[TLDR (too long didn’t read): If you are reading this, chances are you care about HR. This Reader is about what political parties are doing and not doing and the implications this has for human rights. For a quick overview, just read the bolded text]. Note: You can easily translate the Readers to many languages, Use the app deepl.com and it is done instantaneously. It takes seconds to download the app into your computer or phone and translations are of high quality.
-Does this mix-up mean both Left and Right parties remain blind to the real threats, such as rapidly advancing nationalism and (eco)fascism?
1. This difficult to navigate Left and Right mix-up* is why many people are reverting to local and small-scale initiatives and believe that a real global resistance movement will eventually emerge from below promoting small-scale community links and actions for ‘those left behind’ –which is what neoliberals call these groups.** This points to what is felt is needed, namely, a universal movement against inequality, a movement where ethical and human rights (HR) values will reign and where people will truly believe in them. To get there, many will need to take an unescapable pragmatic approach, i.e., actively resist being co-opted by the ‘system’.
*: What is the Left supposed to be?: anti-capitalist, environmentalist, anti-imperialist and anti-militarist. What remains on the other side is the Right’s domain even if it calls itself green or ‘socialist’. (Oskar Lafontaine, Anne Applebaum)
**: Communities are not forgetfully left behind! It is the neoliberal policies that systematically exclude them. (Warda Rina)
2. Meanwhile, those on the Right are organizing themselves rapidly and well. So, it becomes clear that there has never been a more urgent need for a powerful countermovement. All dissident movements, large and small, are struggling because of a shrinking action space in most countries, because of the lack of resources and, more generally, due to the outright neoliberal dominance. The latter dominance sells people a new purportedly ‘compassionate governance’ that is totally apolitical and that leaves fighting inequality and for HR out of the agenda: welcome to the era of multistakeholderism.
3. Resistance to the ruling class*** continues to grow all over the world, but unfortunately in a totally fragmented way. At a time when globalization itself is crumbling, there is a need for a commonly shared counter narrative. It will have to be written by young people who recognize that the current fragmentation is a dead-end street. A lot of time has already been lost. (the above from Francine Mestrum)
***: We have a ‘testosteronic’ ruling class that is incapable of seeing the long term. (Roberto Savio)
Voters are starting to vote lining up with their cultural opinions, not their class interests
4. Unfortunately, that is good news for the parties of the Right [since they secure power, by relying on ‘clientelism’ –i.e., patronage or patron-client relations– typically based on regional, ethnic, tribal, religious or sectarian lines. (Jomo Sundaram)]. To stay afloat, the Left thus needs to win back the working-class voters it has lost. And to do that, it needs to demonstrate that it is able to enact policy in workers’ and in HR’s favor. We are witnessing a dramatic and devastating process of class dealignment: with almost no party successfully appealing to voters on the basis of class; and with non-economic issues coming to dominate voters’ decision-making –instead of their class interests. It is hard to find evidence that the shift is occurring, because class interests are being replaced by cultural and other affiliations. Workers have come to adopt a dimmer, more cynical, and more apathetic view of the world, as well as of their rights and of humanity.
5. A more left-wing economic agenda may have been alluring to this demographic. But the Left either did not see or ignored the writing on the wall, shifting instead toward more centrist economic politics. The problem is that advancing progressive cultural ideas in a vacuum is a recipe for class dealignment. Has the Left traded working-class support for the support of socially liberal professionals? Working-class frustration is consequently increasingly manifesting as political support for far-right populist positions that are cleverly pushing a culturally conservative agenda. (Julian Jacobs)
6. The traditional Right did not fare better. When it ran out of arguments –something that happened approximately at the beginning of this century– and when the perverse results of neoliberal reforms became evident in various parts of the world, new social movements rose up against power outside political parties. This changed the geography and the geometry of the resistance to capitalism. The capitalist system bet what, until then, had served it well, that is to co-opt those same movements thus diverting the discussions to what is secondary and taking away from the social forces their anti-capitalist essence. (Oleg Yasinsky)
7. Switch to the present: In times of crisis (think pandemic and Ukraine****), the boundaries of what is possible have widened in all directions; reactionary and progressive, sometimes in favor of the elites, sometimes for the benefit of the majority. The ability of the Left to strategically position itself in a context of these growing crises will be critical to its success or failure in the times ahead. Let it be said that the Right is adept at taking advantage of these moments of instability –or provoking them– to push its political agenda since a crisis can be the excuse to curtail the rights of the majority. (Naomi Klein, The Shock Doctrine). [The Extreme Right has also demonstrated its ability to take advantage of these crises to spread its hate speech].*****
****: Not being facetious: When some sculptor comes up with the idea of making a statue to political hypocrisy in international matters, the model to use is undoubtedly that of NATO. (Sergio Rodriguez G.)
*****: The groups or parties of the Extreme Right are authoritarian and profoundly antidemocratic; they favor an extreme economic neoliberalism (only in semblance libertarian) that, in practice, is deeply statist, oligarchic and oligopolistic with minimal social protection and with a far-flung repressive security and military apparatus. (Vicente Navarro)
8. Moreover, moments of crisis often relax political or bureaucratic resistance to progressive measures that seemed impossible or had been in a drawer. (The contradiction with the treatment of Ukrainian refugees and migrants and those of other origins is a HR scandal, but now we have an opportunity to make this hypocrisy visible and demand a dignified reception for all of them. Now we have the empirical demonstration that it was possible to welcome the fleeing; let us take advantage of it to ensure that welcoming is the norm, not the exception –and that, beyond the minimum initial humanitarian attention, equal rights of people are ensured). (Pablo Castaño)
Claudio Schuftan, Ho Chi Minh City
Your comments are welcome at schuftan@gmail.com
All Readers are available at www.claudioschuftan.com
Postscript/Marginalia
–Consider from Chomsky: “Politics is an interaction among groups of investors who compete for control of the state.” To rephrase, consider: “Politics is about: Who speaks, who is being spoken to, and for what purpose.” Politics is about power, who has it and how it is used. Politics looks at the forces affecting the society at large. The language we use represents this power nexus. (Planetary Health Weekly) This results in Babel: Babel is a metaphor for what is happening not only between within the Left and within the Right, but also between them and within universities, professional associations and even families. (The Atlantic)