Inclusive Patriotism > Post Nationalism

The ‘post-national’ experiment has failed.

The Western world has a great story to tell.

Western nations have proven the most successful at defending individual freedom, generating prosperity, integrating people of all backgrounds, protecting the rights of women, and making room for creativity and diversity.

People desperately try to flee to Western countries, a sign that people recognize their prospects for being free and prosperous are best in the West.

Even the nations that were once enemies of the free world – like Japan and Germany – came to embrace democracy and individual freedom and became integrated in the ‘Western world.’

Yet, despite having such a great story to tell, we are refusing to tell it.

Instead, we have shifted towards ‘post-nationalism’, where any sense of a unifying sense of patriotism has been eschewed in favour of a focus on narrow group differences and demonizing Western history without any regard for nuance or context.

Obviously, this isn’t working out.

In many Western nations – including here in Canada – we see that anti-Western extremists, anti-Semites, and far-left & far-right radicals are more emboldened than ever before.

In the absence of a strong sense of patriotism based on the unifying values of individual freedom, democracy, and the rule of law, extremist groups are gaining prominence and power.

This is unsustainable.

Thankfully, the way to fix this situation isn’t exceptionally complicated.

We need to return to the kind of inclusive patriotism that brings different people together around shared values.

Inclusive patriotism means promoting the Western values of individual freedom, solving differences through the democratic process, freedom of speech, defending the rights of women, and promoting economic freedom.

That is a far better path than either far-right hyper-nationalism or far-left post-nationalism. Neither of those extreme ideas works, as they exclude too many people and lead to the breakdown of society.

Inclusive patriotism – uniting people around the values, principles, and institutions that built the most successful countries in human history – is what Canada and the broader Western world need.

Spencer Fernando

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