Danish far-right party calling for Muslim deportation to stand in election

As an astronaut from the ESA said after first setting foot on the International Space Station and looking down from an observation window, "you cannot see international borders from space."

The guy should try looking at Australia.
 
no kind of state can exist without some cultural common denominator, not just a national state, so what are we actually saying here?

it's not a truism, it's just an actual statement. states have existed without a cultural common denominator, just not for the very long. states always need to justify themselves, people don't take them as given. (because, as you said, they are not part of a "natural order")

Many states border are defined not by common culture. Some are decided by a colonial power while there are even other that defined by the colonial sphere of influence. The common culture is not a necessary factor.

it is not for the foundation of a state (which, as you said, can come about in weird ways. like when Europe decided to split up the Ottoman Empire or Africa). it is a requirement for the continued existance of a state.

can culture is only a (dynamic not static) reality that exist within its border in which what the nation-states are all about?

I don't understand the question, can you rephrase it? Anyway, my thoughts on cultural essentialism.

1) All culture is is the manifestation of all thoughts and actions undertaken by human beings, which doesn't sound much, but is actually the totality of everything that is not nature.

2) there are no distinct cultures. they're representations that we created in order to propel homogenity and make it easier to point fingers. but there is also the reality that there are communities that do have shared values and systems of belief, how we want to classify those is infinitely difficult, because the topic is infinitely nuanced.
 
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communes, Spanish civil war, grassroots movements, the greek Polis, and millions of other institutions (sports clubs, voluntary work..) that work on a semi-democratic basis would like to disagree.

The greek polis was the nation for its citizens. The spanish civil war (the last one, I mean) was worsened by the fact that the country suffered from internal divisions along old national lines, the Bourbons not having finished the job. Grassroot movements' members self-select to be a priori in agreement on the important issues the movement is invested on, they only vote on strategy. So are clubs, etc.

The nation, or rather the polity but stable polities mean nations, is where democracy as a way of peacefully resolving differences over important political issues has been a thing. You can feel a lot about your club or association, but it does not have power of life and death, ruin and success over you. The polity you live in does. That's serious stuff. It is not a vote, it is a political system: democracy. And what I meant is that it simply does not work on a level above the nation. It always fails on empires because votes eventually fracture across "national lines" and lead to political deadlocks that have to be broken by some other means: secessions or overthrowing democracy and replacing it with something else.

While democracy can also fail inside a nation, it happens less and usually the bad consequences of that are milder.

I'm curious what role you imagine the European far-right playing in this process of reinvigorating democracy.

Which european far-right? The one that created the EU, or the one that is (among other groups) trying to destroy it?
 
Which european far-right? The one that created the EU, or the one that is (among other groups) trying to destroy it?

I'm referring to among others AfD, the gang around Farage and other hard-right Brexiteers in the UK, Lega Nord, Fidesz, Freiheitliche Partei....
 
Most are peculiar to the situation of each country. Brexit parties are a one-issue-thing, and brexit has not yet gone away as the issue because the british establishment refuses to do the one thing that can end it. The AfD is another group born of the EU and would melt away without it. They can turn out to have influence because their countries are big enough to force changes (or even and end) on the EU superstructure, but they lack staying power.

The "eastern"/central european right are nationalists who merely occupied the void left by the old "system-approved right" that had moved to the center in social issues but not in economic ones. While the EU bureaucracy would rather have a right-wing with a "liberal" veneer, it's quite capable of accommodating the eastern european variants. They have staying power but little influence within european politics.

Lega Nord is the one group that can have both staying power and a capability to "break" things. Because its country is important enough, but also because its position is fundamentally at odds with the current arrangements within the EU.

The other european far-right I was asking you about is the economic far-right that has been fully in control of the EU and is called the "centre". The respectable ones...
 
The other european far-right I was asking you about is the economic far-right that has been fully in control of the EU and is called the "centre". The respectable ones...

Yes, unfortunately they are marching steadily towards fascism themselves.
 
