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Chaturanga

~ statecraft, strategy, society, and Σοφíα

Chaturanga

Tag Archives: European Union

Death in the Mediterranean

26 Sun Apr 2015

Posted by Jaideep A. Prabhu in Europe

≈ Comments Off on Death in the Mediterranean

Tags

Canary Islands, Ceuta, Convention on Refugees, Dublin Regulation, EU, European Union, Greece, illegal immigration, Italy, Lampedusa, Libya, Malta, Mediteranean, Melilla, Operation Mare Nostrum, Operation Triton, Schengen, Sicily, Spain, Syria, UNHCR, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, visa

The Mediterranean Sea is no stranger to maritime deaths, particularly of irregular migrants from North Africa and the Middle East who seek to enter the European Union for purposes of employment illegally. However, the number of casualties has spiked astronomically in the last four years as have the number of people trying to cross the sea. Interestingly, European newspapers have so far portrayed the stories of the tragedies at sea as the usual tale of irregular migrants seeking a better life in Europe. The overwhelming conformity to this terminology, especially in light of the events of the past four years, is suspect.

Migration to EuropeMigration to Europe from Africa across the Mare Nostrum is a complex story yet no different from many other similar situations such as across the Mexican border with the United States. In both cases, the prosperous states do not take into account the factors responsible for illegal immigration while formulating their immigration policies. Consequently, these policies are found to be ineffective to stem the human tide of the neighbouring poor. Historically, irregular migrants have tried to enter Europe through four points – the Spanish Canary Islands in the Atlantic Ocean, the Spanish territories of Ceuta and Melilla in North Africa, Malta and the Italian islands of Sicily and Lampedusa, and Greece and the Balkans.

Soon after World War II, Europe was desperately short of labour to rebuild a shattered continent. The Marshall Plan fuelled the economic miracles, usually known as the golden decade, in several countries and there was a free flow of labour from Africa and the Middle East into Europe. During this first wave of migration, the European destinations of choice had been France, Germany, the Netherlands, and Belgium. However, this situation began to change after the Energy Crisis of 1973 and European countries began to have increasingly strict restrictions on visa issuances. The 1985 Schengen Treaty, for example, made it difficult for workers from the eastern and southern Mediterranean rim countries to seek employment in its member states – France, Germany, and the Benelux countries (Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg). In response to the demand for low-skilled labour in southern Europe and the closed markets of the traditional destinations, Spain and Italy saw an increase in immigration until the early 1990s when they too introduced visa requirements for immigrants from the Maghreb.

Despite the tightening of visa controls, there has always been a demand for unskilled labour in the informal sector in Europe; this has kept the flow of migrants going. Contrary to the common perception of irregular migrants, most are fairly well-educated and from middle class families. However, their qualifications are often not recognised in Europe and migrants therefore fulfill the demand in domestic service, agriculture, fisheries, and janitorial work. This is an advantage for their employers, who find semi-skilled workers for lower salaries. Again, contrary to common perception, the majority of irregular migrants do not enter Europe via the Mediterranean. Many overstay their legal visas, others travel with false documentation, and some hide away in vehicles and containers.

The crises that erupted in the Middle East and North Africa around 2011 augmented the usual flow of people into Europe. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the number of people fleeing to Italy in 2009 was 9,573; this had rocketed to 61,000 by 2011. Similarly, Greece, which had seen about 10,000 people attempt to reach its shores in 2005 saw the number climb up to 60,000 in 2011. For whatever reason, Italy seems to be bearing the brunt of this immigration surge – in 2010, some 4,500 migrants left Libya for Italy but by 2014, that number had soared to 170,000. By contrast, the land route into Greece and the Balkans from Turkey saw about 51,000 people smuggle across in 2008, approximately the same number as in 2014. According to UNHCR estimates, some 219,000 people crossed the Mediterranean into Europe last year and 3,419 died at sea. By March this year, some 36,000 are expected to have entered Europe and the casualties already number 1,750.

