Nationalism

I should also note that neither white nationalists nor Marxists represent any kind of political danger to our post-bourgeois society. Far more powerful forces are now at work battering what remains of our Anglo-American traditions of ordered liberty. [Paul Gottfried, The Limits of Race, Unz, June 30, 2008.]

Somewhere the Jewish-American palaeo-conservative political writer Paul Gottfried, with whom I usually agree, said that while nationalists in the 1930s had represented a threat to peace in Europe they no longer do so, but want to defend Europe. Clearly this is true and
is very important.

Pope St. John Paul II had the war in Bosnia in mind when he addressed  the United Nations on 5 October 1995 and said

In this context, we need to clarify the essential difference between an unhealthy form of nationalism, which teaches contempt for other nations or cultures, and patriotism, which is a proper love of ones country. True patriotism never seeks to advance the well-being of ones own nation at the expense of others. For in the end this would harm ones own nation as well: doing wrong damages both aggressor and victim. Nationalism, particularly in its most radical forms, is thus the antithesis of true patriotism, and today we must ensure that extreme nationalism does not continue to give rise to new forms of the aberrations of totalitarianism. This is a commitment which also holds true, obviously, in cases where religion itself is made the basis of nationalism, as unfortunately happens in certain manifestations of so-called "fundamentalism".

These wise words have been quoted as a rebuke to Matteo Salvini, but unlike Razvan Karadzic and Slobodan Milošević, Matteo Salvini and Viktor Orban do not threaten anyone. Their nationalism, if this is the right word for their policies, is purely defensive.