For many Britons, their modern sense of national fellow feeling was forged in the Second World War, during the struggle for national survival. These days, it is expressed during ritual state occasions, like Royal weddings, or during great sporting events like the Olympic Games. But what about the politics of flag waving? Between 1990 and 2008, globalisation weakened the borders around nation states, bringing free trade and the free movement of (some) people. In the second decade of the 21st century, borders and boundaries are back with a vengeance, as a new generation of politicians tries to reignite national fellow feeling and recreate new borders and boundaries. Some of them even want to put up walls again.
Where does decent patriotism end and ugly nationalism begin? Is any form of nationalism, however mild, an anachronism in an inter-connected world? Or is it part of the glue that holds society together? How do we fight the upswing in contemporary nationalism? Just how necessary is national fellow feeling in the twenty-first century?
Discussing these, and related questions are the author and columnist, Zoe Williams, and Eric Kaufmann, Professor of Politics, Birkbeck College, University of London and author of the forthcoming book: Whiteshift: Immigration, Populism and the Future of White Majorities. The debate will be chaired by Toby Mundy, Executive Director of the Baillie Gifford Prize.
]]>Anjana Ahuja
Anjana Ahuja is a freelance science journalist and a Contributing Writer at the Financial Times, where she is best known for her regular opinion columns. She has also contributed to Newsnight and made documentaries for BBC Radio 4. Prior to that, she was a staff writer at The Times for 16 years.In 2010, Anjana co-authored Selected, a book on the evolution of human leadership. She is a current trustee of the charity Sense about Science and a former school governor. She has a PhD in space physics from Imperial College London.
Razia Iqbal
Razia Iqbal is one of the main presenters of Newshour, the flagship news and current affairs programme on BBC World Service. She also regularly presents The World Tonight on BBC Radio 4. She was the BBC’s arts correspondent for a decade, covering arts and culture for radio and television news. She also presented Talking Books on BBC World TV: an in depth interview programme with leading writers. Razia has been a journalist with the BBC for nearly three decades, and has worked as a political reporter, and as a foreign correspondent in Pakistan and Sri Lanka. Most recently, she has covered the 2016 Presidential campaign in the US; the Turkish elections and travelled in India and Pakistan making programmes for radio and television. She was born in Uganda, Kampala and moved to London as a child.
Toby Mundy
Toby Mundy is Executive Director of the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction. In 2000 he founded Atlantic Books, where he was Chief Executive and Publisher until 2014, when he left to start literary agency TMA Limited. He is also chair of trustees of Wimbledon BookFest, a registered charity; a partner at the management and communications consultancy Jericho Chambers and chair of the advisory board of The Sunday Times EFG Short Story Award.
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