Many blame Europe for the deaths. One immediate reason is that the EU scaled down maritime patrol operations in the Mediterranean which saved thousands of lives. In response to the drowning of over 300 people off the coast of Lampedusa in October 2013, Rome had launched Operation Mare Nostrum, a series of extended patrols and devotion of military assets to rescue operations. Funded at slightly over $12 million per month, it is estimated to have saved some 150,000 people in its short duration of a year. In the midst of a financial crisis itself, Italy could not afford to fund the efforts alone and asked for support from its EU partners. Additionally, the EU’s Dublin Regulation puts the cost of processing of illegal migrants entirely upon the country of first arrival, making border states of the federation more vulnerable. However, the EU refused to support Rome by arguing that Mare Nostrum had made the central Mediterranean route safer and hence encouraged even greater migration. Instead, Operation Triton was was launched, a programme that receives barely a third of the funding of Mare Nostrum and patrols only close to European waters rather than the entire Mediterranean. This, however, has not dissuaded people from attempting to cross the Mediterranean and given that most of the shipwrecks occur near Libyan waters, only increased casualties. Another reason Europe is blamed for the exacerbated irregular migration crisis is that European capitals encouraged or conducted operations in North Africa and the Levant that toppled local governments and sent the region into paroxysms of violence that has caused the dislocation.

To be fair, there are reasons beyond Europe’s control for the tragedies. Human traffickers crowd boats beyond the safety limit and deploy unseaworthy vessels to ferry irregular migrants across the Mediterranean. If the boats capsize or are wrecked, under maritime law, it is the legal obligation of anyone who sees the castaways to rescue them. Thus, traffickers shirk their responsibilities for safe passage onto European navies. Furthermore, the sheer number of boats put to sea at a time means that Italian naval vessels operating in the region have received over a dozen distress calls at a time. Underfunded and undermanned as the patrol operations are, it is simply impossible to rescue everyone. While the entire focus and blame as been on Europe, it is also a fact that African governments and media have remained silent and indifferent to the regular tragedies in the Mediterranean except to blame their northern neighbours across the sea. Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte asked that Africa must also collectively pick up its share of the responsibility; “Last time I checked Libya was in Africa, not Europe,” he said.

If Europe is to blame, however, it is not for the quotidian failures of its naval officers but for its refusal to acknowledge the realities of the problem it faces. Like the proverbial ostrich that buries its head in the sand, European governments have not cared to distinguish between the the regular inflow of illegal labour across their southern sea and the significant increase of migration in the last four years. European media and government still refer to the rescued and the victims as migrants rather than refugees, as if the primary motive of the Syrians and Libyans flooding into Europe now is gainful employment and remittance back home rather than physical safety. Yet the word ‘refugee’ is rarely seen in the discussion of the deaths in the Mediterranean.

The probable reason for this is that there are legal implications in the choice between these two words. Rooted in the horrors of the Holocaust and the denial of immigration to ships carrying Jewish refugees, the 1951 United Nations Convention on Refugees and its 1967 Protocol governs how the dislocated may be treated. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights also guarantees a right to seek asylum from political crimes. Activists have tried to expand this to include economic deprivation but that would be so broad as to render the convention meaningless. It has become a basic principle of international law that countries are obligated to take in refugees of political violence and conflict and the treaty prohibits refoulement – forcing a refugee to return to a country where his life is threatened. The onus of proof of persecution is upon the refugee and asylum may be denied under specific circumstances. However, it is difficult to argue that Syrians and Libyans in particular do not have legitimate grounds for asylum presently.

Attaining the ‘refugee’ tag hardly guarantees a life of comfort – usually, it is followed by life in massive government camps awaiting resettlement. Some refugees are indeed given the opportunity to stay and work in their host country but this is a minuscule number. For example, of the 2.5 million refugees of the Syrian civil war in 2013, the United States accepted 36 for resettlement. Nevertheless, even such a life of rations and make-shift homes is preferable to the hundreds of thousands fleeing the Levant and North Africa. Of course, many try to escape the camp and disappear into the country, finding employment and lodging below the state’s net. This leaves them vulnerable to exploitation but few of the dislocated have anything left to lose and the even the leaking boats on the Mediterranean offer more hope than life back at home.

