Civil Society Watch

The political world has been changing radically since the Central European revolution of 1989. Instead of traditional bi-polar conflict, we now have the potential for multi-polar political conflict. Small wars have once again become a real possibility. Ethnic and social conflicts in Central and Eastern Europe are brewing into equally revolutionary and explosive mixtures. Despite these changes, however, Western Europe's political classes are still sitting impassively at yesterday's gambling tables, placing their bets as though oblivious of the fact that "Rouge" and "Noir" have become almost indistinguishable after the historic downpour. They mutter strange codes under their breath ( CSCE, CFE, EC, WEU, NATO, etc.), but can we be sure that these letters still stand for the same concepts that they did three years ago?

The resurgence of nationalism after the collapse of communism startled many observers in the West. What could have been more stark than the contrast between Western and Eastern Europe? As the European Community pursued new modes of integration, nationalist virulence asserted itself in more than one of the previously communist lands. The bloody unravelling of Yugoslavia has been the most potent example, and the fear remains that the former Soviet Union could become Yugoslavia writ large. Evidently, Leninist and Stalinist dominion led neither to a withering away nor to the successful repression of national sentiments. At the same time, as the processes of integration have proceeded, xenophobia has intensified in Western Europe.

Bush's new world order is a new world disorder, and for the time being, no restoration of stability is visible or even conceivable. It is against this background that we see the present rise of ethnic or nationalist or separatist phenomena in various, but by no means in all parts of the world. But on the other side of the coin is supranationalism or transnationalism, that is, the development of an increasingly integrated world economy or, more generally, a world whose problems cannot effectively be tackled let alone solved within the borders of nation states.

The paradox of the situation is that some of these agitations are recreating nation-states of the ethnic/linguistic type, often on a much smaller scale than before, at a time when this makes no rational sense and, indeed, is particularly dangerous. This is not a universal tendency. Today, ethnic or similar movements do not necessarily or even typically find a nation-state of their own relevant to their problems. The United States demonstrates this in general and the black population of the United States demonstrates this in particular. In short, we must not equate ethnicity and nationalism or ethnicity and other interests aiming to set up territorial states. However, very often they are confused.