What is called irredenticism?

Irredenticism is called the situation of a minority community that lives within a state, with the majority of the community of the same state as a reference. The rise of irredenticism within nationalism is remarkable. For example, even if we talk about a kind of nationalism in Ireland, we are talking more about irredenticism. If the Russian communities in the Baltic were to create a political project, such as that of South Ossetia, it would be irredentist.

The political agreements that have been concluded in the twentieth century are so disastrous from an objective and scientific point of view that they have been carried out so badly that this has caused some small communities to remain within these agreements. Moreover, if States do not respect their rights in the medium term, it is logical to create a political elite there after 30 to 50 years and to consider reuniting with the main communities. On one level, this is happening in South Ossetia. The present state [Georgia] does not take the Ossetians in glory, while Russia respects them for vile reasons, such as granting them political support and a passport. That way they can support Russia. The same will happen in the Balkans and the Baltic. If the Baltic countries do not change their policies, there will also be some kind of irredentism there in some way.

Has the concept of the nation changed, or has it changed the way people live and/or understand it?

Yes, it also changes due to scientific and political pressure. The world’s political elite is causing more and more nations to emerge in instrumental terms. That is, there is controversy over the invention of the nation. Now it is very fashionable to say that nations are invented or built. That is, there is an instrumental point of view of the nation. But this has also led to other phenomena in which those who have not been part of the nation identify themselves as a nation. In Padania, Italy and in the Middle Luna region of Bolivia, for example. These, in my opinion, are not nations, they have not been an ethnicity, they have no language of their own. They have their own particular expressions, but they have never been a nation with an ethnic content. The components that they have adopted are the rhetoric of nationalism. They have created a very strong nationalist discourse, very strong because they have no limits: neither language, religion, culture, science nor politics puts any limits on them. They did not exist and their political project has been carried out under a nationalist rhetoric. But they are not a nation, they do not want to emancipate themselves, they do not have relations with other countries, they want to take advantage of another concrete political project.

In the past there was talk of nationalism in very existentialist terms. And in a very mistaken sense, in racist terms or in terms of existence, in terms of language or religion. Today, on the other hand, the political and scientific trend, in general, which seems to be politically correct, is posed in the opposite way: nations exist but they are instrumental, they must be valid, language does not even serve religion, politics does not matter, nothing matters. This kind of nationalism uses very instrumental facts. They are very useful for some powers, they can give you a lot of power if you know how to use them. The thing is, these citizens experience a strange feeling, a feeling that they belong somewhere and that they have to be respected.