European law does give special consideration to certain categories of refugees – minors, the elderly, the disabled, pregnant women, single parents accompanied by minors, and victims of torture and sexual violence. Beyond non-refoulement, these include the right to information in a language they understand, a renewable residence permit valid for at least three years, travel within and outside the country that granted refugee status, employment, education and vocational training, access to medical care, access to appropriate accommodation, and access to programmes facilitating integration into the host society. An irregular migrant, on the other hand, receives no such benefits; he may be deported and employment is forbidden.

It is ironic that the continent that led the charge on the Right to Protect (R2P) now even refuses to acknowledge refugees. The humanitarian rhetoric of R2P is reserved for justifying the bombardment of other states but does not seem to apply to one’s own immigration policies. One can take this blame game even further back in history to the era of imperialism and blame the white man’s rapacity in the colonies but that does hardly any good at present. The humanitarian crisis in genuine and Europe needs all the international support it can get to alleviate the depressing and gut-wrenching plight of the refugees from the conflict zones in the Levant and Africa.

It must also be recognised that Europe does have legitimate grievances about its inability to handle the entire influx of refugees from the Greater Middle East. One possible approach to the Mediterranean crisis is an international commitment to resettle the refugees. Preference might be given to stable neighbours first, the countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development next, and finally the rest of the world. Those unwilling to take people may contribute by way of financial assistance. Even if some of the refugees are dispatched through this programme, it will reduce the burden on the camps in Turkey, Jordan, and elsewhere. It is unlikely that the conflict in Libya or Syria/Iraq will be resolved soon by diplomacy or by force and though efforts should be made towards that end, the future of the dislocated cannot be pinned on such hopes in the short term.

International affairs is filled with rhetoric about our mutual obligations to one another. One such duty might perhaps be not to let the refugee protection system collapse for those are the neediest among us. Let too many institutions and ideals wither away on economic and “practical” grounds and eventually there will be nothing left to preserve in an anomic world. The first step, however, is for Europe to accept that the thousands of people risking life to cross the Mediterranean Sea are refugees and not irregular migrants.


This post appeared on Daily News & Analysis on April 28, 2015.

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Israel’s Day At The Ballot Box

18 Wed Mar 2015

Posted by Jaideep A. Prabhu in Israel, Middle East

≈ Comments Off on Israel’s Day At The Ballot Box

Tags

Barack Obama, Binyamin Netanyahu, European Union, Gaza, HaBayit HaYehudi, Iran, Isaac Herzog, Israel, John Boehner, John Kerry, Knesset, Kulanu, Likud, Meretz, Mitch McConnell, Moshe Kahlon, nuclear, Palestine, Reuven Rivlin, Samantha Power, Saudi Arabia, settlements, Susan Rice, United List, United States, UTJ, West Bank, Yahadut HaTora HaMeuhedet, Yesh Atid, Yisrael Beiteinu, Zionist Union

March 17 is an important day for many reasons, but it is known primarily for being the death anniversary of Patrick, one of the patron saints of Ireland. On this day in 180, Marcus Aurelius died, very unwisely, leaving the Empire to Commodus; in 1861, the Kingdom of Italy was proclaimed, perhaps equally unwisely; and in 2015, Israel went to the polls and elected Binyamin Netanyahu…how wisely, is yet to be seen. These elections have evinced interest from important capitals in the West and the region, for Israel’s policies could influence a very volatile region at a crucial juncture.

Netanyahu’s reelection is a big blow to the Democrats in the United States. The difficult relationship between President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu is no secret; Jerusalem and Washington have differences on the Palestinian question but Iran has made the relationship even more acrimonious. While the White House has sought to engage diplomatically with Tehran and come to a negotiated settlement, the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office has insisted on a harsher interpretation of the Non-Proliferation Treaty and Iran’s obligations under it as a signatory. In September 2012, Netanyahu made a speech in the United Nations that urged the United States to draw clear red lines on Iranian nuclear development beyond which to consider a military solution to the issue. Israel has stuck to this stance despite several public statements from Israel’s own former intelligence chiefs that downplayed the Iranian nuclear threat to Israel.

