Second, the rise of nationalism undermines the movement towards transnational co-operation and even threatens the stability of the world. The USSR and Yugoslavia have not split up as a consequence of progressive idealism seeking to build a closer and more interdependent world but in order to promote separatism and cultural distinction. This leads almost inexorably to a falsely protective nationalism within countries. The conflicts that are going on in Central and Eastern Europe are increasingly replicated within western European countries. There is no way of building a secure and stable society without harmonious relationships between all who live in it, whatever their background.
Liberalism recognises the dangers of compromise on such a delicate and crucial principle.
Third, the rise of fundamentalism threatens the civil society which is necessary for Liberal democracy. The response of political movements based on individual or collective materialism to the rise of Muslim fundamentalism across the Arab world, and its importation into Britain over the Salman Rushdie affair, has been feeble. The lack of intellectual rigour supporting the case for the civil society and demonstrating the impossibility of basing democracy on other than rational views has been most marked. The situation in Algeria exemplifies the problem, where the non-fundamentalist parties assented to a resort to militarism to prevent the FIS coming to power democratically. Since then a well supported and successful initiative to secure the election of an executive President has failed to prevent the continuance of violence and of assassinations by the Islamic fundamentalists.