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Brexit, nationalism & globalism

Dickson C. Igwe. Photo: VINO/File
By Dickson C. Igwe

Donald Trump and Brexit are symbols of a new cold war within western society. This is an existential conflict between the forces of globalization, and the forces of nationalist nativism. Time alone will tell who wins.

The western world appears to be in conflict and turmoil with itself. The USA has become isolationist and inward-looking, with a President who appears to the liberal left to have gone rogue, and who rules by tweet, but a President who holds the absolute fealty of a base that is white, nativist, mono-cultural, middle class, and insular.

Trump, winning a Second term looks very likely, owing to the fanatical loyalty of that base. Donald Trump today owns the Republican Brand. In effect, Trump is the USA’s first elected king.

On the other side of the North Atlantic, Britain’s Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, has been placed into Number 10 Downing Street by very much the same ‘’street sentiments ’’ and ‘’nativist instincts.’’ Brexit points to a UK, mainly white, and nativist, and overwhelmingly English, that wants to cut the links with a European Union that is an economic hegemon, and a huge market of over 500 million, at the UK’s doorstep.

The European Union is a globalist enclave ruled by centrists, and liberal types,  who view convergence as inevitable, and divergence as dangerous and irresponsible: ‘’Davos man.’’ On the other side of the spectrum, the Brexiter is a populist with nationalist sentiments who view divergence, and the hard separation peoples and countries, as a good thing.

The first reason for Brexit may have been the dislike of untrammelled migration into the UK by European and African migrants. However, at the core, Brexit is a war against what is perceived as a loss of sovereignty through the adoption by the European Union of powers that were formerly held by individual European states. Today, those states are part of a 27 bloc confederacy, a true Union, as valid as the UK’s own Union, but not yet as cohesive as the USA: a union of American States.

These powers of the EU have not been taken by force. There has been a voluntary pooling of power, from member states into the EU, for the ‘common good.’ The powers held by Brussels are very much a shared agreement by sovereign states to pool their resources and powers in the interests of security, trade and industry.

The idea is that in a dangerous world ruled by superpowers and integrating regions, the best way to survive, in a sea of ‘’ killer sharks,’’ is by rivalling these powers- mainly the USA and China- by coming together.

Connect with Dickson Igwe on Twitter and Facebook.

 

3 Responses to “Brexit, nationalism & globalism”

  • vex (08/02/2020, 15:45) Like (0) Dislike (1) Reply
    I disagree
  • Quiet Rebel (09/02/2020, 14:39) Like (2) Dislike (0) Reply
    Despite racism being debunked by science as having no intellectual substance and by history as having no place in civilized society, yet it persist in the world of politics. For example, President Donald John Trump, the 45th president of the US, launched his political campaign with birtherism, ie, perpetuating a lie that President Barack Hussein Obama, 44th president of the US, was born in Kenya, Mexicans being rapists, caging children, shit hole countries, Muslim ban, good people on both sides of Charlottesville eruption......etc.

    Brexit too was born out of racism, for some UK residents despise Asian, African and Caribbean (West Indians), along with poorer west Europeans, citizens immigrating to the UK. So cutting off its nose to spite its face, UK taxpayers by a small margin (51.9%) voted on a 23 June 2016 referendum to exit the EU; the UK officially exited the EU on 01 Feb 2020. Megexit was the most current episode.

    Make no mistake racism was common place in the UK way before Brexit. For Example, look no further than Enoch Powell, former MP, River of Blood speech in 20 April 1968 in Birmingham, abuse of West Indian, Pakistani, African.......etc immigrants, Windrush generation no man’s land situation, UK Treasury appropriating £20M after Emancipation to compensate slave owners for lost of their property (dehumanized slaves were seen as chattel), refusing to give slaves and their descendants reparation for their exploited labour in building the UK’s economy, ......etc.