In January of this year, the Netanyahu-Obama relationship became even more acrid when the Israeli prime minister accepted an invitation from John Boehner, the leader of the US House of Representatives, and Mitch McConnell, the Senate Majority Leader, to address a joint session of the US Congress. The Republicans, who were critical of Obama’s nuclear negotiations with Tehran, were incensed at the US president’s threat to veto any bill that proposed passing new sanctions on Iran and broke diplomatic protocol by inviting a foreign head of state to Congress without the knowledge of the White House. This saga unfolded in the wake of ugly allegations that the US State Department had funded a tax-exempt organisation to undermine Netanyahu’s bid for reelection. In February 2015, senior US officials, including Secretary of State John Kerry, National Security Advisor Susan Rice, and US Ambassador to the UN Samantha Power, publically criticised Netanyahu and some even took to the social media platform Twitter to attack him.

Israeli elections 2015It is important to understand this background for it informs the outcome of the Israeli election. The most important issue that concerns Israel today, according to Netanyahu, is the nuclearisation of Iran. On this, he has shown willingness to damage Israel’s relations with its closest ally and even weaken the bipartisan support it has enjoyed in the US Congress. This brinkmanship and fearmongering on the international scene finds strong support domestically. Netanyahu’s victory confirms that many ordinary Israelis agree with his assessment even over the opinion of their military and intelligence chiefs. While opinion poll after opinion poll tells us that Israelis are concerned about the social issues such as the cost of living, housing, and employment, Netanyahu’s Likud surged ahead of Isaac Herzog and his Zionist Union upon promises that Netanyahu would never accept a Palestinian state and continue to expand settlements in the disputed territories. Moshe Kahlon and his Kulanu, who had actually run on an economic platform, managed only fifth place with 10 seats, behind the Likud, Zionist Union, (Arab) United List, and Yesh Atid. Similar behaviour was observed even in 2013, and with 72 per cent voter turnout in these elections, ideology and identity seem to mean far more to Israelis than socioeconomic well-being – not a surprising conclusion but one that militates against the logic of the rational actor. Perhaps because for Israelis, ideology and identity is synonymous with security – a higher order need than bread alone.

Netanyahu was also helped by the fact that many of those who voted for him did so only because they could not see any viable alternative. To the middle class, he has been a disappointment though most admit that he is their man on security. What might put a spanner in the works is President Reuven Rivlin had earlier indicated that he would seek a national unity government. Given the political landscape, it would be very difficult for Herzog to produce a winning combination: he would have to seduce the Yahadut HaTora HaMeuhedet away from the Likud with concessions to synagogues, unite Meretz, the United List, and Yesh Atid behind him, and hope that Kahlon does not return to his Likud roots. Instead, the size of Likud’s victory might just persuade Rivlin to invite the leader of the largest party to form the governing coalition rather than maintain his earlier desire.

Netanyahu has used two issues to rally his base – the fear of a nuclear Iran and the undesirability of Palestinian statehood. His victory now puts Israel on a collision course with both the European Union and the United States, the former over Palestine and settlements and the latter over Iran. Unfortunately, the Israeli prime minister has no solutions of his own to offer either. On Palestine, Israel has two choices – accept their statehood or incorporate them into a larger, multicultural, non-Jewish Israel. The only other option is to use military force to initiate a mass exodus of the people of Gaza and the West Bank, a thoroughly unpalatable course of action with dire consequences for Jerusalem.

To become prime minister, however, one needs 61 of the 120 seats in the Knesset and the Likud’s 30 means there will be a coalition yet again. A coalition of the religious parties and Likud alone will not suffice to give Netanyahu the majority he needs and so he will have to reach out to the centrists at least. All centrist and leftist parties support Palestinian statehood though each have their own caveats. Nonetheless, this means that there will be support for Palestinian statehood within the ruling coalition and that could restrict the prime minister’s hand during his term.

From Iran, Netanyahu expects total supplication. No country could accept such terms short of total conquest, especially not the proud Persians. To be fair, Israel’s concerns are not unfathomable, especially to Indians. Jerusalem fears the nuclear veto Tehran will possess on Israel’s range of options if Iran ever crosses the nuclear Rubicon, much the same way Pakistan holds India hostage today. Unfortunately for Israel, its options are constricted for war with Iran without the backing of the United States – even with the backing of the United States – will be a thoroughly taxing affair and not be limited to the deserts of the Middle East but spread to all Jewish assets across the globe. Furthermore, Israel’s greatest patron, Uncle Sam, is exhausted after over a decade of military operations in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and Syria. Even worse for Israel, sanctions alone have proven ineffective against Iran for several reasons.

