – has been highlighted by the Pandora Papers as a major global haven for money launderers and tax evaders. The Tory party collects donations from Russian oligarchs, who take advantage of Britain’s permissible defamation laws, to prosecute investigative journalists. The BJP government has relaxed various restrictions on foreign investment in India, while it prohibits foreigners from donating to charitable organizations. It is globalization for the rich, nationalism for the poor.

But not all right-wing nationalists are motivated, at least equally, by the politics of hate. I was shocked by this observation in August, when the US and Britain withdrew from Afghanistan. The foreign-policy establishment and left-wing media outlets slammed the administration of US President Joe Biden for giving in to a Trumpian “America First” mentality. Where did they cry, was America’s commitment to democracy and the spread of women’s rights? These were excellent questions to ask… for the Texas state legislature, which has radically restricted access to voting and effectively banned abortion.

If one path leading up to January 6 passes through a history of racism and hostility toward the federal government, the other way through a lost 20-year war unequally waged by the working class (Veterans in five of the Capitol rioters It went through years of jobs being outsourced and access to higher education out of reach. It passes through the countryside, which are inhabited by the coasts and despised as “flyover country”.

And yet, as the pandemic has shown, this kind of nationalism, regardless of why people believe it, will ruthlessly eat away at it. On January 6 alone, 3,964 people died of Kovid-19 in the US. Trump supporters have been rallied by cynical politicians to reject government services that could help them, particularly the provision of affordable universal health care. Resistance to the role of “experts” now fuels a suicidal—even anti-human—anti-vaccine movement, with some Trump supporters blaming the demagogues themselves when they backed shots.

Meanwhile, Britain is facing Brexit-amplified supply shortages and inflation with the highest per capita Covid-19 infections in Western Europe. Particularly in the second half of 2021, energy costs soared, and gas stations often dried up, as truckers were not available to restore them.

In India, Modi held super-spreader election rallies and let a major religious festival go ahead while the virus began to grow. Critics of the government’s response have been censored and arrested.

The world of 2020 is burning, sinking, infected and dying. No amount of tub-thumping nationalism will end the pandemic’s global scourge or stop the ravages of climate change.

What we really need is a new internationalism – one that doesn’t involve invading other countries or meeting the needs of oligarchs and billionaires.

We need an internationalism that responds urgently to climate change through multilateral agreements with strong enforcement; which addresses the growing global inequalities of wealth and security that lead migrants on painful journeys across the borders of wealthier countries; And it can streamline an effective program of vaccine production and distribution to contain epidemics and slow further mutation. Given the strengths of the three countries in pharmaceutical research and manufacturing, the US-UK-India partnership, as it happens, would be singularly well-placed to lead the initiative.

But to achieve this we will need new versions of nationalism. What about a nationalism that calls countries to each other to cut greenhouse-gas emissions instead of pointing fingers at China or blaming Americans and Europeans for the cars, air-conditioning, and other technologies that consumers in the Global South do? Motivates you to compete. Long accepted?

What about a nationalism that combats poverty and immersion without provoking identifiable divisions? What about a nationalism that sidesteps the machinery of democracy and portrays it as an idealized form of governance, rather than dismantling it through cronyism, corruption, and disenfranchisement?

This is the nationalism we should aspire to. To achieve this, the reopening of boundaries must coincide with the opening of the mind. ©2021/Project Syndicate ( www.project-syndicate.org)

Maya Jasnoff is Professor of History at Harvard University.