I had the privilege of speaking at the Future of Nations Conference 2026 hosted by Lex Libertas last week, on a panel about lawfare in the changing world order. I emphasised that individuals and peoples who are concerned about their vital interests cannot continue to uncritically defer to the whims of lawmakers.
The conference’s name speaks for itself: do nations (to be strictly distinguished from countries and states) have a future, what does that future look like, what are the risks, and how can we improve that future? It is expected to be an annual event amidst this rapid realignment of international forces.
Obviously some have already taken to calling this a “right-wing” or even “far-right” gathering, further indicative of the vibes-based “analysis” that passes for authentic today.
Self-determination declaration
The whole conference built up to the adoption of the “Declaration on Self-Governance and Political Responsibility”. If the finger-waggers are to be believed, you would imagine that this is the second edition of Benito Mussolini’s “The Doctrine of Fascism”. Decide for yourself:
“We, the undersigned participants of the Future of Nations Conference 2026:
Affirm that political order must be grounded in reality, responsibility, and legitimate self-government with recognition of community dynamics and personal liberty;
Recognise that excessive centralisation, detached from social, cultural, and economic realities weakens accountability and erodes stability; and
Conclude that where political systems fail to provide security, prosperity, and legitimacy, it is both necessary and lawful to explore alternative arrangements rooted in decentralisation and autonomy.
We therefore affirm that:
Decentralisation strengthens accountability and responsibility;
Self-governance and self-determination are legitimate and established political principles;
Political change must be pursued peacefully and according to the principles of constitutionalism; and
Durable stability depends on restoring the link between authority and the communities it serves.”
As a liberal individualist with a healthy scepticism of communitarianism that flirts with state power, I could find nothing objectionable in this statement of principles.
Indeed, classical liberal individualists were well represented at the conference. These included myself, David Ansara (CEO of the Free Market Foundation), Adv Mark Oppenheimer (President of the Institute of Race Relations), and Esma Kurtlu (who represented the US-based Independent Institute).
But the conference also included European welfare-statists who believe that the state – and specifically not the market economy – needs to empower the nation and its vulnerable members. Aside from the “vibes”, these people were clearly more leftist-inclined participants from the perspective of public policy.
“Right-wing” gathering
The only thing that ostensibly made the Future of Nations Conference a “right-wing” gathering – other than the vibes – is that all the participants, like all halfway sensible people, believe in the decentralisation of political power and that in-group preferences are not inherently evil. There was a time when decentralisation was a key principle of leftist “community organising” – no more, I am afraid.
To be completely clear: It is an exceedingly small group of elites (virtually not one non-elite among them) who believe there is something inherently wrong with people choosing to associate with those who speak, think, pray, and/or look like them. They pretend to be “above” this when in practical reality they, too, live it out, manifested in whom they tend to marry and where they tend to live.
Atheists go out of their way to ensure their children are not placed in schools with a religious dimension. The most progressive whites tend to be found married to and living in neighbourhoods of people who generally look like them. Deeply conservative blacks tend to associate with whites who also think like them.
This is how human beings are wired, even if it is “arbitrary” once you reach some level of abstraction (as most things are). This all happens virtually entirely at the subconscious level, and despite what some claim today, “bigotry” cannot be anything other than conscious. It is normal, and we should resist efforts to “de-normalise” it.
So what makes the “vibes” of the Future of Nations Conference “right-wing”? If I were to overthink it, I would submit that it has something to do with the general tendency of the participants – leftist or rightist – to support more severe immigration restrictions (something I do not support).
But that would be an overanalysis.
The vibe that makes this a “right-wing” gathering is that it was largely a gathering of individuals who happen to have white skins and did not spend half the time apologising directly or indirectly for their very existence.
And, of course, Dr Ernst Roets was involved, and anything Roets is involved with – regardless of what he actually believes, writes, or says – is inherently far-right. Trust me, News24 assured me that this is so.
Liberalism and nationalism: A complex interaction
Western nationalists today – and the Future of Nations Conference was no exception in this regard – like to proclaim liberalism as the source of all the woes today facing Western civilisation. Their annoyance goes off the charts when reminded that liberalism, which they declare to be upstream from progressivism, is in fact also upstream from nationalism itself as well.
Progressivism took liberalism’s insight on the imperative of individual self-determination and stretched it out of liberalism’s (legal-political) domain into the social domain. Progressives absolutised this insight into notions such as that men can decide to become women – and everyone by law has to recognise this “fact” – and trespassers on private property have to have their “rights” respected.
