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“The remarkable feature of the geopolitical turn in the western Left is the degree of its overlapping with the agenda of the far-right. Its most obvious appearance is the whole set of unifying concepts of the enemy. Those are United States, NATO, European Union, ‘corrupted’ elites and so forth. Although there are notable exceptions both on the Left and on the Right, anti-Americanism and Euroscepticism became a predominant trend on the both sides. Particularly noteworthy is the general correlation between the degree of anti-Americanism and anti-Semitism. The more anti-Americanism becomes the central part of the worldview, the clearer it shows its anti-Semitic connotations. As judged against the backdrop of the situation in Germany, this applies to the far Left at least as much as to the far Right. It is important not only to state their common enemies, but also to investigate the criteria used for their selection. I would argue that the bonding substance of this construct is anti-liberalism. “This is not solely about hatred of the United States. As we can judge by the German Left, even hardened anti-Americanists were able to change their stance as soon as the White House was overtaken by an outspoken anti-liberal. The fact that this could be justified by some ‘geopolitical’ considerations only attests that the new turn in the western Left is not about geopolitics at all. “The same applies to Russia. For the western Left the country was, under Yeltsin, not an inspiration. The true excitement was triggered first by Russia’s military adventures abroad, justified (and cheerfully accepted by the Left) as a part of the grand battle against western expansionism. The crucial thing is that, both in the case of Ukraine and Syria, Russia fought pro-democratic revolts aimed at bringing down dictatorship and defending civil liberties. It is no accident that the western Left was not moved by the Chechen war, although it was even more brutal than the both the war in Syria and Ukraine and could be somehow defended from the standpoint of international law (as far as Russia, still being an empire, at least acted within its internationally recognized boarders). We can be quite sure that if and when Russia becomes a normal, democratic and peaceful state it will also cease to be an inspiration for the international radical Left. “The ‘geopolitical nature’ of the sympathies and aversions of this new red-brown coalition is determined by the single factor of anti-liberalism. ‘Red-brown alliance’ is not a term which everyone will like. How legitimate it is? The alliance to which I refer is not limited to content-related overlaps, but has reached a degree of coordinated action. German leftists’ support of the rightwing detachments like Prizrak would be just one of many examples for such direct cooperation.” https://www.eurozine.com/how-right-is-the-left/ _________________________________________________________ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
