International Scientific Journals
of Scientific Technical Union of Mechanical Engineering "Industry 4.0"

The analysis is focused on nationalism, populism, hate speech, multiculturalism. The processes designated as globalization are mobilizing a resistance that increasingly manifests itself as an effort to preserve the identity of various ethnic cultural and religious traditions. Populist extremism is nourished by what it describes as the antagonism between the organic, “pure”, nation and the nation’s enemies, whether these be the Jews, the Muslims, the ethnic minorities and/or the “corrupt elite”. Populism is a distorted form of democracy that promises to fulfill the loftiest ideals of democracy (“Let the people decide!”). In other words, the threat comes from within, because the politicians that represent that threat speak the language of democratic values.
Hate speech is an utterance that denigrates or stigmatizes a person or a number of people on the basis of their affiliation to a group that usually, but not always, has certain unchanging characteristics, for instance, an ethnic or religious group. The fundamental problem here is the lack of understanding that the responsibility for the actions of one person may not be shifted to all people having some trait in common with the perpetrator. To distinguish between the individual and his group is a fundamental principle of democracy.
The discussion on multiculturalism cautions against the attempts to idealize multiculturalism: the philosophy and reality of multiculturalism do not always overlap. Most European states are inclined to think of multiculturalism mostly as a framework for the coexistence of different cultures rather than as a transnational mechanism for the integration of new settlers within a dominant culture. According to the critics of multiculturalism, Europe has allowed excessive immigration without requiring sufficient integration, an inappropriate course that has resulted in the erosion of social cohesion, the undermining of national identities and the decrease of social trust. The defendants of multiculturalism, for their part, respond that the problem lies not in excessive diversity but in excessive racism. A core set of shared basic values and rules (the Constitution, the laws, the shared language) guarantees the cohesion of the whole and at the same time sets boundaries to the right to be different and to the principle of equal standing of cultures. The general framework holds clear primacy over the particular cultures. The immigrants may preserve and maintain only that part of their cultures that is not in contradiction with the mandatory shared whole (“selective preservation of culture”).

The processes we designate as globalization tend to provoke resistance, which arises ever more often as an effort on the part of various ethno-cultural and religious traditions to preserve their own identity. In this context, ethnic and religious affiliations become centers of meaning in the striving towards a separate identity in the global debate regarding the quality of human development.

Achieving a national community and building new norms of coexistence under the conditions of ethno-religious variety are becoming a strategic goal of contemporary development. Contemporary civilization faces the need to respond to the critique and resistance of various forms of religious fundamentalism, and especially the critique formulated in the tradition of Islamic fundamentalism.

The problems related to national identity have been far more often described and discussed in the context of nationalist fears of difference than in terms of the effort to overcome the crisis of identity amidst the imposed similarities. Under Bulgarian conditions, ethnic and religious diversity continues to be perceived as an established fact that we must take into account, and not as a resource for nation building. Achieving a national identity should be the result of joint effort. The first and most difficult part of this effort is to recognize that this common meaning exists in a diversity of forms. The coming years will be marked by a search for new grounds of one’s own identity, a search for the spaces that define parts of ourselves. The great challenge facing Bulgaria is to rediscover the values and meaning of the national community. Only thus will our genuine, full presence in Europe become a fact.