Whenever someone appeals to nationalism as natural, I think of the cultural problems evident in Denmark, one of the nations usually appealed to as an ethnically homogenous nation. I'm not just talking Slesvig-Holstein, the historical problem with Norway, the Faroes & Greenland and even the Swedish cultural purge of Scanian Danish language and identity. I'm talking about the fact that modern West Jutes are incomprehensible to capital Danes, Danes that sometimes otherwise speak language mutually intellegible with Swedish. Nationalism was very much artificially enforced through 19th century nationbuilding at the benefit of the capital and at the cost of regional variety. Like purging regional dialects which is still happening today. West Jutes speak a grammatical article similar to the English "the" and the pronounciation is completely different. My ex grew up in Jutland, currently lives there and can't even understand her West Jute grandfather. The values are also heavily split from the more cosmopolitan parts of Denmark, which is naturally to be expected from provinciality, but people still identify as Danish through 200 years of communal nationbuilding and as such a presupposed shared ethnicity. The literature to back all of this up is extensive and well-founded, and present far beyond the antinationalist academic community.

However, I don't see it as fully artificial, in the sense that it's not wholely problematic or based on arbitration. Whether real or not, ethnicity is commonly assumed by humans to exist and is a reasonable base to base an identity of cohesion upon. Is ethnicity to be considered arbitrary if unreal, I don't know, but people definitely identify it as a thing, and as such it's not nonsensical to work with. And some reasonable amount of cohesion is necessary for a stable state. Nationalism does however also necessiate an Other which causes violence and suffering. We have seen happening in Europe over and over again until the humble beginnings of the EU disabling France and Germany from warring with each other. I understand the (basically Marxist) tendency to point out the arbitrariness and historical artificiality of nationalism because that was basically my gig ten years ago. But I don't personally want to do away with borders just yet, so I don't mind identifying as part of a nation. It's just supposed to be done in such a way that you minimize the problems with it.

Modern Danish social democrats (lower case, not the party) usually appeal to a common sense of Danishness when conducting policy. But they base it upon "Danish values" of openness and compassion to foreigners and other groups of assumed difference. A nationalism of tolerance and socialism, so to speak.
 
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it is not for the foundation of a state

yes I agree

it is a requirement for the continued existance of a state.

I cannot imagine Indonesia will fall into jeopardy because of its lack of common culture, which we don't have even until now.

Nope I don't think common culture is required for the continuation of the state. The only thing that we required to maintain a nation-state is a common national language, in Indonesia the Indonesian language was created in 1928 by Independent activist and tink tank (most of them student), this language then legalized and teach all over Indonesia as a national language. This language is 20th century creation btw.

I don't understand the question, can you rephrase it? Anyway, my thoughts on cultural essentialism.


I mean culture is a dynamic reality that exist within the nation-state border. It is an ever changing variable that interacts with many factor (sociocultural, economy, technology etc). Hence the conservative who prefer to maintain the status-quo or keeping the static stability, you will find them most likely against multi-culturalism, new technology, economy revolution, etc under a belief to protect the changing/distortion of something (their common culture, their this their that).

For instance the worries of how the migrant's culture threaten the homogeneity of the common culture, it is comparable with North Korea's media censorship that "protects" their common culture from Western's influence. Yes extreme comparison but it is comparable.

1) All culture is is the manifestation of all thoughts and actions undertaken by human beings, which doesn't sound much, but is actually the totality of everything that is not nature.

Agree

2) there are no distinct cultures. they're representations that we created in order to propel homogenity and make it easier to point fingers. but there is also the reality that there are communities that do have shared values and systems of belief, how we want to classify those is infinitely difficult, because the topic is infinitely nuanced.

I understand, in order to perceived "the other", we must distinct and classify the other from self.

Is that what you mean?

Edit: Ok it seems I get it, culture is not distinct, but we create the distinction and the diversity in order to avoid homogeneity so we can point finger (the other).
 
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How about convergence in diversity at the level of the people... and governments tidying up where differences left are more of a formal nature.
Not a top-down front-loading by governments, but a pragmatical back-loading tidy up by national rule- and lawmakers, and a base level when appropiate by the EU or at recommendation level by supranational insitutions like UN bodies. (Climate Paris, etc)
Sorry, I just don't understand what you're saying here.

