Myths of race and nation: the case for world socialism - Part 1 (1994)

From the June 1994 issue of the Socialist Standard

I drive a French car, drink German beer, enjoy eating spaghetti bolognese and used to listen to Radio Luxembourg. Does this qualify me as a fully paid-up member of the Common Market? Or will the fact that my Euro-election ballot paper is marked Yes (oui, ja, si) for World Socialism enough to convince the Brussels bureaucrats that I no more want to be ruled by them than by my British capitalist masters?

Let’s look at what unites rather than divides workers. The French fisherman, the Italian car worker, the German farmhand belong with the vast majority of us in a class which is economically exploited by a small minority of capitalists who use "love of country" and cultural differences to persuade us that we must continue to engage in economic battle with each other simply to preserve the privilege of the few. Little Englanders use this to whip workers up against European workers and pro-Europeans use it to engender competition against the rest of the world. All this nonsense is about their interests, not ours.

"Fog in English Channel - Continent Isolated." This Island is now physically joined to the continent by a tunnel. Those of us who view with dread the claustrophobic effect of travelling abroad under the sea should ponder the daily claustrophobia induced into our everyday lives by a social system which continues to isolate and alienate us all from the possibility of living full human lives as free men and women in a community of equals.

Dave Coggan