The cult of unity
Estonian Tunne Kelam, the MEP and Chairman of the European Parliament’s Committee on Foreign Affairs, was recently in Macedonia with a delegation to assess, in part, whether Macedonia is ready to start EU accession talks. According to media reports he said, among other things, that Macedonia must focus on “national unity” and that the country should “not waste time” on political differences. If I read him correctly, he is calling for Macedonians to unify around the Government and its vision. That’s a bad idea and here’s why:
Writer Charles C. W. Cooke who is English by birth and American by choice, writing in the conservative publication National Review, writes this about unity on a political level: “Unity” is not only an unattainable state in a free country such as the United States, but it should be an unattainable state. Yes, there are some elementary questions on which we should all be able to agree, but on most issues beyond the basics we will not — and we should not, because if we did we would be suppressing dissent. Worse still, we would be suppressing dissent while reassuring the suppressed that they were better off for it.
Cooke continues stating “There is nothing intrinsically wrong with ‘politics’ or ‘division’ in a country in which the people are as politically divided as Americans are at the moment, especially when one considers the alternative, which is war. We have “politics” because we do not want to kill each other over every question of national import. This may not be a perfect system — and it may especially irritate the people who believe that they have been ordained to make all the important decisions on our behalf — but it is a lot better than the other option, which is widespread death and destruction.”
In other words, in a free country — and Macedonia should be a free country — it is good to have the back and forth that politics produces; the alternative is one political party or faction controlling everything and forcing its views on everyone and everything — and then telling those who dissent that they are “better off for it.” Unfortunately, this is Macedonia today.
The talk in the European Union has intensified, recently, around the phrases of “ever closer union,” “more Europe,” “pooled or shared sovereignty,” and of course, ever more unity. This insistence on unity is a cult. The professional elites in the EU have one way — their way — to achieve all of this and they will brook no dissent. If you have any doubt, just look at: Brexit, Hungary, Italy, Poland…..shall I go on? The aforementioned are not “in line” with the EU professional elites’ way of thinking; therefore, they must be punished. If you have any doubt about that just observe how difficult the EU is making it for the UK to leave the EU.
All of this applies to Macedonia as well. Here’s what former EU Ambassador to Macedonia Erwan Fouere said about the opposition in Macedonia last year: “Today, Gruevski and his party remain the biggest obstacles to a return to normality and the rule of law in Macedonia.” In other words, Fouere wants one party rule — to achieve the “unity” that SDSM and DUI wants.
Another National Review writer Jonah Goldberg, and host of an excellent podcast called, The Remnant, writing about Karl Marx and communism, states “The cult of unity found a new home in countless ideologies, each of which determined, in accord with their own dogma, to, in Voegelin’s words, ‘build the corpus mysticum of the collectivity and bind the members to form the oneness of the body.’ Or, to borrow a phrase from Barack Obama, ‘we are the ones we’ve been waiting for.’”
Most people who pursue the cult of unity have a certain worldview that revolves around far-left ideas or visions of global governance or both; they want everyone to be united around that worldview and their preferred way of implementing that worldview is through a government with their corresponding policies. And anyone who disagrees with them is a divider, a miscreant, a misanthrope, and very dangerous. But government should never be a thing that unites us; instead, it is community and the institutions of community — true civil society (not artificially created civil society brought in from the US and EU) that forms these communities, institutions and civil society. It is families, it is faith institutions, it is clubs and associations and organizations that are created by communities and for communities that serve the needs of communities that unite us — even if we happen to disagree with each other on one governmental policy or another — or an entire policy platform.
Related to this, as Goldberg says, is that the government can’t love you and you won’t find personal meaning or belonging, a natural human longing, in government or politics. Also, when you take out the quest for meaning — which is a part of our human nature — the quest does not cease. It just takes on another form; instead of seeking meaning through God you seek it through Government. And that is not a good thing.
I’ll quote one more National Review writer here, Kevin Williamson who writes “‘Unity’ means ‘oneness,’ and trying to push people into oneness when they want different things will always cause tension. If there’s ‘unity,’ then somebody wins and somebody loses. Plurality, on the other hand, means that we don’t all have to live the same way or hold the same things dear.” Again, one of the major problems with pursuing “unity” is that it will require force to achieve it for the simple fact that not everyone will agree with a particular government’s vision of what “unity” is. Instead of pluralism — the preferred way for a polity to organize itself — unity demands adherence to one set of ideas or beliefs and leaves no room for dissension.
We are now witnessing what is happening in Macedonia with the pursuit of “unity” — political persecutions, threats, intimidation, bribes, a trampling of democracy and democratic institutions, control (in various ways) of the media, etc. All in the pursuit of “unity.” The Government, in effect, is saying “We will enter the promised land of NATO and the EU, and we will do so as one people with one vision. All who dissent will be arrested or ostracized.”
You think that is a recipe for success or even, ironically, for unity? Think again.