Nationalism, the far younger brother to liberalism, took the latter’s insight that it is the “will of the people”, not the will of kings or the political elite, that must rule, and stretched it away from its natural rights meaning towards one premised on group entitlement.
Nothing makes either progressivism or nationalism incompatible with liberalism. As I wrote before, under the heading “Liberal order is best for conservatives and progressives”, nationally inclined projects like Orania are only conceivably possible within a constitutional framework of liberty, and the only order in which “grand-narratives” rejected by postmodernists can be resisted is a liberal one.
State and culture
Nationalism becomes problematic when married to statism. But in the very same vein, liberalism becomes problematic when married to culture.
Liberalism is decidedly statist in that it is only concerned with the state and what it must and may do. There is no “liberalism” divorced from political authority, and this is how it should be. Liberalism infused with culture does not compute with reality, and descends into totalitarian progressivism where cultural elites seek ultimately to first Anglicise everyone so there can be no more “bigotry” and then turn them into perfectly interchangeable consumers of economic products.
Nationalism, on the other hand, is decidedly cultural and concerned only with the community and its self-organisation. That, too, is how it should be. When nationalism infuses with statism, it descends into totalitarian chauvinism, where political elites seek to coercively “purify” society of non-national elements and then ensure all the foot-soldiers of the group march to the exact tune of said elite.
Both paths – liberalism as a cultural phenomenon, nationalism as a state phenomenon – lead to the destruction of both liberty and nation.
The flirtation of many countries in Europe with progressivism threatens to destroy the nations that inhabit them and the everyday liberty that people there once took for granted – such as the guarantee of not being raped in the streets of Sweden or Britain.
The flirtation by countries like Germany, Japan, and South Africa and many more besides with national-statism brought a century of humiliation and shame to the German people and several decades of existential dread to Afrikaners. The end of Nazism in Germany, Kokkashugi in Japan, and so-called Christian Nationalism in South Africa immediately birthed comparatively free societies.
Liberalism addresses itself to basic justice only: the framework of living together in harmony. Basic justice is that bare minimum of rules of order that virtually every conceivable community worldwide would accept without contention.
And nationalism (and religion, with which it virtually always goes) addresses itself to substantive justice: the framework of living a good and meaningful life. Substantive justice entails those values and culturally contingent presuppositions about which there are wild disagreements between communities locally and globally.
Lived experiences
We know what the liberal minimal state looks like.
The United States of America illustrated this over many centuries, and there is a remarkably successful experiment in Argentina today already paying dividends. The state concerns itself primarily with the minimisation of violence, not creating Heaven on Earth.
We also know what voluntarist nationalism looks like.
The Solidarity and Orania movements in South Africa are the absolute global standard-setters. There is no hint of coercion or social engineering in these initiatives, only voluntary self-organisation and self-grown prosperity.
And it should be clear to everyone that as far as a truly national movement is concerned, the Solidarity Movement in South Africa is leading the pack.
Most of the others, especially those still in the warm embrace of their own North American or European nanny-states, remain engaged in a kind of pretend-nationalism where they say “our people” this, that, and the other, but continue to operate with a mindset of outsourced responsibility.
“Our people need universities, which the state must build!” they cry. Solidarity built an academic university, a university of technology, and a vocational training centre.
“Our people need safety, which the state must provide!” they bleat. Solidarity has a growing network of hundreds of private and community security initiatives, including a private prosecution unit.
“Our people need a national-centric press, which the state must regulate!” they yell. Solidarity has launched a newspaper, community radio, and streaming service.
I could go on.
South Africa’s lessons for the future of nations
The “nationalists” of the modern West see “nation-building” as the purview of the state and political elite. This is a horrifyingly backwards understanding that not only created conditions for tyranny throughout history, but is actively collapsing Western civilisation before our eyes after the same “nation-building” infrastructure was weaponised against the West.
The Solidarity and Orania movements are building their nation brick by brick, street by street, in practical, tangible reality. And they are doing it and funding it entirely by themselves, because Afrikaners still want a future as Afrikaners in South Africa. This is a model to copy, not only by South Africa’s and the world’s various nations, but its religious and other interest groups as well.
This is why it is important for nationally minded people from around the world to come to South Africa and observe authentic, moral, voluntarist national-centredness in practice. The Lex Libertas initiative is therefore to be commended.
[Image: Laurenz Heymann on Unsplash]
The views of the writer are not necessarily the views of the Daily Friend or the IRR.
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