Politics makes for strange bedfellows, and interestingly, Israel is not alone in its fear – paranoia? – about the possibility of an Iranian nuclear arsenal. Netanyahu has the silent backing of at least Saudi Arabia and the majority of the Persian Gulf states such as Bahrain, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates. For reasons of political optics, it is a safe bet that this will not materialise into public support of Israel by the Arab monarchies and Israel will be remain isolated.

It would be an interesting exercise to study where the Likud got its votes. Compared to the results of the 2013 elections, it appears that the largest share of Likud’s votes came from other right-wing parties: while Likud jumped from 19 to 30, HaBayit HaYehudi and Yisrael Beiteinu fell from 12 and 11 to 8 and 6. On the whole, the right-wing parties have gained only one seat, from 43 to 44. It would, therefore, be inaccurate to consider this a landslide victory for the Right.

For India, the Israeli elections mean nothing. Delhi’s relations with Jerusalem are not so close that the finer differences between Israel’s political actors matter much to Raisina Hill. India plays the role of the deaf-mute in the Middle East for lack of capability (and willingness?) and has little influence on any side of any conflict. India would like to boost trade with Iran but Delhi has so far followed the American line and reduced its oil imports from the Middle Eastern state. Similarly, Israel is hardly likely to strike an alliance with Pakistan’s non-state friends – terrorists – nor is it likely to develop a strategic relationship with either Pakistan or China in the near future. Any government in Israel will be willing to develop its military and civilian relationship with India.

In sum, Netanyahu has come to power by playing on two major concerns, it appears, of the Israeli people and yet he has no solution to either. In fact, his preferences would put Israel squarely at war or at loggerheads with its close allies. At this moment, it is difficult to see how this will actualise into a successful prime ministership. One possibility is that Netanyahu will hope for a Republican victory in the next US presidential election; he will bide his time until January 2017 when Obama finally leaves office and hope to repair some of the damage done these past few years. Europe will be a tougher but less valuable nut to crack. For now, a sombre mood hangs over the Tehran, Washington, and a few pockets of Israel.


This post first appeared on Swarajya on March 19, 2015.

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An Old W(h)ine In A New Bottle

04 Thu Dec 2014

Posted by Jaideep A. Prabhu in India, Opinion and Response, South Asia

≈ Comments Off on An Old W(h)ine In A New Bottle

Tags

Alasdair MacIntyre, Bharatiya Janata Party, BJP, Caliphate, civilisational state, European Union, India, Islam, nation-state, nationalism, Turkey

There has always seemed to be some resentment among the non-Anglicised nationalists of India at the usage of Western terminology to describe India and her history. Western vocabulary is particular to the European historical experience, the argument ran, and the untranslatability of many core concepts of Indian culture means that India deserves her own frame of reference and cannot merely be a European Other. One can sympathise with this argument, but unfortunately, little has been done – at least in English – to further substantiate it with data and reasoning.

One term that has become louder as the political fortunes of the allegedly Right Bharatiya Janata Party have swelled is “civilisational state.” There does not appear to be much theoretical analysis of what this term means except that it is advanced as an alternative to the Western idea of the nation-state. The recent political upheavals around the globe are held as examples of the failure of the nation-state and – as in the case of the wannabe Caliphate – a call for civilisational ties over narrower, national ones. Furthermore, it is posited that the nation-state paradigm, at least as imagined by Benedict Anderson, Hugh Trevor-Roper, Ernest Gellner, Eric Hobsbawm, or Anthony Smith, does not quite hold with India. Finally, the post-modernist trope of the novelty of the nation-state is dragged out – a concept so new and invented can surely not be suited to capture an old civilisation like India?

Unfortunately, many theories emanating from the Right can do with a little subjection to the fires of scholarly debate, particularly from different perspectives. The notion of a civilisational state, for example, is not only terribly flawed but it is also not original. The strength of the idea lies in its ambiguity more than in its merit and like the other intangible it is supposed to replace – nation – its supporters rally behind it for they can imbue the label with whatever they want it to mean.

