Far-Right Identity Politics and the Task for the Left
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- Published on Wednesday, 05 June 2019 10:12
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A Socialist Project e-bulletin ... No. 1830 ... May 21, 2019
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Far-Right Identity Politics and the Task for the Left
Jeff Noonan
Identity politics is a key problem of our age, but the problem is typically misunderstood. Usually the left is vilified by the right for encouraging divisive politics rooted in the grievances of different minority groups. These groups are denounced for pursuing selfish agendas that harm the unity of the nation. The right then portrays itself as the guardian of the nations’ unity. In so doing, it identifies its agenda with the universal values and interests of all people.
Those who disagree with the agenda are portrayed as enemies of the people, even in the case that all the opponents added together make up a majority of "the people" in whose interests the right-wing... populists claim to speak. Hence, the deepest problem with identity politics is not that people fight against their experiences of oppression on the basis of those aspects of their identity that their oppressors demonize, but that right wing populists falsely identify their particular program with universal values and human interests. Too often, critics on the left who want to defend targeted groups from demonizing rhetoric and oppressive political power make the mistake of rejecting universal human values and interests, rather than the false identification constructed by the right-wing populist movement.
Let us look at how these constructions work in a little more detail. Take the example of the recent Israeli election. In the midst of the campaign, Benjamin Netanyahu openly asserted what had always been true in practice: that although they enjoy formally equal rights, Arab Israelis cannot be true members of Israeli society, because Israel is a Jewish state. Netanyahu was confident that this overtly racist downgrading of Arab-Israeli citizenship would survive the gasps of indignation which always accompany awful truths being spoken in polite liberal company because he has been emboldened by a wave of right-wing populism that operates on the same logic.