The democratic debt to the victims of Nazifascism, with Auschwitz as an extreme example, runs through the thoughts of the philosopher Reyes Mate (Pedrajas de San Esteban, Valladolid, 82 years old). Author of twenty essays in which he investigates the political dimension of reason, religion and memory, it is not surprising to find him “alarmed” by the rise of nationalism, nor that he has dedicated his essay Land of Babel (Trotta) to combat it at its roots, on a journey from Aristotle to the Euroxenophobic retreat. Teacher to honor from the Institute of Philosophy of the CSIC, winner of the The inheritance of obliviona member of the in a memorial, Mate had been mulling over “20 years” the ideas about the State, nation, history and identity that he now rounds out in writing. He answered a question by email after Donald Trump’s victory.
Ask. Rescue the myth of Babel.
Answer. Unlike most, I think leaving the Tower was good for humanity. We discover our diversity. Although only a few saw it that way.
P. Who is it?
R. The Jewish people, the diaspora. I have been studying Jewish thinkers for 40 years, whose marginal perspective has helped me refute nationalism. And to detect how it contaminates everything. We see it every day. Faced with Basque and Catalan nationalism, the answer is more Spanish nationalism. It’s a loop.
P. On the other hand, you say that nationalism shows signs of collapse.
R. States sustained on the nationalist idea that the earth is ours alone and the rights in it are ours alone, among them Spain, are of no use today. They cannot respond to immigration, which is an unstoppable phenomenon due to the unbalanced distribution of wealth. As long as the reaction of the States is more borders, more identity and more exclusion, collapse is certain. Nationalism will fail in the face of immigration; National solutions to a global problem are impossible. Duty and necessity force us to make the problems of those who knock at our door our own. If not, what seems unimaginable today can happen.
P. For example?
R. That the rich States, determined to close themselves to anyone who tries to enter, find themselves besieged by those who will be called “new barbarians.” And those who oppose from within are also considered enemies.
P. Not everything is exclusion. Spain participates in the externalization of borders, but also processes one.
R. Yes, but the priority is always to safeguard the rights of nationals. There may be, if the State decides so, some exceptions, as with some refugees. But the rule is border and exclusion. If we do not question that rule, that nationalist idea, we are forgetting the lessons of barbarism.
P. ¿Auschwitz?
R. Auschwitz, the Balkans… We must not forget: nationalism is not only exclusion, but the possibility of extermination.
P. Can Auschwitz be repeated?
R. It can be repeated, we have not taken seriously what it meant. What did those liberated from the camps say? That this should never be repeated. Was your message heard? I don’t think so. Of course, there has been respect for the victims, and a Marshall Plan and there is an EU. But the deep message was not heard; Never repeating barbarism forced a change in the political and moral bases that allowed it. And those bases are still there: nationalism. Saying “this land is mine.” Immigration reveals that we did not understand the profound message of Auschwitz.
P. According to the CIS.
R. It is, but for none of the reasons we hear: that they hoard resources, that they create insecurity, that they erase our identity… Immigration, as it says [el pensador italiano] is the fundamental problem: it breaks our political model based on nationalism and forces us to change it. I rescue as an alternative the philosophy of the diaspora, of hospitality, the recognition of the rights not only of my fellow citizens, but of any human being.
P. Well, what there is is a slide of the immigration debate towards the extreme right.
R. TRUE. And here we must clarify something: nationalism is not only on the extreme right, whether in all of Spain or in Catalonia. If you believe that your rights are the only ones that matter, because they are the rules of your State and you are not willing to question them, you are a nationalist. We are all nationalists, not just those who stick out their chests with the flag. The hospitable alternative must be to any idea that restricts human rights to nationals, not just to the extreme right.
P. Do you have no sense of belonging to a nation, to a State?
R. We all have it. I do not understand those who say: “I am of the world.” Nationalism is more than that. It makes you think that your land and your language are sacred, that only your rights matter and that the State that guarantees them is untouchable. And it shouldn’t be. To confront immigration, we must build postnational spaces of diverse composition.
P. Isn’t that what the EU is?
R. In part. As he said, it is a project that was born from the extermination camps. What is the problem? That their progress in the post-national direction is blocked. It is still a sum of States. It is very dizzying to touch the State. But it must be done, immigration is bursting at its seams. And if the answer is more nationalism, we will all pay for it. Talking about hospitality may sound utopian, but in a few years you will see that the alternative is worse, the unthinkable can happen. There is a We must react, fulfill our duty of memory.
“As long as the reaction on the part of the States is more borders, more identity and more exclusion, collapse is certain”
P. The thought of Jewish authors or authors with Jewish roots is basic in your work: from Walter Benjamin to Arendt… How do you experience Israel’s nationalist drift?
R. It is the result of Zionism, which came to the fatal conclusion that the diaspora failed and a territory had to be appropriated. We Europeans must admit our responsibility. The Jews did not want a State in Palestine, they went there because we had been expelling them for centuries, including the Catholic Monarchs. Zionism is a consequence of Europe’s intolerance. To be critical, we must be self-critical. Or have we overcome nationalist thinking here?
P. Do you celebrate the decline of the Catalan independence movement?
R. Excellent news. But it would be better to deactivate Catalan, Basque and Spanish nationalism, all together, and bet on the EU.
P. Do you agree with the amnesty?
R. Completely. The State is never greater than when it forgives.
P. What does Trump’s return bring?
R. Emigration, climate change and nationalism are going to suffer a qualitative worsening. The extravagance of their approaches will place these serious issues on the world agenda, forcing sane politicians to overcome their lukewarmness and attack them at their roots. It is fitting in these moments of anxiety to remember the dictum hopeful: “Where there is danger, what saves grows.”
