Review of the Book “The New Nationalism”

(Conservative writer and YouTuber, Dr. Steve Turley, promoting his new book)

“The New Nationalism, How the Populist Right is Defeating Globalism and Awakening a New Political Order” was just released and is available online. The title is pretty self explanatory, as nations across the world are pushing hard to maintain their identities and sovereignties. Not only do nations and people want autonomy over their lands, they want to see their own cultures intact and thriving. It is a fairly quick at 78 pages, but is packed with information. While he acknowledges that globalists do make occasional advances, they are more of the exception, and that the general trend is towards nationalism.

Before getting too much into the book, let’s take a moment to acknowledge 2 sets of ideas hotly debated currently:

1. Civic v.s. Ethno Nationalism

(a) Nationalism (Identity) v.s. Multiculturalism (Values)
(b) Ethno Nationalism (Identity) v.s. Civic Nationalism (Values)

In many ways they are same argument: Is a nation defined as “who the people are” or by “what they believe”?

Those pushing for a greater unity, ethno-nationalist, argue that who the people are matters, be it: heritage, culture, common language, traditions, way of life, and often ancestry, are the necessary elements for a cohesive society. EN is commonly thought to be a racial supremacist ideology, but that just isn’t the case.

Those pushing for greater freedom and individuality, civic nationalist, are much more likely to believe in the multicultural way of life. The cohesive unity that ethno-nationalists stress is not nearly as important as more abstract beliefs such as freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of association, and acceptance rather than assimilation of newcomers.

Civic nationalists claim (rightly), that their society promotes tolerance and diversity. Ethno nationalists claim (rightly), that there is nothing that holds them together, and that people will just form groups which do reflect their identities. These 2 ideologies are in fact arguing different things.

Within ethno-nationalism, there is a segment that believes that blood is the single biggest unifier (race). This is often referred to as “the Alt-Right”. Another group believer that other shared traits (culture), are what holds societies together, sometimes called “the Alt-Lite”. One group believes the other to be racist, while the other believes that group to be unrealistic.

In the book, “The New Nationalism”, Dr. Turley is quite clearly arguing a form of nationalism that focuses on a shared culture and traditions, while race itself is not important (Alt-Lite).

The book covers in depth 9 countries across the world: (1) Hungary; (2) Poland; (3) Bulgaria; (4) Italy; (5) Denmark; (6) Russia; (7) Turkey; (8) India; and (9) the United States. Now, for some key passages:

2. Quotes From Book

All over the world, a nationalist revolution is underway. In the past 17 years, the actual number of nationalist and populist parties across the European continent has nearly doubled, growing from 33 to 63.1 And these parties are seeing extraordinary electoral success. The share of votes won by populist parties in Europe has tripled in the course of such time, from 8.5 percent of the European vote to nearly 25 percent.

FIRST TAKEAWAY: The opening paragraph gets right to the point. Using Europe as a model, nationalism is on the rise, and that the # of political parties is rising, as is the % of the popular vote they are receiving. In fact, the first five Chapters deal with European countries where nationalism is still rising: Hungary; Poland; Bulgaria; Italy; and Denmark.

>However, for what I’m calling here the New Nationalism, the communist threat is of course gone, as is any notion of biological racial superiority.

SECOND TAKEAWAY: That the growing nationalism here is built on shared customs, cultures, etc… and that race is not the driving motivation.

Because globalization eclipses the nation-state with wider transnational economic and political processes, many scholars believe that globalization is bringing an end to the whole concept of distinct nations.

THIRD TAKEAWAY: Globalism is a threat to nations because it attempts to break down what actually makes nations distinct.

…. that Orban wants to create an authoritarian theocracy. In fact, nothing can be farther from the truth. As Orban makes clear, Christian democracies absolutely affirm a separation of powers between church and state. The church and the state are wholly unique and distinctive institutions. But what makes Christian democracies different from globalist societies is that while they recognize a separation of powers between church and state, they don’t recognize a separation of purpose.

FOURTH TAKEAWAY: While nations like Hungary may want to maintain a Christian nation, it will not lead to autocratic rule.

open borders mean open values. And so, what does this mean for the EU’s immigration quotas? Very simply, mass unfettered immigration fulfills the political precondition for more liberal democratic social policies. The less secure a nation’s borders, the less secure a nation’s customs and culture.

FIFTH TAKEAWAY: Mass immigration will actually lead to the break down of society. If any and all people and their customs are welcome, then what makes a nation unique? This is actually the main argument against multiculturalism.

However, Poland has no shortage of detractors, particularly in Brussels. One critic accused Poland of “abdicating” its leading role in Central Europe by refusing to bend to the EU’s demands on migrant quotas and internal judicial reforms. But in the process of making these observations, she ended up admitting that the nation of Poland poses a greater existential threat to the EU than does Brexit.22

When the Poles didn’t, Article 7 was enacted to try to strip Poland’s voting rights away.

SIXTH TAKEAWAY: Interesting, that for all the praise that the EU gives to diversity and multiculturalism, it seems they have to force member states like Poland to comply. This is an attempt to overrun their sovereignty and impose laws on them. How exactly is Poland an independent country if it “bends the knee”?

