OPINION: Is technology the new threat to world peace?

An article in the New Statesman appears on its front page which castigates the rise of nationalism and the threat that this poses in the age of significant technological advancement. It states that nationalism took a back seat during the Cold War partly due to the invention of the atomic bomb, but is this a misplaced belief?

The New Statesman’s article – The age of disorder – by Yuval Harari, implies that we ought to thank the Cold War and the atomic bomb for unity between nations, stating that ‘during the Cold War nationalism took a back seat’ (New Statesman, July, 2017). However this is a very disputable claim.

There is no doubt that technology has allowed us to share ideas, virtually instantaneously, across the globe, but has nationalism been the outcome? The Cold War was the epitome of nationalism on a global scale. Two ideologies clashed and nation states took sides. That certainly does not mean that nationalism had faded into the background. Instead the ruling classes, within nation states, harnessed a narrative that actually promoted nationalism. Countries may have been held together by NATO, the UN and the Soviet Union, but countries were force-fed nationalistic propaganda. None more so than in the UK.

Harari, seems to fail to acknowledge that technological communication had existed before the dawn of social media such as Facebook and Twitter. Our living rooms were filled with an onslaught of televised intensive propaganda. In the UK, this British sense of identity was pumped into our living rooms incessantly. As we see Scottish nationalism rising, within the confines of the UK, there is clearly a backlash against decades of brainwashing and mind warping. This British nationalistic identity could never be congruent with Scotland, but it was still perpetuated by the powers that be.

The fakery of unity, within the EU, also featured and media played a huge role. Identity and national identity, in particular, have been very cleverly manipulated concepts and this is nowhere near new. Post World War 2 saw Eurovision, ABBA, liberal media broadcasts, and popular cultures were branded by nation states. This was of course no accident and it culminated in the Brit Pop era in the UK. It is niave to suggest that these hugely marketed and managed zeitgeists were not part of the propaganda machine. Nationalism became an art form and it was managed from the sidelines.

The fundemental flaw in the argument appears to be Harari’s lack of insight into the reverberations of history. He lumps Britain and Brexit into a homogenous lump and fails to recognise the internal conflict and resentment, within the small islands that make up the UK. Hundreds of years of struggle and tensions are now coming to the fore. National identity has been over simplified by the New Statesman’s article and it fails to explain the dangers technologies have posed up to this point. Perhaps much more profoundly destructive and distracting than current forms of interactive communication.

The overall implication that Harari makes is that nuclear war and climate change may be exacerbated by nationalism – but whose nationalism? Each nation state has experienced upheaval and conflict and a sense of identity has arisen. Boundaries have been drawn overtime and redrawn. Nation states and their ideologies are part of humanities strive to gain a sense of belonging – a place to call home.

Admittedly Harari is correct that technologies such as artificial intelligence, quantum computing, the nuclear industry and augmented reality will pose threats to our planet. However, we are in a time, when the boundary lines are being redrawn again. Ideologies are being gauged and countries who want to follow particular trajectories will again form alliances. To suggest that this sense of nationalism faded during the Cold War is simply wrong. At no time did the threat of nuclear war subsume national identity. In fact the converse is true. Harari, along with many others, have claimed that global politics is the only solution to the problems technology poses to our environment, but such a conclusion is naive. Globalism only works for those who benefit from it. Also, the world is far too complex and diverse to impose globalised politics. The battle for identity and a place to call home will persist ad infinitum. Our planet’s ecology will always take second place to our struggle to feel a sense of belonging in a place that respects our values and beliefs. Ideologies are diverging and the lines will be redrawn once again.