An Imminent Conflict Between Patriotism and Globalism?

“The future does not belong to globalists. The future belongs to patriots.”

– President Donald J. Trump

Editor’s Note: The following is an excerpt from the address by President Donald Tusk to the 74th United Nations General Assembly. Full text available here.

I do not agree with this opinion. It is false and dangerous, even if it has many followers and powerful propagators.

The very idea of the United Nations, just like that of the European Union, is de facto a heroic attempt to overcome such thinking.

The patriotism of the 21st century must also have a global dimension, if it is not to become, as has many times been the case, a common national egoism.

The history of our nations shows how easy it is to transform the love of one’s homeland into hatred towards one’s neighbors. How easy it is to transform the pride for one’s own culture into contempt for the culture of strangers. How easy it is to use the slogans of one’s own sovereignty against the sovereignty of others.

I know that the word globalism doesn’t sound attractive. Personally, I prefer the word solidarity, so important for me and for my nation. In my political vocabulary, globalism and solidarity mean the same thing.

And I am not talking about some naive ideology or abstract linguistics, but about concrete challenges and a chance for pragmatic solutions.

I love Gdańsk, the town I come from. I love Poland, my country. And I love Europe.

But even if we live in the most beautiful and most modern European city, our life can change into hell, if we do not find, here at the United Nations, adequate solutions to global threats, such as armed conflicts and terrorism, nuclear proliferation or the destruction of our environment.

Without the readiness to establish rules on a global level, and later to consistently respect them, local communities, nations and states and even continents, will remain helpless in the face of those threats.