    Now the descendants of Slave owners many of whom benefitted and are still benefiting from Slave labour wants to pretend nothing to see here so let’s move on. Every other disadvantage people have for the most part gotten reparation, ie, Israelis, Chinese, Indians.......etc.

    Furthermore, the idea of race and racism can be traced to UK’s colonialism in the 17th Century, resulting in the emerging of Slavery and the Slave trade. True, the UK was not the only European country to engage in colonialism, Slavery and the slave trade, ie, Portugal, Spain, France, Denmark, Netherland(Holland)......etc. So Igwe is just reporting the facts as Charles Dickens did in Hard Times.
  • Diaspora (10/02/2020, 13:02) Like (1) Dislike (0) Reply
    Racist Britons and racist enclaves in the VI and elsewhere trying to figuratively kill Dickson Igwe, the messenger, with their persistent blistering written attacks for illuminating the facts of the UK and other nations past and current racist behaviour and attitude cannot kill the message. They may bury their heads in the sand like ostriches and try gallantly to revise history but that cannot erase the course of history. Quiet Rebel’s listing of some of the UK’s past actions, though illuminating, is only the tip of the iceberg.

    For example, it has blood on its hand for some of the approximately 1.2-2.4 million West African slaves who died and had a watery grave on the way to the West Indies. Shackled, stored below deck like cargo in hot/humid conditions, underfed, dehydrated, wallowed in filth and plagued with diseases, thousands, if not millions, of dead or dying slaves were fling overboard like thrash. If only the Atlantic Ocean could speak about this tragic and genocidal watery grave that it became.

    Further, history has shown that there may be only 22 countries that that England/UK has not invaded. Though England was/is a small island, it controlled a vast empire (Britannia ruled the waves, the sun never set over the empire). It conquered and raped their colonies of their natural resources, occupied colonies to protect their fleets(Malta) and forced some to serve as penal colonies (Australia).

    Let’s not forget that it has a dark legacy of slavery and the slave trade. At Emancipation in 1834, it appropriated and paid slave owners £20M (today’s equivalent is £17b) but slaves and their descendants got nought. In fact, the freed slaves had to pay for their freedom in the approx sum of £27M. Today some Britons argue that offering reparation to the descendants of slaves would be patronizing. Really! Some even bare facely suggest that slavery was beneficial for colonies, slaves and their descendants.

    Looking closer at home in the VI, one of the oldest building/structure in the VI is the old Her Majesty’s Prison (built in 1775) that is located on Main Street, Road Town, Tortola (the largest island in the VI chain) and the capital city. But to my knowledge, it (UK) didn’t invest in constructing any secondary school(s). It seems that locking up the supposed beasts and savages was more important than educating them. No education was needed to harvest sugar cane, pick cotton, along with other commodities, to ship back to England to use in their factories and employ their citizens. Notice there were few, if any, factories set up in the colonies.

    Moreover, continuing with Her Majesty’s Prison, Arthur William Hodge (1763-1811), plantation farmer, member of Executive Council and Legislative Assembly and slave owner, was convicted and hanged on 08 May 1811 for murdering Prosper his slave for allegedly letting a mango drop on the ground at his plantation in Bell Vue. He is supposedly buried on the grounds of the old Her Majesty’s Prison. Arthur Hodge was a sadistic and brutal fellow and it is believe that he was only White West Indian plantation owner that got hanged for murdering a slavery. That took some bad behaviour that even his White peers say went too far. What ah ting? Further, the old Her Majesty’s Prison is now a museum that has a dark history. The UK contribute to constructing a new prison at Balsam Bhut, which is jointly administered between it and the local government. But where is the UK funded secondary school? The more things change, the more they stay the same.

    Further, Britons racist attitude is not a thing of the past. The most recent example is the hounding and harassing of Megan Markle, former Duchess of Essex, because she is Black. Consequently, she and her husband former Prince Harry (Harry Windsor), former Duke of Essex, pulled back from the crown. It is an open secret that Brexit was driven my racism, discrimination and xenophobia.


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