Brexit, Nationalism and the Dark Side of Democracy

The biggest event in world news in the past week was of course the results of the United Kingdom’s referendum over whether to leave the European Union. Though the polls had been quite close in the run up to the election, most people, even including some of the leaders of the Leave camp, expected the Remain side to come out on top. To the surprise of almost everybody, the Leave side won, by a small but clear margin. Since then people have been trying to figure out not only the consequences that might be expect to arise from the vote, but also why it went the way it did.

While the Leave camp made a number of arguments about why leaving the EU would be good for the UK, they were mostly distorted or outright false. The money the UK gives to the EU is easily outweighed by the benefits it gets from membership, and while there are no doubt quite a few unreasonable regulations imposed by the EU bureaucracy, I would suspect that in fact most of them are justifiable and even necessary. What’s more, if the UK wants to maintain a close economic relationship with the EU, which some of the leading Leave politicians claim to desire, it would have to keep complying with many of the regulation, at least as far as goods being exported to the EU are concerned. The reactions of the currency market and stock market show that investors take a very pessimistic view of the economic consequences of the vote, and though the markets do sometimes overreact to political events, in this case they seem likely to prove right. A more reasonable criticism of the EU is that, like so many other governments around the world, it sometimes seems to work more in the interests of big corporations than ordinary people, and the EU specifically is overly fond of austerity measures that hurt most people (without really solving the economic problems they are supposed to address). But it seems unlikely that the kind of right wing government that is likely to be formed in the wake of a British split from the EU will be substantially different in these respects. If anything, it might make things worse by freeing big business from the restraints imposed by the EU in the name of the environment and human rights.

Though without actually asking all of them it’s impossible to know why all the people who voted to leave did so, it is certain that for at least a few of them it came down to nationalism and even downright racism. The Leave campaign made use of a lot of scaremongering rhetoric about the refugee crisis in Europe, implying that the UK would soon be invaded by a horde of mostly Muslim people from places like the Middle East if it didn’t cut ties with the EU. This xenophobic attitude resembles that of many far right parties in Europe itself, and of course that of the presumptive Republican nominee for US president (dubbed by a young girl of my acquaintance “Pumpkin Hitler”). In all cases they ignore the fact that statistically speaking, refugees are much less likely to commit violent acts than native born people, particularly right wing extremists, a fact tragically illustrated a few days before the UK vote when a right wing British racist murdered a Member of Parliament who was outspoken in support of refugee rights.

Since nationalism certainly played at least some role in the Leave victory, this vote is yet another example of the mostly harmful consequences of nationalism. Given that the differences between humans of different nationalities and ethnic groups are actually miniscule, even more so since if you trace things back far enough everyone has ancestors of diverse origins, it makes no sense to care much more about the interests of people of one’s own nation than those of everyone else. While it might not be possible to get rid of all borders now, an ideal world would indeed be borderless. In the meantime, the EU, for all its faults, represents the kind of direction we should be going in. Of course the EU itself needs to be more welcoming to refugees, and it can’t let larger countries like Germany run roughshod over smaller countries such as Greece. But at least the EU manages to maintain a much better balance of interests between different nations than is seen elsewhere in the world, where nations like China and even the USA use their size to bully other nations. This is one reason for supporting the rights of smaller nations (including occupied ones such as Tibet) until we can get rid of nations altogether. So while I don’t care for nationalism, I’d be more pleased than otherwise to see Scotland hold a second vote on independence with a different result from the first one, especially in the wake of the Brexit vote (in which Scottish voters overwhelmingly voted to stay in the EU), as long as it is merely an expression of a diversion of interests rather than local chauvinism. Another useful step towards minimizing nationalist feelings is to ensure that everyone receives as balanced and objective an education as possible regarding history and the current geopolitical situation, rather than one that is biased towards one’s own country – in other words the opposite of the kind of education that people receive in most countries, with China being just one particularly egregious example.