What Salvini is advocating here is but the latest chapter of a history of what scholars call the internationalizing of the nationalist right. While leaders in the nationalist right have focused primarily on local and national elections, they all recognize that transnational politics are in many ways just as equally important, because the ultimate adversary in all of this is globalization, and globalization is by definition transnational.

SEVENTH TAKEAWAY: While individual nations are taking back their autonomy, there is a collective good in such nations working together to do so.

>With communism dead, something even more compelling, more deeply rooted in the Russian soul would have to take its place. And that is the real contribution of Vladimir Putin; he found that the way forward for Russians would be a return, a retraditionalization that would involve reawakening Russia’s pre-Soviet history, her culture, traditions, customs, and Orthodox religion that would serve as the foundation for a rebirth and renewal of Russian civilization.

EIGHTH TAKEAWAY: Russia, facing more and more break off portions, was able to keep itself fairly intact because it focused on what the various regions and people had in common. Putin has said many times, “we are of many ethnicities, but we are Russian first.”

Putin does not celebrate a secularized vision of human rights irrespective of culture; he doesn’t affirm a notion of civil rights that favors certain races, genders, and sexual orientations. Rather, the rights, protections, and freedoms experienced by citizens of the Russian Federation are the direct result of a distinctively Russian culture, religion, society, and sentiments.

NINETH TAKEAWAY: Identity politics is bad. Focusing on collective identity is good. Simple enough.

However, there is one section that seems puzzling.

For example, there have been reports of forced conversion attempts on Christian families in Indian villages by Hindu nationalists, the desecration of churches, and actual physical violence and assaults against Christians, Muslims, and Buddhists. These are of course unacceptable in any humane society. But what we have to understand is that, unfortunately, such acts of religious persecution are really just par for the course given the fact that secularism is seen more and more as that ideology that persecutes a nation’s dominant religious identity….. To just defer to good ol’ fashioned secular human rights such as religious freedom, as our Western elites like to do, does absolutely nothing to remedy this problem, but I believe has the reverse effect; it employs rhetoric that only exasperates it.

Perhaps I am missing something, but wouldn’t this be a compelling argument in favour of secularism? If physical violence and religious persecution are “par for the course”, wouldn’t taking religion out of the way of life make things safer for everyone? For example, the Western World has seen repeatedly what “devout practitioners” from Islam are capable of doing.

3. Overall Impression

The New Nationalism is a very informative read. 9 countries are gone through in depth, although many more are mentioned in the introduction. The author has clearly put a lot effort into the research and presentation. While there are exceptions, the overall path seems to be towards nationalism and against globalism.

4. Relevance To This Site

Canucklaw.ca is founded on the idea of discussing and examining comparative law. As such, ideas and systems — good and bad — are looked at. If nationalism is to be the major trend (and the evidence says it will), then new laws are certain to be introduced. Likewise, there are likely to be many court challenges and appeals, as the nationalists and globalists fight it out. This should be a fertile source for research and commentary.

5. Nationalism Is Coming

Dr. Turley covered the election of Doug Ford in June 2018. Worth a watch. (Update: on October 2, he covered the Nationalist Win in Quebec).

Currently, we have: (1) Parliament appoints to cabinet based on gender quotas; (2) criticism of Islam is banned; (3) compelled speech for gender pronouns; (4) Pro-Life candidates are banned from running for office in certain parties; (5) summer jobs grants are denied for wrongthink; (6) opposition to ISIS fighters returning is considered islamophobia; (7) asking about costs for illegal immigration is considered racist; (8) murders of citizens by “Syrian refugees” is laughed off; (9) Diversity is entropy, and apparently, breaking down society is our strength; (10) discussing the challenges of multiculturalism gets condemned by “Conservatives”; (11) $10.5 Million for a this terrorist; (12) $31 million for these accused terrorists; (13) Canada apparently has no core identity; (14) “Old -Stock” Canadians should apparently be replaced; (15) Pride parades which are outright lewd; (16) Showing tolerance and inclusion at Pride, by banning police; (17) Statues of our founder Sir John A. MacDonald taken down; (18) Parks named after foreign founders; (19) ”Gender neutral” national anthem; (20) ”peoplekind” instead of mankind, and so on….

Back to the Nationalism (Identity) v.s. Multiculturalism (Values) mentioned earlier, it was mused that globalists don’t want an identity, that there only be certain “values”. However, it seems that many don’t even want “values”, as they would require logic and consistent standards to apply them.

There are some interesting postings from Candice Malcom: CLICK HERE, and CLICK HERE,

Canada has a federal election on October 19, 2019. If there is a nationalist candidate who might win, it would look something like this, or this, or this, or possibly this or this or this, or this, or maybe this.

Canada needs a rise in nationalism. If multiculturalism actually worked — anywhere — we would not need an ever expanding set of laws telling us how to live, and how to accommodate radically different people. Perhaps Dr. Turley can one day do such a book (or a second edition) on Canada