an empire? a non state? how about the Ottoman Empire? they are pretty much maintain the cultural and religious diversity within the Empire, actually what fractured them were not their diversity but it was European Industrialization and the raise of the Turkish nationalism which pretty much shared your culture homogeneity sentiment. The Armenian once called "the trustee of the nation" until the raise of the nation-state awareness (the development of the Empire to a Turkic Nation) that resulted the attrocius genocide.
Not really sure the Ottoman Empire is a good counter-example, as it's actually one of the best illustration of what I was thinking : it was strongly multicultural, and could enforce internal peace as long as it had a strong military and was a young, vigorous regime expanding onward.
But once it stopped its expansion and its strength waned, it fractured, and it was plagued for its entire life by secessionnist movements based on cultural identiy. Balkan people didn't wait for the rise of nationalism to be a hotbed of rebellions.
While the example for a nation-state with diverse culture and language? Indonesia. It is formed not because of a common culture, however the border is defined by Dutch sphere of influence in the South East Asia, hence its pretty much unified the variety of Kingdom that possessed different languages, culture and racial diversity, it consist of 700 languages and 300 different ethnic groups, and running pretty much fine since 1945.
There is actually some degree of inter-ethnic violence in Indonesia, which led to tens of thousands people being displaced.
Regardless, I was speaking about comparing the number of nation-states vs the number of multi-national states, because examples are just examples while I'm speaking of general trends.
You seems to try to be realistic and anti-utopia, but somehow it cross to be a total pragmatic, even how you took the concept of force assimilation so lightly makes you appear to be Machiavellian.
I don't really get the problem here. I'm not advocating for anything in this thread, I'm just making constatations, and constatations don't require emotional endorsements :shrug:
 
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Not really sure the Ottoman Empire is a good counter-example, as it's actually one of the best illustration of what I was thinking : it was strongly multicultural, and could enforce internal peace as long as it had a strong military and was a young, vigorous regime expanding onward.
But once it stopped its expansion and its strength waned, it fractured, and it was plagued for its entire life by secessionnist movements based on cultural identiy. Balkan people didn't wait for the rise of nationalism to be a hotbed of rebellions.

Akka, the Ottoman pretty much went down in the 16th century. The reign of Selim III 1574 until his death in 1595 is where the corruption start in many level, the Sultan becomes increasingly weak, administration was corrupted in general especially the Janissary who became less militarily effective and growth to be a corrupted government inside the government, this was the time where the Sultan (Selim III) don't dare to went out for Friday prayer the rest of his life out of fear of Janissary assassination.

Add all of that with discovery of the new world, and Europe huge industrialization for a way to topple the inflation, they pretty much emptied the Ottoman raw material pool and mess up the production's price and pretty much the Ottoman economy in general, this later on lead the government to enforce a restriction of selling raw product material in which turned to be a boomerang that increased the rise of black-market activity and the rise of the new conglomerate, I can go on and on and even with that the Ottoman is not collapse yet until another hundreds year, which is very very long.

There is actually some degree of inter-ethnic violence in Indonesia, which led to tens of thousands people being displaced.
Regardless, I was speaking about comparing the number of nation-states vs the number of multi-national states, because examples are just examples while I'm speaking of general trends.

Nope this is more social class related than ethnicity or agitated by false flag then exacerbated.

I don't really get the problem here. I'm not advocating for anything in this thread, I'm just making constatations, and constatations don't require emotional endorsements :shrug:

Yes you are right
 
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I'm talking about the fact that modern West Jutes are incomprehensible to capital Danes, Danes that sometimes otherwise speak language mutually intellegible with Swedish. Nationalism was very much artificially enforced through 19th century nationbuilding at the benefit of the capital and at the cost of regional variety. Like purging regional dialects which is still happening today. West Jutes speak a grammatical article similar to the English "the" and the pronounciation is completely different. My ex grew up in Jutland, currently lives there and can't even understand her West Jute grandfather. The values are also heavily split from the more cosmopolitan parts of Denmark, which is naturally to be expected from provinciality, but people still identify as Danish through 200 years of communal nationbuilding and as such a presupposed shared ethnicity. The literature to back all of this up is extensive and well-founded, and present far beyond the antinationalist academic community.

If you look closely, you will find examples of this all over Europe. I couldn't understand my grandfather either when he talked to his mother in their native dialect. Language differed from valley to valley, from village to village, often forming a wide-ranging continuum. A nation is the result of putting more or less artificial lines on the ground and purging regional variations by standardizing the language until the population is at least mutually intelligible. If successful, the myth of a nation becomes self-reinforcing to the point where it begins to resemble reality. If done incorrectly, the attempt at nation building will increase separatism, because people recognize and reject the myth.
 
Aye.

I should add, btw, that Norwegian is even worse. And look at their economy.
 
