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11 maltatoday | WEDNESDAY • 10 JULY 2019 Umut Özkirimli is a Professor within the Centre for Middle Eastern Studies at Lund University OPINION IN one of the less discussed but still enjoyable moments of the final season of Game of Thrones, Tormund Giants- bane, the leader of the free folk, and Edd Tollett, the lord com- mander of the Night's Watch, bump into each other among the ruins of a castle destroyed by the notorious White Walk- ers. "Stay back, he's got blue eyes!", shouts Edd, suspect- ing that Tormund has been turned into a White Walker – zombies who are distinguish- able by their trademark icy blue eyes. "I've always had blue eyes!", Tormund shouts back angri- ly, before the two old friends greet each other. Call it professional condi- tioning if you will, but this scene reminded me of the current hype surrounding the so-called revival of ethnic/na- tivist nationalism in Europe and the United States. "Nationalism's largely un- predicted resurgence is so- bering", writes Gideon Rose in his introduction to a recent special issue of Foreign Af- fairs emphatically titled "The New Nationalism". This is the tune whistled by the contrib- utors to the volume as well as an ever-expanding chorus of experts. Each cites the same roster of names – Donald Trump, Nigel Farage, Marine Le Pen, Matteo Salvini and Viktor Or- bán – to justify their claims. And yet the history of nation- alism tells us a different story. Nationalism was resurgent in the 1930s in fascist Italy and Nazi Germany and again in the 1960s as decolonisation movements emerged in Asia and Africa. In the 1990s dur- ing the collapse of the Soviet Union, nationalism flared up as communist regimes fell. In the early 2000s, far-right parties like Pim Fortuyn's List in the Netherlands, and Jörg Haider's Freedom Party in Austria (FPÖ) scored their first electoral victories. Even when not at the fore- front of newspaper headlines, nationalism continued to be the framework of interna- tional relations and a read- ily available cognitive mech- anism to distinguish "us", fellow nationals, from "them", nationals of other countries and minorities, refugees and migrants. In the words of the liberal philosopher Isaiah Berlin: "In our modern age, national- ism is not resurgent; it never died." Does this mean that what we are witnessing is nothing but misplaced collective hysteria? Of course not. On the contrary, we should all be worried, not because ethnic/nativist nationalism is resurgent, but because it has been mainstreamed and steri- lised. Policies that were the exclusive preserve of the far right have become part and parcel of the programmes of the centre right and the cen- tre left. As a result, divisive nation- alist rhetoric that was once considered beyond the pale has been whitewashed. It is casually and recklessly deployed by the very peo- ple – the centrist politicians and technocrats – who are lamenting the nationalist "comeback". Take the case of Dan- ish Social Democrats. They emerged as the first party in June 5 elections after taking a massive swerve to the right, distancing themselves from their more traditionally cen- tre-left policies. They have adopted an eth- nic/nativist nationalism, supporting the creation of "ghettos" in deprived neigh- bourhoods where over 50% of residents have non-Western nationality and harsher pun- ishments for certain types of offences committed in those "ghettos". The party has even backed the notorious "jewellery law" which allows Danish authori- ties to confiscate cash and valuable items from migrants and asylum seekers at the border. Or consider Sweden, where the traditionally pro-immi- gration Social Democrats set up provisional border con- trols to appease the far right Sweden Democrats. And then there's Germany, where the parliament has just approved a controversial package of bills which facili- tates the deportation of failed asylum seekers. Far-right par- ties don't have to be in power – their ideologies and policies already are. The Anglo-Saxon world is no exception either. Nigel Farage, a man who feels uncomfortable when he hears people speaking in lan- guages other than English on a London train, is leading a party that poses a significant electoral threat to the party of government. Whether or not the Brexit Party becomes the second largest party in any forthcom- ing election, it is certainly driving the national agenda. And Donald Trump who promotes an almost racist form of nationalism which portrays Mexicans as "rap- ists" or Muslims as "terror- ists" has a real chance of se- curing a second term in the White House in 2020. There is cause for alarm, not because there has been a sud- den surge of White Walkers, but because White Walkers are now among us, every- where. And if we don't fight back, they will turn all of us into blue-eyed zombies. Even the invincible Tormund Giants- bane. Umut Özkirimli 'New nationalism': the real reason it's so scary Policies that were the exclusive preserve of the far right have become part and parcel of the programmes of the centre right and the centre left Donald Trump has a real chance of securing a second term in the White House in 2020