quences, each other’s national aspirations. It is no smallnwonder that in the German and Slavic political vocabularynthe concept of federalism and democracy will acquire anradically different meaning than in linguistically homogeneousnEngland, France, or America.nBy ostensibly putting aside its racist past, yetnby pushing its universalist message to thenextreme, the West paradoxically shows that itnis no less racist today than it was yesterday.nFrench and English nationalisms lack a solid territorialndimension, and their founding myths lie elsewhere. Overnthe course of their history, due to their colonial holdings,nthese countries have acted both as European and non-nEuropean nations — which explains, particularly in the lightnof massive non-European immigration — why their elitesnfind it difficult to argue for their strong ethnic identity.nContinental European nationalism, and specifically thenGerman idea of Volksheit, is by contrast the product of a setnof geographic circumstances unparalleled in France ornEngland. In France and England, the people were creatednout of the existence of the state. In Germany and ContinentalnEurope, nationalism has manifested itself primarily as ancultural phenomenon of frequently stateless peoples. InnGermany, Poland, Romania, etc., poets and writers creatednthe national consciousness of their peoples; in France,nprinces created state consciousness. Popular figures innCentral Europe — like Herder or Father Jahn in Germany,nSandor Petofy in Hungary, Ljudevit Gaj in Croatia, VuknKaradzic in Serbia, or Taras Shevchenko in the Ukraine —nplayed a crucial role in laying the foundation of the modernnstate for their respective peoples. Quite different was thenstory of nationalism in France where legists created thenunitary French state by suppressing regionalism in thenFrench Hexagon. Similarly, in England, the role of nationstatenbuilders fell to merchants and to maritime companies,nwhich, aided by buccaneers, brought wealth for the Englishncrown. Interestingly, during the Battle of Britain, Churchillneven toyed with the idea of transferring Downing Street andnthe Westminster Palace to the heartland of America — angesture, which in Central Europe, would have amounted tonnational suicide.nLike America, France first became a state, and in turn setnthe stage for the molding of the French people of differentntribes; by contrast, Germans have always been a stateless yetncompact people. The history of France is essentially thenhistory of genocide, in which French rulers from thenGapetians to the Bourbons, all the way down to modernnJacobins, meticulously carried out destruction of Occitans,nVendeans, Bretons, Franche-Comte, etc. Suppression ofnregionalism and nativism ,has been one of the majornhallmarks of French acculturation, with the latest attemptnbeing to frenchify Arabs from the Maghrib countries. Today,nFrance is paying the price for its egalitarian and universalistn24/CHRONICLESnnndreams. On the one hand, it is trying to impose universalnvalues and laws on the masses of Third World immigrants;non the other, it must daily proclaim the principle ofnself-determination for its multiracial social layers. If one putsnthings in historical perspective, everything presages thatnFrance has become a prime candidate for sparking off racialnwarfare all over” Europe.nLooking at Germany and its East European glacis, ansharp eye immediately discovers a fluid area of levitatingnborders, “seasonal states,” yet strong culturally andnhistorically minded peoples. Central and Eastern Europeansnhave a long ethnic and historical memory, but their bordersnfall short of clean-cut ethnographic lines. Germany, forninstance, offers a view of an open and poorly defined state,nyet at the same time it is a close community. By contrast.nJacobin France, functionalist-minded England, and Americanare geographically closed states, but open societies. Nationalismnin these countries has always been inclusive andnhas invariably displayed globalist and imperialistic pretensions,nnotably by spreading its unitary message to disparatenpeoples worldwide.nGeographic location has also affected the ethnopsychologynof European peoples. An average German is essentiallyna peasant; his psychologic cast and conduct are corporatenand telluric. A Cerman displays great courtesy but lacksnpoliteness, and like most peasants he usually exhibits anheavy-handed schwerfdllig, and frequently an awkwardnapproach to social relations. By contrast, a Frenchman,nirrespective of his ideological stripe and social background, isnalways a petty bourgeois; he is full of manners andnstylishness but also full of pretensions. Unlike a Germannnationalist, a Frenchman displays a surfeit of manners butnlacks courtesy. Even the most ignorant foreign tourist whongoes to Germany and France will notice something foggynand unpredictable about Germans, while at the same timenhe will be gratified by the German sense of professionalncorrectness and absolute honesty. By contrast, the bodynlanguage and mannerisms of the French, as appealing asnthey may be, frequently leave one perplexed and disappointed.nIn the course of their ethnogeneses, languages gave finalnveneer to their respective peoples. The German language isnan organic language that branches off into eternity; it is alsonthe richest European language. The French language,nsimilar to a great extent to English, is an opaque languagenspun more by context than by flexion. As idiomaticnlanguages, French and English are ideal for maritime bustlenand seaport activities. Over the course of history the Frenchnsabir and pidgin English proved to be astounding homogenizingnagents as well as handy acculturative vectors for thenEnglish and French drives toward universalism. Subsequently,nEnglish and French became universal languages, inncontrast to German, which never spread out beyond thenEast European marshlands.nThe German idea of the Reich was for centuries perfectiynadapted to the open plains of Europe, which housed diversenand closely knit communities. Neither the Habsburgs nornthe Brandenburgs ever attempted to assimilate or annihilatenthe non-Germanic peoples within their jurisdiction as thenFrench and English did within theirs. The Danube monar-n