How do you defend a nation?

Consider this statement from a leading US politician: “We’ve got to send a clear message that just because your child gets across the border that doesn’t mean your child gets to stay. We don’t want to send a message that is contrary to our laws and encourages them to make the dangerous journey.” No, not Trump, that was Hillary Clinton when she was campaigning to be President. Personally I can’t fathom any moral justification for separating children from parents – and I’m glad the policy seems to be changing – but there is an issue here that needs to be addressed openly.

That issue is, simply, ‘how do you defend a nation?’

Some might say that there is no such thing as a ‘nation’ – just an agglomeration of individuals who happen to coincide by location. Such a viewpoint is useful to big business and bureaucracies for it makes their lives so much easier – there is less grit in the wheels of industry – and it is also why such perspectives tend towards support for the EU. There is an equal and opposite error which makes the nation the source of all value and meaning. One of the principal lessons of the twentieth century relates to the terror that can be unleashed when such a perspective is put into power – and the catastrophe consequent to this latter perspective goes a long way to explaining the attraction of the former.

I would want to argue against both these perspectives. I believe that there is such a thing as a healthy pride in national identity, one which avoids the Syclla of deracination and the Charybdis of fascism.

Nations are real things: there is such a thing as ‘England’ or ‘France, moreover, such things as nations can be born and thrive, they can also die. Which is why I think it does make sense to talk of ‘defending’ a nation. A nation is a group of people who (originally) share a particular territory, and in living upon that territory develop a cultural complex of language, law, morality and behaviour which is distinct from other such complexes in different parts of the world.

I believe that nations are not just real things, but that they are precious things. They are part of the glory of the human being – that we have the capacity to thrive in such diverse and multiform fashion. (This is, of course, on great display at the moment in Russia, not just in the teams playing football but even more so in the groups of fans who follow each team. This is why it makes sense to feel shame when we see England supporters behaving like Philistines in their journeys abroad – so far so good in this World Cup!)

It makes sense to identify with a nation – to say, for example, ‘I am English’ or ‘I am French’ – and to know what this means. Some, however – who tend to live in one of the major ‘world cities’ like London, and to have received at least a university level education – do not know what this sort of identification means, and they do not recognise any deficiency in their lives associated with it. The writer David Goodhart describes this contrast as being between the ‘somewheres’ and the ‘anywheres’. The somewheres know where they are from and they draw value and strength from that identification. The anywheres do not identify with a particular location and do not feel any particular need to do so. Much of the dispute in our present political culture can be traced to this division between the somewheres – who will be concerned about national identity and so more resistant to immigration – and the anywheres – who are relaxed about national identity and so more open to immigration.

This debate tends to be reduced to one about racism, yet as I have argued before, the question here is not about race but about culture. After all, a significant element – possibly the overwhelming element – of national identity is the cultural expression of it. English culture, in common with other Western cultures, places a very great weight upon the notion of human rights, which is the modern term for a much more ancient notion emphasising the respect for the individual.

This respect is derived from Christianity and cannot properly be sustained without that religious foundation, the idea that all human beings are made in the image of God and are therefore inherently worthy of respect, irrespective of any achievements or wealth or family connections that might otherwise be considered relevant. No, Western culture is built around the idea that there is something sacred about the particular human being.

Our mistake, however, is to think that the glory of an individual human being can be understood apart from the culture in which they came to birth. It is rather like admiring a flower without paying any attention to the ground into which it has planted its roots. In other words, an insistence on the sacredness of the individual does not have to blend with a disregard for the community, the culture, the nation of which they are a part. That is the mistake which our modern West has made, with such terrible consequences.

So, to return to my original question, how do we defend the nation? We defend it by living out the values and virtues that animate that nation, by recognising that, to take our own nation as an example, some things simply ‘aren’t English’, some things simply wouldn’t be done by someone who shares our values and perspectives upon life. We take steps to ensure that people who live within the nation are taught how to operate appropriately within it, learning the language, the laws, the customs that enable a free and easy inter-relationship between all who are sharing the same space. It also means being very clear when actions are taken which ‘aren’t English’ – and ensuring appropriate, vivid and clarificatory punishments for such things.

We need to hold our leaders to the same standard. When English politicians act in such a way as to nurture a sense of Englishness, all well and good. When they do something to undermine it, they too need to be brought up short and rebuked. Most of all, when something is pursued by the nation that brings shame upon us, it needs to be seen as detrimental to the national interest and renounced. What might do such a thing? Something like separating children from their parents in service of some bureaucratic edict. I think that would qualify.