Robert Henderson The longest lived empires in history, the Roman and the Ottoman, lasted approximately six hundred years; the Jews, a people long without a land and scattered to the four winds, are un-obliterated after two millennia of persecution. Moral: empires fall, but nations survive – perhaps the single most important lesson of history. Nations survive defeat, enslavement and centuries of oppressions. Empires may mutate as the Russian did from Tsarist to Soviet, but they cannot withstand successful conquest. Then they always die and stay dead. Why are nations so stubbornly durable in contrast with empires? The answer is simple: an empire is a political construct, but a nation is an expression of Man’s nature. Where empires are held together by force or conscious self-interest, nations just exist, organic constructs which evolve out of Man’s innate tendency to associate in discrete, clearly bounded groups. The enlargement of human groups Taking the evidence of history as a whole, it is reasonable to conclude that there is an inherent tendency within human society to attempt to create ever larger units of political authority. It is probably no more than the general tendency of organisms to maximise their position in Nature by colonising as much territory as possible and then sustaining the maximum population the territory will bear. The fact that Man is a social animal with a high degree of self-awareness and intelligence makes human beings unique as an organism. These qualities allow Man to extend the group in ways which no other social animal can because the self-awareness and intelligence permits a psychological enlargement as well as a material one – the advent of farming was of course necessary to allow the human population to expand and form groups larger than the band or tribe. Nonetheless the process of group expansion is complex and fraught. In a tribe of 500 it is easy to see how a sense of belonging and identity exists, because everyone will have a personal relationship of some sort with everyone else. In a group of 10,000 that is not possible in any meaningful sense. Nonetheless, in a group of 10,000 the individual can still be practically aware of the group, for example through public meetings. With a group of a million the relationship between the group members becomes intellectual rather than personal or practical. Man can create such an intellectual sense of belonging because he is self-conscious. To create very large agglomerations of people who see themselves as part of a whole requires a core of values which are accepted by generality of the population. These values may be religious, as in the case of the mediaeval church or Islam. Then the sense of belonging is supranational, indeed supracultural. But such feelings have always bowed before the demands of family, tribe, feudal lordship and nation. Hence the failure of the mediaeval church’s claim to supremacy; hence the mutual antipathy of many Muslim peoples throughout history. National identity does not consist of clone like similitude, but it does require a sense of belonging, an instinctive recognition of those included within the parameters of a national group. The components of national identity National identity is most commonly presented in terms of such banalities as “national dress” (often a mark of past servitude), food and crafts or in the more demanding but still narrow world of High Art. Both are inadequate explanations because they touch only a small portion of human existence. To find the answer to a people’s national identity one must look to their general culture which includes at its most sophisticated, science, technology, politics, education, sport, history, morals, humour, language. From the general culture comes what might be called the secondary human personality, which is developed by and is continually developing the components of culture. By secondary personality I mean a nurtured overlay on the innate personality. The range of basic human traits – aggressiveness, placidity, timidity, extraversion and so forth – are universal. But those qualities are the mere skeletons of minds. Above them stand the modifications of experience. From experience develops the secondary personality. The social context of that experience and the reflection of that experience through the secondary personality creates culture, is culture. The importance of territory The United Kingdom (UK) is a state really without parallel in the world. It has been a remarkably successful political entity despite containing four distinct native peoples, the English, Scots, Welsh and Irish. The UK has worked for Scotland, Wales and England for one simple reason, each people had a territory which they dominated. Scotland might be subject to an English dominated Parliament but a Scot could still live in a land where all about him were his fellow countrymen and women and the administration of the practical government which he encountered was in the hands of Scots. The one place where the UK did not work and does not work is Ireland, the one part of the UK where there is a division between the native population and the product of large scale settlement from the British mainland. There is a lesson from the UK experience. Territory is what people care about most. The advantages of homogeneity To live in a homogenous society is a luxury for it removes the great cause of human friction, the clash of cultures. Perhaps most importantly, it