Unfortunately, until countries all over the world stop indoctrinating their people in nationalistic thinking, election results such as the one in Brexit vote will continue to occur. Nationalism and ethnic prejudice represent the dark side of democracy, allowing extremists all over the world to get a disturbing amount of power through elections. This doesn’t mean that we should abandon democracy, but it does mean that until we can get rid of or at least drastically reduce these harmful attitudes we need institutions that can help restrain populist leaders and parties who appeal to them. While I think it is unlikely that the abovementioned Pumpkin Hitler can win in the US, it is bad enough that he even has a chance. It’s also disturbing that parties like Britain’s anti-immigrant UKIP are growing across Europe, and in countries like Hungary are even dominating the government. This is largely down to nationalism, and it is because of nationalism that a democratic China, for example, would not necessarily be more peaceful toward neighbors such as Taiwan, the Philippines or Japan. Hopefully more and more people will begin to understand that their interests are under more of a threat from forces such as overly powerful multinational corporations and financial institutions (not that even these are monolithic interests groups or unequivocal evils), economic inequality in general or climate change than from immigrants or ordinary “foreigners” of whatever origin.

The Orlando Shootings -- Ideology, Anti-LGBT Hate, and Deadly Weapons

The recent mass shooting in Orlando, Florida has led to another media frenzy, with a number of related topics being discussed and debated, though in many cases with very little real thought behind what is being said. Unsurprisingly, most Republicans, including their presumptive presidential nominee with the orange hair and repellant personality, have tried to make the shooting out to be entirely about “radical Islam” and in the case of DT(aka Donald Drumpf) about immigration as well. While purveyors of twisted Islamic fundamentalism like ISIS/Daesh or al Qaeda are certainly a menace, it is clearly an overstatement to claim that this one incident proves that they are the greatest threat the US faces, especially given the indications that the shooter’s direct ties to ISIS were rather flimsy at best. Before this shooting, more people had been killed in the US since 2001 by right wing extremists, including white supremacists and radical Christians, than by ones claiming to be Muslim jihadists, and we don’t hear Republicans talking about the threat from extreme right wingers or radical Christian fundamentalists. Should all right wing groups be put under strict surveillance because of Dylann Roof? Should all Christians be treated with suspicion because of Robert Dear? As for immigration, the shooter himself was native born, and statistically, an immigrant or a child of immigrants is not more likely to commit an act of this sort than a person whose ancestors came to the US many generations ago, so it’s equally absurd to use this one case to attack all immigrants and their children. What’s more, those of us who don’t live in simplistic worlds where everything is black and white realize that a lot of factors contribute to incidents like this, some of which have nothing to do with the shooter’s background, such as the easy availability of extremely dangerous weapons to violent people of all ideologies and ethnicities. What’s more, the fact that the targets of the attack were LGBT people arguably shows that he was motivated as much by the domestic political climate as the international one.

While some found it is easy to characterize the attack as a “terrorist attack” by a “radical Islamist”, that is at best a gross oversimplification, and in fact is very misleading if other factors are left out. It is true that the shooter himself tried to present it as being a terrorist attack on behalf of ISIS, and that he was a Muslim with a fundamentalist background. So to the extent that the shooter was motivated by his ideology and a genuine desire to aid ISIS in its war against the West (against everybody, really), then it was indeed a terrorist attack by a radical Islamist. But the evidence is that he was motivated by a number of things, some of which had nothing to do with ISIS. For one thing, it seems that he may not actually have been devoutly religious and may not even have known very much about the radical group he claimed to support. I’ve read that in his 911 call, aside from claiming allegiance to ISIS, he also claimed allegiance to Hezbollah. If so, that proves that he really was pretty clueless about the realities of Middle East politics, as Hezbollah is one of ISIS’s biggest enemies. Given that he was apparently mentally unstable and had a history of violence, it’s almost as if he was just randomly attaching himself to ISIS due to its notoriety, rather than any real dedication to its cause. In any case, the evidence indicates that unlike, for instance, the Charleston shootings, or the mass shooting in Norway some years back (both of which of course were committed by white males who were right wing extremists), this shooting was not solely and maybe not even mostly motivated by a definite, though twisted, political ideology.

