Elena Basile discusses the rise of right-wing populism in Europe, emphasizing that it represents the marginalized classes left behind by globalization and neglected by both center-right and center-left politics. She criticizes European leaders for their failure to create an alternative project, their double standards, and their betrayal of human rights, which have led to the resurgence of fascist ideologies. Basile argues that without a clear analysis of these social and cultural transformations, the trend of a violent, uneducated right will continue. She calls for a reclamation of universalist humanism and a rejection of nationalism and illiberal neoliberalism.
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by Elena Basile
Deep France, provincial and petty bourgeois France, racist France of the “No-where” rises and takes the lead. The rise of so-called right-wing populisms is not new. It is a consolidated trend in affluent democracies. In Scandinavia, Germany, the Netherlands, but also in Mediterranean countries, from the Meloni phenomenon to Golden Dawn in Greece to Vox in Spain, we witness the rise of movements that revive racist myths, valuing particularism over universalist humanism. However, radical right-wing parties represent the classes penalized by globalization, the disadvantaged and uneducated classes, those who do not travel by plane to be everywhere, the “no-where.”
The marginalized who once voted left, along with a now-vanished class, the proletariat, as manufacturing has disappeared, now vote for a new fascism. The social bloc of the left has disappeared. In the tertiary society, precarious and dequalified work prevails, also geographically changing in the global society, inclined to vote against – against neoliberal and illiberal Europe – reviving ancient anti-Semitic myths. Naturally, these phenomena, which we have already known and lived with for years, are also due to the blindness of the European ruling class that has not been capable of an alternative project. The center-right and center-left have competed to dismantle solidarity, social and industrial policies, investments in common goods. They have implemented racist policies against migrants. They have killed the humanist universalism that was the foundation of European culture and was born with the declaration of universal rights. They have betrayed human rights with the most blatant application of double standards.
Macron, who turned away the wretched at the Italian border and in the Channel, now wants to be credible in his indignation for the advancing fascism. Macron, who solidarizes with Israel much like Le Pen, wants to make voters believe that he represents rights against violence. The Europe of Scholz and Macron, down to Renzi, Calenda, and Minniti who made ignoble deals on the backs of migrants and are complicit with Israel in its ethnic cleansing program, have no credibility against fascism. They have even reneged on peace by inventing Western nationalism and betraying the culture of mediation and diplomacy, which, after the disasters of the two world wars, was an essential component of anti-fascism. The “left” has abandoned social rights, hiding behind the facade of civil rights, exaggerated to the point of sex changes and hormonal treatments for minors, the use of the neutral gender to deny sexual identity in childhood. Cleaning up language, creating meaningless slogans, erasing complexity and culture has been and remains the program of the “progressive” militias who do not realize they are imitating dictatorial methods. Borrell and Von der Leyen demonize Russia, but embrace Turkey or Saudi Arabia and turn a blind eye to the massacre in Gaza. They allow themselves to stigmatize Russia’s censorship of Western media, claiming that Western media are free and Russians should drink from this objective information source, while we Europeans must fight Kremlin disinformation by blocking Russian newspapers, websites, television, and radio. It would be laughable if it weren’t so tragic. Liberals, populists, and the center-left are the primary responsible for the degeneration that has defeated collective identities and brought forth in the liquid, atomized society – where morality and happiness do not surpass the individual dimension – blocks of embittered individuals, not communities, seeking revenge from their miseries in hatred and hostility against Jews, migrants, and Muslims.
Without a clear analysis of the social and cultural transformations coined by illiberal neoliberalism and a left fashioned after the US Democrats, the current trends of a crude, violent, and uncultured right will not stop. One cannot defend the unconditional cession of sovereignty to this Europe that has an evident democratic deficit without fueling nationalism. Nor can one continue to support European defense when it has become the weapon of US, not European, interests. One cannot only victimize Jews without asking with Moni Ovadia, Ilan Pappé, and Gideon Levy who today’s Jews are and respond in unison: the Palestinians, the underpaid and tortured migrants, the Roma, the Muslims subjected to Islamophobia. This is how a Jewish, Christian, liberal, and leftist humanism is reclaimed.
Il Fatto Quotidiano, July 3, 2024
