I love the United States. I’m proud to be an American. My country stands, more or less, as a bastion of liberty and justice for all. All of these things I believe, but I used to believe them with a lot more veracity prior to the numerous adventures I have embarked on in recent years.
When I was a child I recited the pledge of allegiance with fervor every morning. I truly believed the United States was the greatest country on Earth. To paraphrase a favorite gladiator of mine, the world was a cold dark place and the USA was the only light. Who wouldn't think that when placed in my situation? I was a young man in the middle of suburbia. I knew America was the military hegemon of the world. I knew we had exported our cultural and social values all over the globe. My president was the leader of the free world and my country was the defender of democracy and the downtrodden.
Oh how my perspective has changed. It started with critical reading and critical thinking. It was fostered by the people I met and the stories I listened to. It was solidified by the time I spent in Indian country and my time spent abroad in Cameroon. I'm not the most traveled person in the world, definitely not the most insightful or the most well read, but my limited experience was enough to change my perception of nationalism and I think any person could make the same realizations that I have with minimal effort.
So what's replaced my nationalism? I would hesitate to say that it is globalism. I still believe in local autonomy, even more so than I once did, and I believe small nation states are still the best systems humans have organized themselves into. I recently read a book titled “Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind” by Yuval Noah Harari in which the argument is made that humans have predominantly organized themselves into empires throughout their history. It's hard to dispute this narrative. One look at the size of countries like the United States, Russia, Brazil, China, Mexico, and Brazil make it pretty apparent that local autonomy is still not as big a priority as I would like it to be. As long as local polities have their say within their respective empires this is not too big a problem, in fact in helps create cohesion across large geographic areas. Whether it's the USA spreading democracy, the Roman Empire fostering education and civilization through their conquests, Genghis Khan creating his Pax Mongolica, or the Ummayad Caliphs creating their Golden Age from Persia to Spain, the benefits empire has brought to us are apparent. So are the detractions. The United States displacing hundreds of native nations, the Romans creating a wasteland and calling it peace, the savagery of the Great Khan, and the loss of hundreds of religions and cultures brought about by the Arab conquests. We stand on the brink of creating new empires of capitalism and unionism, time will tell if we place more emphasis on autonomy or cohesion.
Whatever the situation of political representation, the world is undoubtedly becoming a more cohesive place. Any Cameroonian will tell you that the world is becoming a global village, a fact I think most Westerners are hesitant to accept especially in the days of Brexit and Trump. We are witnesses to problems that require global solutions. Issues like climate change and cyber security cannot be addressed by independent nation states alone. Can the US and China continue to increase carbon emissions while small third world nations pay the highest price? This is the essence of the “right to protect” that has gained so much credit among academics in recent years. Does local autonomy take a back seat to global security? Is there an imperative to defend the rights of people that are not directly represented in our nation's political system? More and more, I'm starting to think that it is so.
Our technological growth is exponential. Our communication is global and instantaneous. Will our world order have to keep pace with our species advancement? Most definitely, but I foresee many growing pains as we figure out exactly what that means. Take any modern and classic science fiction story; humanity is nearly ubiquitously represented as a unified front. I’m not saying global governance is the best way to organize ourselves politically, as stated I like nation states, but it's hard to imagine French Mars and Polish Neptune. The idea of global governance has been in our minds for a long time, maybe since Alexander the Great or before. If it is our destiny then we have a lot of reflection to do over how this will come about and what it will look like.
So ultimately, what does a global citizen look like? I would argue that even the most fervent nationalists today are global citizens. One look at the morning news makes it so. You know the second something happens in the Ivory Coast or Germany regardless of your nationality. You’re interested in those stories because you know that they affect you in some way. Isolationism, at least in the strict sense, seems to be a thing of the past. It might take 10 years for Britain to fully exit the EU, but does anyone think they will actually be independent from it?
This post is part of Blogging Abroad's 2017 New Years Blog Challenge, week one: Global Citizenship.