allows a people to enjoy their own culture both by having ready access to it and by being allowed to celebrate it. England probably became the prototype of the nation state because it was very homogenous for so long. It is noticeable that even with England’s example very few countries have been able to create anything approaching a true nation state. Those that have come close, such as the French or the Germans, have all shared a high degree of homogeneity. The multicultural society A multicultural society is by definition not a nation but an empire. To live in a multicultural society is to be constantly assailed by considerations which simply do not arise in the homogenous society such as naturally segregated areas and their accompanying tensions. Elites of course use the opportunity to act in an authoritarian manner but they also act from practical need. Simply to maintain order, laws and their application must be more restrictive of personal liberty. That is particularly so in the case of free expression. Before the post-1945 immigration, Britain did not have any restrictions on free speech beyond those of libel, slander, obscenity and blasphemy (which was very rarely invoked). Now we have a raft of legislation which makes it an offence to incite racial discord, the interpretation of this being ever more narrowly interpreted. These impingements on personal liberty are entirely the result of mass immigration. Citizens but not part of the nation Despite the most strenuous propaganda efforts by liberals, everyone knows in their heart-of-hearts that having the legal right to carry a passport and reside in a country does not make a person part of a nation. Adult immigrants are plainly not part of the receiving nation because they lack the cultural imprinting which being brought up in a country gives. But being born and raised in a society does not automatically make a person part of the nation in the emotional sense if they belong to a minority group which sets itself apart from the majority. The difference between legal nationality and belonging to a nation can be seen in the difference between England and Britain. Britain is a blend of legal entity, geographical proximity, historical interaction and a degree of fellow feeling deriving from (by now) shared values and experiences. But it has always been a second order focus of loyalty, more legal construct than emotional reality. The essentially legal nature of Britishness was shown rapidly after the votes on devolution occurred. Not only did the Scots and Welsh become much less likely to refer to themselves as British, the English, who had long used British as a synonym for English, soon began to refer to themselves as English rather than British. Claiming to be British suddenly seemed anachronistic. Ironically, and pathetically, the only parts of the population who continue to commonly describe themselves as British are the Northern Irish Protestants and the various ethnic minorities. The fact that the ethnic minorities in Britain almost invariably describe themselves as something other than English, Scots, Welsh or Irish is very telling. Although they use British frequently it is rarely un-hyphenated. Rather we find black-British, Asian-British or more specific constructions such as Chinese-British. Alternatively, they may use a description such as British Muslim. The native peoples of Britain have never hyphenated their Britishness. But many of the ethnic minorities in Britain are even more removed from the native population than that. They commonly describe themselves as black, Asian, Indian, Bangladeshi, Jamaican Afro-Caribbean, Nigerian, Muslim, Hindu and Sikh or any other racial, national or cultural distinction you care to name. Nor are these terms confined to common usage. The 2001 census form offered choices such as Black British, while groups supposedly representing this or that ethnic group commonly describe themselves as “black”, “Asian”, “Bangladeshi” and so on, for example, the Association of Black Police Officers. These groups are recognised by the government and not infrequently funded by them. The principle of multiculturalism has become institutionalised in Britain. The future A true nation is a precious thing as a cultural artefact. A nation which forms itself into a true state is doubly blessed because it is the most effective means of allowing men to live in security with a minimum of strife. Only a fool would throw away such a luxury. Much as liberal internationalists would like to imagine that nationality can be put on and taken off as easily as an overcoat. Rather, it is an adamantine part of being human for it is the tribe writ very large. Men need have a sense of belonging. Remove their opportunity to feel part of a “tribe” and they will be disorientated. With ever increasing frequency, individuals are granted legal status as a citizen or national of a country without being part of the nation. But the process is not even. Countries of the Third World have little immigration – and indeed generally discourage it – while the West is besieged with incomers both illegal and legal. The greater racial and cultural difference in a state the more it resembles an empire. The more it resembles an empire the greater the risk of civil war and the dissolution of the state. That is what we in Britain and the rest of the developed world ultimately face, the dissolution of our states and the loss of control of our respective homelands.

