are hyphenated are not as unambiguously “American” as tliosernwho have no other ethnic identity.rnhi general, nations are built in part through the suppressionrnor absorption of competing national, regional, tribal, or religiousrnidentities. The relatively late unifications of Germanyrnand Italy illustrate the extent to which the result is sometimesrnlittle more than a set of conventions. For example, we all acknowledgernthat a Bavarian is a German, along with, say, a Prussian,rnwith whom (according to John Jay’s criteria of ancestry,rnlanguage, religion, customs, etc.) the Bavarian has far less inrncommon than he does with an Austrian. But an Austrian, as wernall know, is not a German, never has been a German, and is notrnallowed even to think about possibly being a German. By thernsame token, a Sardinian or a (German-speaking) South Tyrolianrnis an Italian, but a Gorsican or a (German-speaking) Alsafianrnis a Frenchman. A Rhinelander who speaks Plattdeutschrnor Niederdeutsch at home is a German, but someone a fewrnmiles away, where the almost identical speech is the state language,rnis a Dutchman or maybe a Fleming (which is to say, arnBelgian).rnInterestingly, suppressed nationality seems to translate atrntimes into nationalist attachment to the suppressing power.rnThe most obvious e.xample is the American South, which, afterrnits forcible reincorporation into the Union became, and byrnmost accounts remains today, the most nationalist region of therncountry. The same might be said of the Scottish Highlanders,rnwho, within decades of Gulloden and the genocidal HighlandrnClearances, became an indispensable element in the growth ofrna minor island kingdom into a worldwide empire. (Oddlyrnenough, the Lowlanders, who mostly are ethnic Teutons ratherrnthan Gelts and who have always been English-speaking, todayrnare devotees of the sacred moor and seem to have forgotten entirelyrnon whose side the bulk of their ancestors fought in thernForty-Five.)rnTo sum up, the concept of nationhood, though deeply rootedrnin immutable ancestral origins as well as historical experience,rnis at the same time subject to ex post facto interpretation,rnwhich lends not only a certain flexibility but even, in the wrongrnhands, a dangerous malleability.rnHow does this obsenation apply to the behavior of the dominantrnglobalist elite? A quick glance at any historical atias revealsrnthat, prior to 1945, hardly a decade passed without significantrnshifts in European borders. (We do not even need to talkrnabout the ridiculous lines on the map of Africa.) The post-rnWorld War II ossification of territorial arrangements should bernseen as an anomaly occasioned by an unusual circumstance,rnthe Gold War division of Europe. The first meaningful postwarrnshift in borders occurred in 1990 with the reunification of Germany,rnending a division that mirrored that of the continent as arnwhole. In short order followed the dissolution of Yugoslavia,rnthe Soviet Union, and Gzechoslovakia.rnTwo seemingly contradictory trends are taking place simultaneously:rnon the one hand, the resurgence of nationalisms thatrna century ago would have been thought long dead—Scottish,rnWelsh, Breton, Gornish, Basque, Gatalan, Flemish, Walloon,rnGorsican, Moldovan, Abkhazi, Gagauz —and, on the otherrnhand, European integration. Indeed, it is striking that in mostrncases the resurgent sub-nationalisms, in asserting their independencernfrom the states of which they had been a part, oftenrnfor centuries, do not seem to have much interest in attackingrnthe larger trend of transnational integration. Nor do the globalistrnelites in Washington or at Turtle Bay seem unduly dismayedrnby these resurgences. One is struck, for example, by how easilyrnBill Glinton’s Europhile clone, Tony Blair, accepts what only arnfew years ago would have been unthinkable: a Scottish parliament,rneven the devolution of Wales. The fact is, today it mattersrnlittie whether the nominal capital of Scotland is Edinburghrnor London, or if Northern Italy claims to be governed from Milanrnor Rome, because in any case the real power will be in Brussels,rnif not in New York or Washington. The breakup ofrnGzechoslovakia —the “velvet divorce” hailed as a model ofrnpeaceful democratic political change, though neither thernGzechs nor the Slovaks nor the federation as a whole ever hadrnan opportunity to vote on the question — boiled down tornwhether Germanv would eat it up in one bite or two, withrnPrague becoming the proud new capital of Das Bundesprotektoratrnvon Bohmen und Mdhren, a hewer of wood and drawer ofrnwater for the economic hegemon of United Europe. (Not, byrnthe way, the worst of fates.)rnThe rainbow fascist nexus is this: both secession and integrationrnstrike at the same enemy, the only entity with evenrna chance of defying the new globalism—the historic nationstate.rnThat is why Strobe Talbott finds very exciting the “devolutionrnof power not only upward toward supranational bodiesrnand outward toward commonwealths and common marketsrnbut also downward toward freer, more autonomous units of administrationrnthat permit distinct societies to preserve their culturalrnidentities and govern themselves as much as possible.”rnThe fact that virtually all nation-states today are clamoring torncede their sovereignty to global institutions is a commentary onrnthe quality of their leadership. But if those states are broken up,rnlosing in the process their military strength and their politicalrninstitutions, their weak successors cannot possibly avoid integrationrninto the new imperium. This is especially likely whenrnwe consider that most contemporary secessionist movements,rnsuch as the Scots National Party (not to mention La Raza in thisrncourttry), are at least as far to the left as the national governmentsrnthey hope to supplant, ensuring that the prospects for improvedrnleadership are hardly promising.rnThe question of nationality (and its accompaniment, self-determination),rnhas become putty in the hands of the global elite.rnSrdja Trifkovic has noted the international role in the breakuprnof Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union, which may be taken asrncautionary examples. (Huntington observes: “If multiculturalismrnprevails and if the consensus on liberal democracv disintegrates”rn—if?— “the United States could join the Soviet Unionrnon the ash heap of history.”) Many people may still rememberrnthe 1946 book I Chose Freedom, the classic Gold War defectorrnstoiy by Victor Kravchenko. The author was an ethnic Ukrainian,rnwhich he obviously regarded as a certain type of Russian —rnhis recollection of his early years is entitled “A RussianrnGhildhood,” and his grandfather’s account of the 1878 Russo-rnTurkish war celebrates feats of Russian arms. Kravchenko recountsrnhis dismay, during the official “Ukrainianization” programrnin the 1920’s, at being forced to learn from textbooksrnwritten in the same Ukrainian speech he spoke at home, in lieurnof the standard Russian texts to which he was accustomed, textsrnwhich he and his classmates had to consult on the sly. Onernmight imagine someone in southern France being forced, forrnpolitical reasons, to conduct formal business in Provencal insteadrnof standard French, or of a Swiss German having to strugglernthrough technical manuals in his native Allemannic dialect.rnThe fact is, the distinction between a dialect and arnlUNE 1998/21rnrnrn