It was difficult not to feel personally targeted by former Prime Minister Stephen Harper's description of "globalist" "cosmopolitan" "Anywheres" in an excerpt of his forthcoming book.  I am unabashedly pro-trade and pro-immigration.  My closest friends work in tech, banking, academia, public policy, and communications.  I read The Economist (did you know Indonesia is at a crossroads?).  I don't actively hope to attend the Davos conference and certainly don't expect to receive an invitation, but I wouldn't turn one down.  I think Thomas Friedman is the most annoying man in commentary, but his one idea isn't totally off-base at least, it wasn't until two years ago.  I currently live in a major economic centre on the U.S. West Coast, and I have no wish to leave it, least of all for the landlocked Canadian suburb where I grew up.  I am the voter that the Conservative Party under Harper, and now under Scheer, can do without.

Yet in contrasting Anywheres unfavourably with "populist" "nationalist" "Somewheres," Harper's grasp of the globalist mindset proves superficial at best.  Addressing the causes of populism is critical to maintaining the globalist infrastructure over the long term; here, Anywheres have developed an unfortunate blind spot.  Harper's aim in writing Right Here, Right Now  an even less imaginative title than that of his first book, A Great Game  is to correct this selective blindness, for he, too, believes in this infrastructure.  But if anti-populist scorn on globalists' part is unnecessary or worse, it is equally so in reverse.

The crux of Harper's dispute with Anywheres is our apparent abdication of our responsibilities as citizens of a nation-state, which leads us to "behave as if [we] have no responsibilities at all."  What these responsibilities are, he does not say.  This paragraph comes after his distaste for our affirmation of "a right to just pack up and leave" if another nation-state suits us better.  Subject to that nation-state's immigration laws, we do have that right, or so the United Nations Universal Declaration on Human Rights written by a Canadian  assures us.  Why we should decline to use it, Harper also does not say.

By contrast, he asserts, Somewheres have the monopoly on "social solidarity."  Save "brief vacations," they, their children, and their parents have not left their hometowns, and their day-to-day lives are entirely local.  Because they are less able to work elsewhere, they are deeply and sincerely nationalist.  This picture of "localists" discounts the possibility that they would work elsewhere if they could, and are as tied to their hometowns by emotion as they are by economics.  Harper sees more virtue in these limited horizons than he does in the ambition it takes to uproot one's life.  He is stoking the same elite vs. folk divide that less intelligent men stoke with every tweet.

But how deep is the divide, really?  Per Harper, Somewheres are "motivated by steady work and a decent living."  So are Anywheres they're just willing and able to move for it.  The children of Somewheres attend "local schools."  So do Anywheres their children go to school, too, typically within a fairly short distance of their residence.  Somewheres get involved in local houses of worship and community groups.  So do Anywheres most do settle on one place sooner or later, especially after they have children, and it's often a place where they want to be involved.  These people have ceased to be Anywheres in the truest sense of the word.  They may just be Somewhere Elses.

By accusing Anywheres and Somewhere Elses of failing to live up to our unspecified "responsibilities" as Canadians, Harper implies that we should go beyond attempting to understand nationalists we should also feel bad about not being good nationalists ourselves.  His only ground for presuming a lack of love of country is the fact that we have dared to live outside of Canada and, worse still, enjoyed it.  Call for some privilege-checking if you wish as countries of origin go, Canada is as good as it gets but why should loyalty to a nation-state preclude the pursuit of better circumstances elsewhere?  Who does this benefit and whose interests should apparently come before those of ourselves and our loved ones?  Assuming someone has never actually committed treason, what right has anyone else, especially an ex-prime minister, to demand that they feel more patriotic?

It's one thing for globalist Anywheres and nationalist Somewheres to understand each other.  Other parts of Harper's excerpt promise a solid overview of how to achieve this understanding.  But it's not necessary for us to become each other, and Harper has made a poor case for why we should bother trying.

Photo Credit: The Globe & Mail

Written by Jess Morgan