“Let's not be English, French or German anymore. Let's be European. No not European, let's be men. Let's be Humanity. All we have to do is get rid of one last piece of egocentricity - patriotism." Victor Hugo
The Socialist Party is for a class-free society. We are opposed to all ideologies which divide the working class, such as religion, sexism and racism. And we are against nationalism and patriotism. Cultural freedom and diversity should not be confused with nationalism. That specific people should be free to fully develop their own cultural capacities is not merely a right but a requirement. The world would be a drab place without its magnificent mosaic of different customs, traditions and cultures.
The curse of nationalism is not new. There is always a load of myth and romanticism surrounding nationalism. Nationalism is an idea that varies in time and places which has as its central core the belief that a national population group is the most important political category, and political rights are primarily given to individuals as members of nations. Nationalism is a source of war and carnage; death, destruction and divisiveness, rather than international solidarity. The mythical image of nationalism as a movement of pioneering, progressive, pious, peace-loving nation-building has been more than exposed. Every form of nationalism is no less aggressive or bigoted than is ever the case under a system of society where the laws of the jungle are presented as being the rules of civilised conduct. Every nation's flag is dripping with the blood of its enemies; every ruling class pays for its power in other people's lives.
Why love a country more than any another simply on the basis of the bit of soil you happen to have been born on? The only thing that matters is class, not nationality or any of the other diversions that stop the "have nots" from challenging the "haves". Whilst the "have nots" are busy feuding with each other on behalf of the "haves" they are missing the real battle. It is the working classes who are sent to war to kill and be killed on behalf of the "haves". They are the true enemy, not the working classes of other nations. Nationalism is a politics of a frustrated local elite who seek to build support for their own class programme by arguing that class alliances and independence are the way to resolve the genuine grievances of the people. Yet the local ruling class is dependent for its economic and political survival on the maintenance of close ties with other capitalists. They accumulate wealth by relying on multi-national corporations, which joins in joint business ventures. We reject the idea that there is a common "national interest" between the different classes within a "nation". Their interests are in direct contradiction. The phrase "national interests" hides the interests of the ruling classes, which are against the interests of the people themselves. Nationalism is not a vehicle for the expression of the will of the majority of the people - the workers - but is instead a tool of the ruling class. It serves to distract the people from their daily misery with a romantic invention, appealing to their emotion over their intellect in order to create a myth of "national interest", in which all classes of a country have more in common than their respective foreign brethren. The realisation of an independent nation means the realisation of the right of the local capitalists to take power and exploit the proletariat. It is capital that will continue to dominate our political institutions in whatever form they take and capital has no country. Separatism offers precisely nothing to the working class.
Nationalists argue that people long to have their very own country. Nationalism, though it is a seemingly noble effort to realise social unity, is the twenty-first century's great plague. Nationalism continues to hypnotise us with unrealistic visions of heaven-on-earth. Nationalism divides human beings territorially, culturally, and economically. National identity is used by the state to legitimise its actions. Nationalism is regressive. There is no place in a free society for nation-states, either as nations or as states. The capitalist class use the old rule of divide and conquer, polished and updated for modern times. Nationalism as a crude control device. Racism and xenophobia and nationalism and patriotism and every other tactic of division have been promoted relentlessly by capitalism. Nationalism is used to propagandise and manipulate the masses of people against their better interests.
Our unity is this system’s Achilles’ heel. Only a working class with a consciousness of itself and united across all racial and national boundaries is capable of emancipating themselves.
The Socialist Party case against nationalism is straightforward. We do not advocate re-drawing the border. No socialist will ever fight to defend any border — we want to do away with the divisiveness of countries and states. Nationalism can never be a solution to the problems of oppression. The problem is class, not national, racial, or religious origins. As a class, workers have no country. Workers across the globe share a common exploitation at the hands of an increasingly global capitalist class. Nationalism means lining up with the same people who exploit them. Rather than submitting to the divide-and-rule policy of the nation state, they should fight alongside other workers who, like them, exist to enrich the people at the top.
Socialists say that a Ukrainian worker has more in common with a Russian worker than they do with their own boss. Nationalism has served as a convenient weapon of ruling elites to keep “the people” on-side. All sorts of unpleasant dictatorships have stirred up nationalist fervour to prop themselves up. We seek to do away with artificial boundaries and borders. The world will not be divided into countries by lines drawn on a map by capitalists to mark out their property.
Our vision for a free society is that of a working class revolution which can finally uproot and defeat capitalism which brings not only exploitation but alienation too. Our goal is the humanisation of the economic system. We condemn the capitalist system where it must always be "You or I" and rarely "You and I".
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