In the brave new world of coronavirus-inspired neologisms, floating through cyberspace like colourful soap bubbles, it was simply a matter of time. If we have covidiots, covidivorces and coronoias, why not also have coronationalism? The first to spot the obvious pun – at least so omniscient Google tells us – was Ko Colijn, a senior research fellow at Clingendael, the Netherlands Institute of International Relations, who used the term as the title of a piece he wrote for Clingendael Spectator on 18 March.
A few days later, it cropped up again just across the border, in an article written by Cindy Franssen, the Belgian MEP for the Christian Democrat CD&V, in De Morgen. Both Colijn and Franssen were critical of the nationalist responses spurred by the COVID-19 pandemic. Accusing her party’s coalition partner, the far right New Flemish Alliance (N-VA), of spreading misinformation about the coronavirus crisis, Franssen denounced what she referred to as “coronationalism”. Colijn was more categorical; the virus has shown that “national sovereignty is an illusion” and “solidarity punctures illusions”.
With or without the pun, and irrespective of attitudes towards it, this seems to be the consensus. Much like the killer who never dies in B-rated American horror movies, nationalism is back, or so we are told. “Nationalism rears its head as Europe battles coronavirus with border controls”, opines a headline in Los Angeles Times. “The nation-state is making a comeback, fuelled by this extraordinary crisis”, says Gideon Rachman of The Financial Times. “The outbreak has been a gift to nativist nationalists and protectionists”, writes Philippe Legrain in Foreign Policy. The coup de grâce comes from a happily relaxed Nigel Farage, sipping his wine in a maroon jumper and what Evening Standard described as “excruciatingly short shorts” on a Facebook Live video: “We are all nationalists now.”