Yes, unfortunately they are marching steadily towards fascism themselves.
the far-right is becoming increasingly hostile and militant. theyre merging left wing economics with right wing social and nationalistic policy. unfortunately this seems to be what the white working class wants and as of now they are still the majority (albeit not by much).

hh
 
the far-right is becoming increasingly hostile and militant. theyre merging left wing economics with right wing social and nationalistic policy. unfortunately this seems to be what the white working class wants and as of now they are still the majority (albeit not by much).

hh

Indeed, and it's not just European far-right, nationalistic groups trying this, either. Remember, Hamas and the Party of Justice and Peace (both political wings of the Muslim Brotherhood in the Palestinian National Authority and Egypt, respectively) campaigned heavily on social services and other left-wing economic agendas, and may have (no clear statistics available, but trends lead this way) won more votes in the 2006 Palestine Election and 2012 Egyptian Elections based on their economic and social support planks than any hard Sharia or anti-Israel rhetoric they may have uttered.
 
Indeed, and it's not just European far-right, nationalistic groups trying this, either. Remember, Hamas and the Party of Justice and Peace (both political wings of the Muslim Brotherhood in the Palestinian National Authority and Egypt, respectively) campaigned heavily on social services and other left-wing economic agendas, and may have (no clear statistics available, but trends lead this way) won more votes in the 2006 Palestine Election and 2012 Egyptian Elections based on their economic and social support planks than any hard Sharia or anti-Israel rhetoric they may have uttered.
what does this thread have to do with israel and palentine again? its specifically discussion the danish far-right party and more broadly far-right european politics. i mean, we do have an israel/palestine quarantine thread for a reason.

hh
 
what does this thread have to do with israel and palentine again? its specifically discussion the danish far-right party and more broadly far-right european politics. i mean, we do have an israel/palestine quarantine thread for a reason.

hh

You expand the scope and context all the time if serves your narrative. It's VERY disingenuous to sharply clamp down on me for the same. Also, the world is not a bunch of closed systems that occasionally forcibly interact with each other, causing shock and trauma. The world is an interconnected web where ideas, events, issues, problems, and other socio-political endeavours bleed into each other and influence each other much more freely than you might imagine. The interchange is far more profound than any hard nationalist or isolationist would like to concede. Even North Korea, the most sealed off country in the world, is failing to keep the rest of global influence out. Artificially saying that similar phenomena to what's being discussed - just because it's in another part of the world and a different specific context - but where the similarity of application is there to enough of a degree that a wider issue may be present - as being off-limits to discussion is counter-productive, at best.
 
You expand the scope and context all the time if serves your narrative. It's VERY disingenuous to sharply clamp down on me for the same.
youre free to do as you choose. im simply doing my best to obey the rules of this form and respect the explicit requests of moderators here.

Also, the world is not a bunch of closed systems that occasionally forcibly interact with each other, causing shock and trauma. The world is an interconnected web where ideas, events, issues, problems, and other socio-political endeavours bleed into each other and influence each other much more freely than you might imagine. The interchange is far more profound than any hard nationalist or isolationist would like to concede. Even North Korea, the most sealed off country in the world, is failing to keep the rest of global influence out. Artificially saying that similar phenomena to what's being discussed - just because it's in another part of the world and a different specific context - but where the similarity of application is there to enough of a degree that a wider issue may be present - as being off-limits to discussion is counter-productive, at best.
you can use flowery words all you want but comparing israel-palestinian politics to danish-european politics is apples to oranges and deserving of separate threads if you wish to discuss either seriously.

hh
 
the far-right is becoming increasingly hostile and militant. theyre merging left wing economics with right wing social and nationalistic policy. unfortunately this seems to be what the white working class wants and as of now they are still the majority (albeit not by much).

hh
Yelling about imported goods is not "left-wing economics".
 
Have to say, in Denmark the populists are still very much right wing. On paper, the Danish People's Party want better childcare, better pensions, at least a Danish centre social policy etc. but in practice they constantly vote for right economics, tax cuts and deregulation in return for restriction on immigration. I know it's different in parts of Europe, but here they're very much economic right. Other right wing parties are anti-immigration too, and right wing in economics. Infact I think it serves as part of the DPP's rhethoric as source of power, whether intentional or not: "We want to ensure better welfare, but we can't because immigration."
 
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