Why is aggressive nationalism rising across the world nowadays?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

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What is The reason why There seems to be nationalism Spreading across the world nowadays And Is this a good sign or a bad sign Answer Usually the word Nationalism has a negative connotation Patriotism has a positive connotation And As far as nationalism Spreading across the world Let’s open to discussion Because what we do see is Not just nationalism Spreading but We could say even regionalism Spreading. We could say the USA is turning inwards Substantially And it is As it is turning inwards It is becoming more and more Focused on Itself going against The trend of globalization It is having insular Economic policies And because in some ways the USA is Considered to be The global superpower today That has brought This trend into Sharp focus But Britain wanting to be on its own In Brexit That is also another example Of this trend And going further we will see that There are no Shortcuts To deal with a situation like this There can be complex Sociocultural Trends which may be causing this Sociopolitical trends But beyond the specifics What we can say is that there is a Certain utopia That is being Sharply challenged What is the utopia that That we can All We can homogenize Our collective identity Within a broadly humanistic Rubric That means that we Just identify all of Everyone as simply human beings And not bother about Specific identifiers Like this country This race, this gender And things like that In India also We are seeing that Regional language circulation Newspaper circulation Increasing Regional language Televisions They are all television programs Youtube or TV channels They are also increasing So the reason for this is that We Need during our Life journey various levels of identities And we need a We need a level of identity About which we feel comfortable And secure That means that if we Wish to Move forwards Say now where do we feel safe We could say that we feel safe In our home because the home is secure We could say that we feel Safe in our locality Because that is a gated community We have security Or we could say We feel safe within our part of the city Even in big cities Say like Chicago or Detroit They are political Economic powerhouses In some ways But in some places they are overrun by Lawless elements So we might not feel safe In that locality but we feel safe In another locality Now Say Indians May feel safe in Maharashtra but We may if we go to The heartland of Bihar or UP We may not Feel that safe over there So now there is the feeling Of safety and there is the actual fact of safety I am not going to go into the difference Of that but my point is that We can feel security And safety At physically different Levels of Locational context It can be at our home It can be in our particular locality In our area In the city In our state, in our country Say an American Who goes on a tour of Africa or India May feel safer after coming back to Africa, after coming back to America That’s another level of Safety, so just as what applies To the physical level Also applies at a deeper Level At the You could say cultural level Social level, linguistic level And unless we Recognize this and we try to Homogenize, if we tell people that They should feel equally safe That We should feel equally safe In the whole country of India Now we may or we may not Say some people might feel safer in Mumbai And might not feel that safe in In North East Or say Hindus may not feel safe in a Muslim majority area Or a Christian majority area Christians may not feel safe Where Hindus So Hindus may be a What is perceived as a right wing Hindu group is in power Or whatever So we are not going to the difference between the fact and the feeling But we all need a Sense of locality And identity where we feel safe about it So to some extent Recently there has been a trend Towards globalization And while that’s an economic Trend But still there is a certain Level of resentment associated with that Because people may feel that the job which we Could get in our country Those are being taken by people From another country And we are left without any jobs So what do we do in such a situation We need to Gain security At a level that works for us And the broader Social Political ethos has to provide Security at that level While also recognizing that There are other levels at which we Have to interact So when the national identity Can lead to Confrontation and violence With other national identities Or the national identity can lead to Integration And security With people who share that same national identity Now Europe Has a history of internal wars And we see both the world wars That happened in the recent historical memory Started with Started in Europe Conflicts between Germany primarily Germany and Italy and Some other countries Japan entered in the second world war But primarily it was Within Europe And from Europe it spread across the world So when the European Union Came together And in some ways They dissolved the national boundaries Not entirely but in some ways Then that was seen as a Step towards The minimization Of The possibility of repeating that kind of Brutal violence But at the same time People within each state There may feel insecure Because of whole scale immigration Especially from the middle east There is large scale immigration happening And that immigration is causing People to feel worried That Our own culture, our own community May be overrun And we may Despite being natives over here We may become a minority over here So that means That instead of While it is our land and our state And our country We may end up feeling Like we may End up being like a pariah Being minority and threatened Here itself Now of course Europeans have done that To many other people in the world They went to America And they made the original residents of America, the native Americans Into an endangered minority They went to Australia and native Australians They went to an endangered minority Now The history seems to be turning against them And they are feeling that The Muslim immigration can make them Into a minority over there Now white Americans are feeling that way That We may be overrun and our jobs may be taken By Indians and Chinese And Mexicans And Muslims and others So whatever else So people’s concerns Have to be addressed at a level Where they feel secure Now Instead of addressing those concerns Because that requires some substantial Serious thinking, planning And Policy restructuring Sometimes Some leaders may just Peddle fear as a tool For coming to power And when that happens Then People’s very Fear of insecurity Increases their insecurity Because others are stoking their fear And because of fear They sometimes act in aggressive ways And that causes fear to others So basically When the politicians start trading in fear Then Society becomes very difficult to manage So it’s important That such peddling in fear Be checked, be curbed, be stopped And What is the way to stop this? The best way to stop it is By recognizing that The Expansion of consciousness Has to be done at a pace That is That does not take away people’s basic feeling of security So For having a place in the world We need some secure footing In the world And while having that secure footing We can also expand Our consciousness So Krishna tells Arjun that you are not the body The soul but he also says that You are Kaunteya, you are the son of Kunti So he is grounded in his Identity as Belonging to a particular race A particular dynasty And then he also urges him, he is secure And proud in that identity At the same time He is also expanding his identity that ultimately I am a soul So the government needs to Rather than Peddle in fear Trade in fear The government needs to create A security for people In their identity at their local level And then also Create That has to be spiritual Practices and spiritual principles That help people to expand their identity And a humanistic Identity ultimately doesn’t offer Anything transcendental We need a spiritual identity A humanist identity means that We are all human beings and we all Should be united as human beings That sentiment is good But that itself does not give us any higher Spiritual connection or any higher Spiritual happiness For that we definitely Need something more We need to connect With Higher realities And that’s where our spirituality Comes into the picture So the Bhagavad Gita Grounds us In A specific identity at the Functional level In the material world While also links us to our spiritual identity At a fundamental or transcendental level And when both These are harmonized Then we can have Security of our consciousness While also we can have Expansion of our consciousness towards Ultimately spirituality So what does all this mean in practical terms In practical terms Rather than Labeling such regional The trends of regionalism As bad Which is what Mainstream media does in some ways And that makes insecure people Feel even more misunderstood Ununderstood And makes them polarized further Against the mainstream media There has to be recognition of the fears At a practical level Without Doing further fear mongering There has to be Addressing other fear At the same time there has to be a gradual dissemination Of spiritual wisdom And spiritual practices by which People can also Gain a sense of security at the higher level And that Is the way By which we can To some extent counter Or curb The Insecurity and intolerance That otherwise Seems to be sweeping across the world Thank you