First, the definitional problems of “civilisational state” – when Indian nationalists on the Right of the political spectrum use that term, it is a safe assumption that they imply a state based on Indic culture, or more accurately, dharma. Contrary to popular belief, dharma is not religion; it is a wider set of social practices and customs that have governed life in South and Southeast Asia. While dharma may not satisfy a legalistic standard of definition, that is so by design. However, a state is a legalistic entity – how is one to marry an amorphous ‘civilisation’ with a legalistic ‘state’? More crucially, does this mean that India should have territorial ambitions over other states in South and Southeast Asia who are also a part of the same dharmic culture? Is an open-border union like the European Union envisaged by this civilisational Indian state? And if not, what is the basis of the Indian state that is merely one stump of this common dharmic culture?

Second, the idea is certainly not new or unique to India. Civilisational states have had very little success historically. The Greeks, for example, who saw themselves as a civilisation and everyone else as barbarians, were a fragmented and fractious lot that spent more time warring against each other than against common enemies; despite Islam’s protestations about an ummah, the fact is that they have never been a united civilisational state. Just like the Greeks, Muslims fought against each other as often as they fought infidel “outsiders.” Christianity also tried its hand at a united civilisational state and even fought an ill-conceived war in the Middle East in the name of their faith. However, it too left little to show for all the effort. More recently, the Ottoman sultans tried to bind his subjects to a common non-Turkic identity but that was also not meant to be.

The one possible exception to this rapidly familiar trend of failed civilisational states is the Roman Empire. However, this too is an imperfect example and there are too many difference between India and Rome to get into here. Rome certainly followed the Greek example of self-barbarian recognition, but what united Romans more than a single, even heterogenous, culture was law and the force of arms. The civic culture of Rome was very different from India’s dharmic past though both do qualify as civilisational in a sense.

Third, what does civilisational state actually mean for quotidian life? What are its policies, what are its values, what are its citizens – or is it subjects – meant to do to follow its guidance? Unless this is clear, there is little value in discussing alternatives to the West or to the nation-state; one cannot merely be against something but has to be for something too. It is in the concretisation of this idea of civilisational state, one suspects, that the difficulties will arise. For example, Alasdair MacIntyre is one of the foremost scholars of Aristotelian politics and virtue ethics, which he advocates as a healthier mode of being than the modern liberal state. However, the most intractable problem for MacIntyre is that modern society does not reflect ancient Athens. We do not live in city states where the voting population is not more than 100,000 men. Scalability becomes a problem for even what is in many ways an intriguing suggestion. Similarly, even if the political order of ancient India was an exquisite balance of duties, responsibilities, and rights, even if law & order was rarely threatened, that system worked in a different time and may not apply to India today.

Fourth, Samuel Huntington’s Clash of Civilisations seems to have had its misprint in the minds of civilisational state theorists. Yet what they hold as examples of civilisational reordering is wishful thinking in the minds of a minuscule minority. The Caliphate, for example, has its enemies among Muslims as well as among infidels; furthermore, many of the groups who have sided with the terrorists have done so for selfish material reasons rather than any spiritual or historical-civilisational awakening. The case of Turkey being refused membership in the European Union is similarly misunderstood – though there is no doubt that some in Europe see a religious chasm separating them from Ankara, many raise legitimate concerns about the vast difference between Turkey and Western Europe in terms of social, political, and economic freedoms. Interestingly, despite the accusation that religion factors into decision-making in the EU or in the lives of Europeans, church attendance has been seeing a steady decline over the past fifty years. And not to point out the obvious, but despite the formation of a customs and currency union, European states are still having trouble letting go of their individual national identities. Civilisational statehood, it seems, is a potent political and social force only in the minds of its advocates.

Church attendance Church attendance - Catholics

If the advocates of civilisational statism intend to argue for the establishment of India as a Hindu country, they should do so without subterfuge or masking their motives in obfuscation. After all, there is nothing sacrosanct about the Indian state as it is now and it is indeed true that Western theories of nationalism based on language, religion, and ethnicity fail to adequately describe India. Perhaps those ideas of the nation are inadequate because India is a meta-nation. No matter, these are ideas to be discussed openly and fiercely. But for now, “civilisational state” does not seem to hold water.


This post appeared on FirstPost on December 08, 2014.

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