Laszlo Lengyel: a third nationalist wave?

In countries that have experienced regime changes, an economic crisis could give birth to a third wave of nationalism. The middle classes could find themselves facing an existential threat. People who were winners until now will lose out. Modernisers, those who urge the country in the direction of Europe, people who work in high-tech professions and those who have taken out loans in Swiss franks - they could all lose their jobs, their savings and their networks of contacts.

But this trend seemed to correct itself. Poland's right-wing won the elections, Romania's extremists fell out of parliament, Hungary's extremists were marginalised. In Slovakia, Fico sews just enough nationalist salt as is required to maintain his coalition majority. The Georgian-Russian war failed to awaken any kind of mass opinion.

But maybe not. At a recent meeting of Slovak and Hungarian intellectuals, Peter Tolgyessy and Laszlo Szigeti from Slovakia both agreed that there had been a sustained trend of rising nationalism since the regime change. This was related to the illusions nursed by the various societies: they wanted a western lifestyle immediately, a prospect that seemed to be receding ever further. Politicians create nationalist, but the nationalist themselves create the Ficos, the Slotas and the Kaczynskis. Politicians just satisfy their voters' demands. The future is one of growing nationalism and xenophobia around the world, Szigeti added. He may be right.

My concern is the nationalist "third wave." This wave will emerge from the economic crisis. Now, it is the middle class that emerged after the regime change which is endangered. Brussels and Berlin have no answers to their cries for help. It's no longer the losers who are rioting - it's the people who until now have been winners. They are now the ones looking for scapegoats.

Disappointed forint nationalists, zloty nationalists, Czech crown nationalists who are eurosceptic but also claim to be western European are raising national flags in Gyor, Poznan and Mlada Boleslav. Bank employees and automotive engineers, property investors and respectable judges are developing a sympathy for their less sophisticated nationalist compatriots. They may begin to see Jews, Gypsies, Romanians, Slovaks, Europeans, Americans, and anybody who is no them, as the group responsible for their woes.

Happy 2009!