One important fact that has to be kept in mind about the attack is that it targeted LGBT people, even though many Republicans managed to completely ignore this element of the attack in their reactions. Since the shooter seems to have been partly or even largely motivated by a hatred of gay people, this was unquestionably an anti-LGBT hate crime, whatever else it may have been. There are some indications that the shooter himself may have been secretly gay, in which case his inability to reconcile his true orientation with the homophobic ideology he had been raised under (his Afghan father, who immigrated to the US back when the Soviets were still in Afghanistan, is apparently a pro-Taliban fundamentalist) may been a major factor behind his mental problems and indeed may have been the biggest motivation for the attack. But while his own family background was that of an Islamic fundamentalist, it seems highly plausible that the anti-LGBT rhetoric that the right (mostly on the basis of a fundamentalist interpretation of Christianity) has been spouting recently over issues such as same sex marriage and transgender rights reinforced his negative attitude toward LGBT people (and, if he really had tendencies in that direction himself, accentuated his self-hatred. While short of discovering specific evidence that he was influenced by such rhetoric it may be impossible to prove that he wouldn’t have committed the same crime if the attitude toward LGBT people outside of his own religious background had been one of universal tolerance and love, it is at least safe to say that some of the negative stuff that has been said about LGBT people by politicians and media figures on the right didn’t help. In any case, the fact that he deliberately targeted LGBT people in a climate where a significant number of prominent people have been making anti-LGBT remarks is as important to understanding the event as the fact that he made a confused claim to be acting on behalf of ISIS.

The uncertain degree to which the shooter was influenced directly or indirectly by religious fundamentalism (whether of the Islamic or Christian varieties) aside, in some ways this incident had as much in common with the mass murders in Aurora or Newton as with more obviously political shootings like those committed by people like Roof and Breivik. As noted above, those were committed by people with a clear though demented ideology. In this case, the perpetrator was considerably less coherent in his political beliefs, but seemingly suffered from mental issues, as did the shooters in Aurora and Newton. Also like those shooters he was able to easily obtain a weapon that is designed to kill large numbers in a very short period of time. The truth is, even a weapon such as a handgun is more likely to end up causing injury or death to its owner or someone close to them as it is to be actually used in defense, but it is possible to see how someone could rationalize purchasing one, or how those who get pleasure out of shooting animals from a safe distance might be able to rationalize purchase of a hunting rifle, but there is no even remotely reasonable rationalization for allowing ordinary people to buy weapons like the ones used in these shootings. Only paranoid fantasists with a very questionable grasp on reality could seriously think that they will ever need one for a Rambo-like stand against an army of attackers. Anything that can fire that many rounds in that short a period should not be available for sale to anybody, period. What’s more, people with a clear history of violence, including domestic violence (the ex-wife of the shooter in this case has said he abused her frequently, though my recollection is that she didn’t ever press charges against him), serious mental illnesses or ties to terrorist groups (and that should include the worst of the extreme right wing groups based in the US itself) should not be allowed to buy any guns at all. To prevent this, of course, every single gun sale has to involve a background check that must be passed before the gun can change hands. While neither of these steps can guarantee that shootings like the one in Orlando won’t happen again, they will certainly make them less frequent. What’s more, the second step (universal background checks) will noticeably reduce the vastly greater number of deaths resulting from domestic violence or suicide. What is certain is that toning down the anti-LGBT rhetoric and, even more, actually doing something to make it harder for dangerous people to buy dangerous weapons will go a lot farther toward making the US a safer place than handwringing about ISIS or hostile measures against Muslims or immigrants.