A new European nation?

The first popular uprising that consciously created a new nation took place in France in 1789. That great revolution not only built a new nation - it defined what a nation should be. You were French if you lived in France. You were French regardless of social status, religious belief or ethnic or racial heritage. In other words, you were French if you had decided to be French and lived within the national boundaries of France.

Other nations were created based partially on myths about the identity (and implied superiority) of a particular ethnicity. The British Empire 'defended' Brits wherever they ended up and whatever they did. Even today the German constitution 'recognises' as German - and therefore entitled to the 'protection' of the German state - all sorts of people who live in different countries but who have German ancestry. After the overthrow of apartheid in South Africa the most blatant example of an ethnically based nation state is the state of Israel.

But all the nation states mentioned above were initiated and created at least in part by huge popular upsurges - often involving wars. Historic compromises were then made between the leadership of various classes about how the new nation state should survive. These arrangements were generally made to crush the results of the revolutionary upheaval of subordinate classes who had done the bulk of the fighting and made most of the sacrifices. In Britain for example a complex set of arrangements evolved between market based landowners, merchants, the old aristocracy and the monarchy to break up the power of the common people following the English Civil War. In France a hundred year battle raged between the classes finally concluding with the destruction of the Paris Commune by pressure of Prussian troops called in for the purpose by the French ruling class. The United States was created by a revolution and then by civil war - the social advances of which were then ruthlessly suppressed.

It is not impossible under today's conditions to create 'new' nations. South Africa is a modern example. Millions of people rose to build an new nation-state based on an equal and common identity and, of course, the results of their labours are now subject to an increasingly bitter class and political struggle. And there remain the many false nation-states, the detritus of various empires - built by no-one except the convenience of imperial map drawers, the social elites they create hanging on to their vestiges of privilege in the name of shadow nations no longer propped up by any imperial power.

What is new is the carnival now going on in Brussels.

Here we see an example - the first example? - of a new nation being created by that great new force of our age - 'the markets.'

The paradox of history is that while nothing is ever new, everything always is. Like puppets on a string (it is tempting to give our european leaders particular puppet identities) they dance to the offstage crescendo of the music of the markets. They are being commanded by the rulers of the whole world to set up a European nation.  The argument for a more powerful European rescue fund? The argument for Europe's banks to take the hit in Greece? The argument for a European policy on national budgets? These all boil down to a European nation.

There is a lot of populist clap-trap abroad about all this. From the Daily Mail to (sadly) some on the left we are asked: Do we (read the British) want a new nation, like the alien ship stationed above the White House in 'Independence Day' (this one with suspiciously German markings) hovering above our own country? This question is asked as though 'the people' in Britain already ruled Britain in any meaningful sense. Does not the City of London already hover over all of our lives, ready it seems, at the first sign of a fair tax or a faint banking restriction, to zoom off to Zurich or Shanghai?

Opposition to 'the markets' european creation has to be based on more solid ground than a fit of little englanderish. (Or its equivalent across Europe.)

Let's start from the opposite angle. The problem here is not the political marionettes who have always danced to whatever tune big capital has played. The problem is that we have reached the end of the time when a country, a people, a continent, the way we all live, can or should extract the slightest benefit from, complying with 'the markets'. These 'markets' and the multi-billionaires that stand behind them, will destroy us all if we do not first curb them.

From that point of view we do need an alliance in Europe. And we do need a common policy. The policy we need is one that agrees a common minimum wage for all who labour; a common minimum tax on all who own capital; common rights for unions set at the ILO standards; common minimum standards of health-care, of pensions and of access to education. We need a fair trade and a right to access agreement with the poorer countries of our planet. The alliance we need to make will be last of all with our own politicians - however much they wave their own national flags. It will be with the youth of Europe, already mobilised; with the unions of europe, already fighting ferocious battles and with the common people of Europe. We will see how far the world's big capital, 'the markets', can afford to flee from such a policy underpinned by such an alliance. They will compromise to survive.

Fantasy? If we leave it to the frightened stooges in Brussels it will be.