In its purest form liberal internationalism holds that a man may live anywhere he wishes and owe no particular allegiance to any people, place or society. In theory, although not in practice, it is a an imagined universe in which the individual is supreme in his atomistic and egotistical desires and the nation state no more than an administrative adjunct to his life.(In practice, the liberal internationalist says that you may behave as you wish provided your behaviour meets politically correct “absolute” values.) 

If liberal internationalism was merely the eccentric philosophy of those without power it would be no more than another utopian curiosity. As it is the present ideology of Western elites it is a positive danger. Through their control of politics and the media they have sufficiently  translated into reality this fantasy of the world as a place of undifferentiated settlement to the point where it has severely disrupted every Western society.

The engines of the disruption have been immigration on a grand scale of peoples unwilling or unable to assimilate, “globalisation” of trade and industry and an elite propaganda regime, totalitarian in its scope and intent, designed to decry native Western cultures and de-culturalise native Western populations by denying them knowledge of their past, whilst promoting the interests and cultures of the immigrant. To these ends Western elites have abused their control of the law, the media, public policy and state education. They have created a situation  whereby no one may hold a public position without at least paying lip-service to their creed.

Why is liberal internationalism is so dangerous?

The liberal internationalist view of the world is vicious because it is completely at variance with the social instincts of Man, which invariably express themselves in some form of tribal organisation, whether that be a band of fifty people roaming the plains of Africa 10,000 years ago or a modern nation of many millions. Men have an absolute need to feel part of a community with which they identify naturally and ideally wish to possess a territory which they can call their own. That is why empires invariably decay and nations are virtually indestructible, short of an act of genocide.

In short, treating a country simply as no more than a convenient place of residence is a short and certain route for social disaster. Ultimately a nation state only exists because its inhabitants both have a shared sense of identity (the nation) and a willingness to defend the interests of the  country, including in extremis fighting for the country. Destroy that and you destroy the integrity of the nation state. The ultimate consequence of no sense of place is no place.

The value of the nation state

A homogeneous society, a true nation, engenders a natural loyalty amongst its members: a society in which ethnic groups compete for space, the type of “multicultural heaven” envisaged by the liberal elite, results invariably in a first loyalty to the ethnic group.

Beyond the natural sympathy and cultural sharing which glues together a nation, the nation state is also the only social vehicle for delivering a degree of democratic control to large societies. Such democratic control in turn allows the nation to retain its integrity by such measures as  restricting immigration.

Citizenship and nationality

As a society becomes ethnically fragmented it loses its natural ballast. Citizenship becomes the only thing which liberal internationalist governments can hold to as a unifying force. But citizenship is a conscious human construct and is no substitute for the natural loyalty  engendered by the tribal loyalties of the true nation.

Citizenship and nationality are often treated as synonymous. This is an error. A man or woman may be both a citizen of a state and a member of a nation. But he or she can equally be a citizen without belonging to either the nation or nations that comprise a state and may be a member of a nation which either has no legal status within the state, for example English, or is a nation situated outside the state of which the person is a citizen, for example, an Indian immigrant to the USA or Britain.

The cartoonist Ronald Searle expressed the difference during a recent interview. Searle has lived in France since the 1960s, yet when asked whether he would take French citizenship if it was the only way of remaining in France he replied: “If they said you can only stay in France if you become French I’d say, ‘Not possible’. It’s like saying P G Wodehouse should be French. You can’t simply put on a nationality like a jacket. I remain extremely English whatever happens.” (Sunday Telegraph 28 9 03)

The nation is the totality of individuals within a given shared community, the natural sociological expression of the individual will. Citizenship is merely a legal ticket to exist and reside in a place.

Why the nation state should favour its own members

It makes moral and prudential sense for any society to both secure the loyalty of its people with guaranteed privileges which are not extended to foreigners and to reduce the opportunities for social friction. In a free society where the individual has to decide to give his or her loyalty, the utility of such privileges is much greater than it would be in a dictatorship. In a democracy it makes not merely sense for a government to secure and better the condition of its people, it is a necessity.

