British Prime Minister
David Cameron’s clumsiness, calling the vote assuming it would fail, reflects
the EU elites’ broader failure.
As markets quake and quiver, I know I am supposed to fret
about Brexit, the British exit from the European Union. Just as we were told
before the vote that only demagogues and bigots wanted out, we are being told
now that the yahoos won, the haters triumphed, vanquishing the enlightened
forces of progress. True, I worry about the markets and this messy divorce’s
mechanics. I recoil from the Brexiters’ chauvinism and cynicism, their
day-before delusions and day-after distancing. Still, the Euroskeptic, the liberal
democrat and the Zionist in me all cheer the British people for defending their
national identity.
British Prime Minister David Cameron’s clumsiness, calling the vote assuming it
would fail, reflects the EU elites’ broader failure. They created an arrogant
bureaucracy contemptuous of national traditions and the masses’ common sense.
Opponents estimated that 65 percent of British regulations, nearly 50,000
rules, were EU-imposed, including idiotic bans on restaurants serving olive oil
in bowls and the “bent banana ban” on “abnormal curvature.” But underlying this
is a deeper, ongoing debate about World War II. The EU and UN believers decided
that the answer to Nazi nationalism was no nationalism. But the best answer to
bad nationalism is good, constructive, liberal nationalism.
Culture counts – and cosmopolitanism miscalculates. Just as the international
language Esperanto misfired decades ago, the EU stumbled because many people
like their cozy identities, tribal communities, national traditions. Meanwhile,
calling anyone worried about terrorism and mass immigration a bigot is as
bigoted as calling all immigrants terrorists. It takes too much education and
too many ideological blinders to ignore some of the problems that motivated the
“leave” voters.
Immigration benefits societies. Most Muslim
immigrants, like most immigrants historically, simply seek a better life.
Nevertheless, immigration can be destabilizing. Moreover, while few Muslims are
terrorists, almost all modern terrorists are Muslim – and by definition every Islamist
terrorist is Muslim. If elites tolerated honest conversations about
immigration’s blessings and curses, and about the complicated ways Islam,
Islamism and terrorism interact, the frustration that cascaded into Brexit –
and feeds Trumpism – would dissipate. Instead, the politically incorrect, who
are often correct but politically checked, feel angry, disenfranchised,
squelched – then lash out.
Candid conversations would have blurred lines
and reduced tensions rather than creating all-or-nothing worldviews reinforced
by fury. Politically correct shaming cannot obscure or solve the problems of
immigrant gangs, the assaults on national sensibilities, or the many Muslims
and Muslim preachers tolerating terrorism and enabling Islamism. With too many
native Europeans facing too many months without enough money, the economic woes
trigger larger social, cultural and political frustrations.
Just as decades ago the oppression of Soviet
Jewry helped Zionists see Soviet Communism’s flaws long before other progressives
could, Zionists today can see the EU’s flaws more clearly, and understand some
of the Brexit impulse. Zionists experience the politically correct blindness
regarding Israel that reflects a more widespread series of ideological blinders
the Brexiters detested and rejected. Zionists see the softness regarding
terrorism, the hypocrisy favoring undemocratic Palestinian terrorists over
democratic Israelis, the destructive self-hatred regarding Western values,
ideals and sensibilities.
Beyond the liberating insights that come from
supporting Israel despite being the least favored, most targeted nation, comes
Zionism’s deep, convincing yet spectacularly unfashionable reading of
universalism and particularism.
Following the Holocaust, too many EU cosmopolitans
decided that nationalism was xenophobia, religion was superstition,
particularism merely selfish.
The cosmopolitan ideal became to construct a
Republic of Everything, open, welcoming, fluid, super-pluralistic.
Unfortunately, this Republic of Everything, while bringing some benefits,
frequently becomes a Republic of Nothing, lacking anchors, grounding, values
and tradition.
By contrast, Zionism appreciates living in a
Republic of Something, a political entity reflecting common ideals and a shared
mission, bound by a sense of the past that enriches the present and inspires us
to build a better future. Zionism wants the nation to pass what I call the
Richard Stands test, taken from the line in America’s Pledge of Allegiance –
“and to the Republic for which it stands” which elementary school smart-mouths
often rendered as “Richard Stands.”
Nations should stand for something. Nationalism
can be xenophobic or constructive, uniting people to build something greater
than themselves individually. This national grandeur is best displayed in the
liberal nationalism of the United States, Israel, Canada, and yes, Great
Britain.
Similarly, religion can be rigid, fanatic and
inhumane, but it can also be aspirational, inspirational and spiritual,
stretching us to be better people and live more meaningful lives. And rather
than seeing particularism as merely egocentric, the Zionist understands
particular pride as the best way to contribute to the broader world. By
fulfilling constructive liberal democratic national values, by embracing Jewish
ideals, the Zionist contributes to humanity, not just to a limited community.
Ultimately, rather than denigrating tribalism, the Zionist seeks to make
tribalism transcendent.
The Brexit voters voted against the EU’s
Republic of Everything and Nothing. Donald Trump’s rise reflects parallel fears
that as America becomes a Republic of Everything it is collapsing into a
Republic of Nothing – ironically epitomized by Trump’s bullying buffoonery.
Trump has risen as a reaction to President Barack Obama’s EU-like obtuseness
and political correctness. Hillary Clinton will fail – as did the EU’s boosters
– if she merely parrots the media and elite contempt for these worries. The
West needs candid, constructive, courageous leaders who address problems
honestly, offer intelligent solutions reasonably, and help rebuild visions for
modern Republics of Something creatively, thereby passing that all-important
Richard Stands test.
The author, professor of history at McGill
University, is the author of The Age of Clinton: America in the 1990s,
published by St. Martin’s Press. His next book will update Arthur Hertzberg’s
The Zionist Idea. Follow on Twitter @GilTroy.
