Notas sobre cosmopolitismo (a propósito do assassinato de Van Gogh e da discussão sobre relativismo (moral, não o cultural), "multiculturalismo" e, obviamente, nacionalismo)

1. «Cultural likeness and national community are not prerequisites for democracy. On the contrary, a democracy can consist of many nations, religions and cultures. Variety and difference are assets, not impediments, in the republican tradition of Hannah Arendt and Jürgen Habermas.»

2. «(...) the UN should be reformed. Since it already offers a potential of a global political agora, it may be strengthened as a forum for international discussions and democratic decisions. Daniele Archibugi recommends that the organization should establish a second chamber, a general assembly of the people that is directly elected, and that the Security Council be reformed so that the veto-right is abolished or made harder to use (...) Such a strategy obviously undercuts national sovereignty and further calls into question the system of sovereign nation states, which was established as a norm after the Westphalian peace in 1648. It is worth repeating that the aim of cosmopolitanism is to privilege democracy and its politics rather than the sovereignty of the nation state.»

3. «(...) the autonomy of each individual country will not disappear, but represents instead, together with strong regional and democratic institutions such as the EU, the very backbone of the system. As in the tradition of federalism, power must however by default come from below and be delegated upwards. Such a model can be seen as a fabric made up of democratic power-relations on different levels and in different places that strives to encapsulate the concerns of the global - a cosmopolite.»

4.«All these isues are highlighted in the fight over the multicultural. The concept of the nation state relies on the idea of a common origin and shared cultural values, which we can trace back to European racial philosophies developed during the 17th and 18th century. As a result, migrants have had to accept subordination because they are represented as threats to national harmony and balance by their very "differentness" (...)Nation and ethnicity have to be divorced from politics and state in the same way that religion has been separated from them.»

5. «We must carefully consider the cosmopolitan alliance with a rootless and privileged social elite (...) The liberal philosopher Kwame Anthony Appiah - born in Ghana but working in US - tells us (...) about how he has inherited his cosmopolitan outlook from his father, a man he describes as a "rooted cosmopolitan." To Appiah, this stance of being a patriotic citizen in multi-ethnical Ghana, but also a cosmopolitan patriot resulted from the colonial influence, his father's London education, and from the local Asante-culture. Deeply vested in a place and a culture his father nonetheless considered roots without value if they were not portable. When he died, his children found a letter of his, attempting to formulate and pass on his world-view to them. "Remember that you are citizens of the world" he wrote, and continued his letter by telling them that they had the right to live wherever they wanted, but that they also had an obligation to do their best to leave each place they inhabited "better than we found it".» (ler todo o artigo de Per Wirtén aqui)