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Nationalists, who stand in the way of global free trade, will be shown the door
Less surprisingly, it is bad time for nationalists. They are being haunted from all sides by those agents who seek a world sands borders to control the natural resources for pecuniary gains. It is not that the patriots are without any economic agenda unlike some spiritual groups who have declared a war on the efforts of global forces who are dismantling borders and redrawing the maps to make the world a global village, with technology in tow.
The Ozymandias-like nationalists had been there always in human history. Whenever alien forces tried to infringe the freedom and loot the wealth of nations, they have stood tall, defending their kingdoms and their people from atrocities, which knew no bounds. For doing so, they had got enough laurels from their loyalists and countrymen for their daredevil acts and they became a household name and always inspired many generations. Modern-day nationalists made their debut with the American Revolution, but their voice did not hear beyond the North America due to a strong presence of colonial masters in South America, Europe, Asia and Africa in the 18th century. The champions of the Boston Tea Party did not take out their crusade for freedom and free speech outside their country for reasons best known to them. Once achieved their mission against the British empire, they kept a low profile.
Nationalists, however, made a strong comeback to the world stage during the World War I. However, as kings and feudal lords were at the helm of affairs in the beginning of the 20th century in most of the countries, they had to play a second role. Fearing for their life, they did not speak against the divine rights of the kings. But, of course, they found friends in a few intellectuals in France, Germany and England which helped them to have an academic acceptability among the intelligentsia in other countries. In Asia, Africa and South America nationalists were conspicuous by their absence as the universities in these continents were busy in churning out scholars who were good only at fine arts and theological philosophy. Freedom and civil liberties were unholy words in these parts of the world as the kings ruling these continents were reduced to mere sidekicks of the colonial powers. As far as the masses in Asia and Africa were concerned, rampant poverty and a pastoral way of life prevented them from staging a revolt and raising their voice against the alien forces ruling them. With the fall of the Ottoman Empire – the only world empire in its real sense – after the first World War, there was no threat for nation states from alien forces save the colonialists, who, on the other hand, was pocketing large sums of money through the lucrative slave trades and by setting up large-scale industries like textiles and plantations.
With the Russian Revolution, things underwent a sweeping change. Nationalists, albeit a few in number, began to appear in some countries. Their fight was directed against the colonial powers and the puppet kings. During this time, the colonial powers’ greed knew no bounds. With the invention of new defense equipment, they began to fight among themselves and let loose the great apocalypse on the mankind – the World War II – in which more than 50 million perished. The establishment of the Soviet Union gave for the first time hope of a universal government sans borders. Under the guise of universal themes like socialism and communism, the communist rulers in the Soviet Union overthrew many governments in Eastern Europe and Asia and installed their own military colonels to man the affairs of the conquered lands.
Business interests of the colonialists began to take a beating as nationalists were gaining acceptance in many countries during and after the second World War. In their fight against foreign powers, the nationalists also targeted and disrupted business interests of the colonialists. Now, the colonialists began to sense the danger as Lenin, during the tumultuous time of the Russian Revolution, had joined hands with nationalists to overthrow the Tzars. This tactic by Lenin had become an accepted strategy in the communists parlance. The colonialists feared that communists may strike a deal with the nationalists and they will lose the markets forever. Before that catastrophe falling on them, they abdicated power in favour of nationalists but on the condition that the markets in their country should follow private mode of production and should not in no way side with the communists. The result was that a new breed of nationalist leaders appeared in many countries. People in those countries hailed that nationalists for giving them freedom from the foreign powers.
With the progress in the establishment of World Trade Organisation (WTO), by the end of the 20th century, nationalists became a barrier to the free movement of goods and services as their polices were favouring the national capital against the foreign capital. Some countries replaced nationalists with technocrats to aid the cause of global free trade and some others have already made changes in their polices. By the new millennium, many nationalists had to play a great price for sticking on to their polices. Some even lost their lives. Recently, a few of them were toppled from power and killed, sending a warning signal to other nationalists.