How loyalty is destroyed

The modern industrialised nation state that is Britain confers great privileges on those who are part of it. It provides a secure environment based on the rule of law, a decent material standard of living, healthcare and education free at the point of use and, in the form of the welfare state, a safety net for those who fall on hard times. It is, in short, a very efficient life support system which most people in the world are desperate to become part of by hook or by crook.

But these benefits have been steadily eroded over the past fifty years by mass immigration, the movement towards free trade and the growth of international treaty obligations, most notably Britain’s membership of the European Union. The effect of these changes has been to increase social discord by (1) introducing foreign and unassimilated elements into  British society, (2) exporting jobs and (3) passing effective  political control on many major issues from Westminster to bodies such as Nato and the WT0 or the EU Commission. The nation state has failed the British in these matters. Thus, we can see that the state owes more to its citizens than such things as maintaining order, defending its borders and providing welfare provision. It must provide the social structure within which they can be achieved.

If either immigration or the export of jobs – both under the control of governments – make a man redundant or force down his wages, the affected individual can scarcely be blamed for feeling that his government is not merely failing to represent his interests but is actively damaging them. What incentive does that man have to feel an absolute commitment to his own society? He will be bound by his ties of family, friendship and cultural imprinting, but what he will not feel is any sense that he is something more than a human atom within a society which has no particular interest in him at best and is actively hostile to him at worst. This will produce ever greater selfishness and unwillingness to engage in social support because instead of the welfare state providing help  for those with whom a natural affinity exist, it begins to be seen as simply a feeder of competing ethnic groups. Where, as often happens, ethnic minority groups are seen to be taking more than a proportionate share of the welfare or, in the case of adult immigrants,  receiving welfare when they have contributed nothing the resentment is greatly increased.  

More fundamentally, if an elite constantly tells the mass of people that their culture is worthless and their history shameful, whilst constantly promoting the interests of immigrant peoples and cultures, it inevitably has the effect of creating disorientation in the mass of people and weakens national cohesion.

What the Nation State owes its members

The primary duty a democratic government owes is to those it represents, that is those who vote it into power and their dependent children. If the interests of these clash with the interests of foreigners, whether resident in the country or abroad, the interests of foreigners must fall.

How is a democratic government to meet this duty? It must strive to create the circumstances in which a society is most prosperous, peaceful and secure, both physically and psychologically. I suggest these are the ideal requirements:

–    To maintain a clear distinction between natives and foreigners. That requires a strict control of immigration.

 – To protect the industry and commerce of the country sufficiently to   both provide employment and for the strategic reasons of self- sufficiency in vital goods and services.

 –    To spend taxes in ways which only benefit the country and its members directly.

   – To ensure the maintenance of democratic institutions, in particular by avoiding entanglement in international treaties which emasculate democratic control.

 –    To facilitate the promotion of a knowledge of the country’s culture and history above all other cultures and histories.

 What the individual owes the nation state

 Conversely, there are ideal requirements of the member of the nation state, viz:

 –    The individual should feel himself to be a natural member of the nation.

 –    The individual should not see himself as part of a group which owes its first loyalty to that group rather than the nation.

 –    The individual should give preference to his fellow countrymen.

 –    The individual should defend his nation against foreign abuse.

 –    The individual should be willing to sacrifice his own interests where these clash fundamentally with the interests of the nation – most dramatically he should be willing     to fight and die if the homeland is attacked.

 –    Generally, the individual should always act to protect the interest of the nation. The interest of the nation can be normally determined by simply reducing any given national choice to the analogy of a personal choice in the individual’s private life and asking what the individual would do in such circumstances.

An ideal to which to aspire 

The obligations of government and the individual described above are the ideal for the security of a nation state. Of course, no society will ever achieve such perfection, but the nearer a society approaches the ideal the more secure the society and the happier its members will be. Conversely, the further it strays from it, the closer to civil war and  fragmentation will come.