Fascism is Back. We Need to Take it Seriously.

about 10 years ago

my son was born at the time i was living

overseas

in trinidad and tobago and he didn’t

have the right to citizenship of that

country

so we applied for his british passport

and it was rejected my son had become

stateless for a brief period this was

intensely stressful

as i tried to figure out what we were

going to do

in the end i was able to resolve the

situation because i had connections not

because i had rights

at the same time in my country britain

state security institutions

were imprisoning and deporting long-term

law residents

who were rendered stateless as a result

without rights

when media pressure forced a u-churn of

these policies

the same state institutions deliberately

went slow

on compensation and restitution leaving

some of the victims to die

penniless in exile i want to talk to you

today about

fascism it’s no longer a dark chapter of

20th century history

it’s back and it seems to be winning

let’s look at some examples

an unpopular government uses

unconstitutional means

to suspend the legislature in order to

force through

an ultra-nationalist political agenda

in another country a former army captain

comes to power after an explicitly

racist political campaign

he institutes new laws that remove

protections for

indigenous minorities and celebrates a

historic

coup that had led to decades of military

dictatorship

elsewhere an aggressively nationalist

ruler

makes himself ruler for life

he institutes a program of mass

incarceration of an ethnic minority

and also pursues unfounded territorial

claims against neighbours backed up with

military threats

somewhere else again a traditionally

secular state

a violent political movement seeks to

redefine

citizenship as based on religion

members of religious minorities are

subjected to violent

pogroms and estate terms are blind eye

historic places of worship are bulldozed

in an attempt to

erase the religious minorities right

to have ever been part of that country’s

story

and finally an authoritarian president

does everything he can to undermine

faith in the outcome of an election that

he’s clearly lost

in a final desperate throw of the dice

he whips his supporters up into a

violent

frenzy and their attempt an insurrection

against the country’s legislature and of

course i’m talking about the events of

the 6th of january in washington dc

you might recognize some of the other

examples

the british government suspending

parliament

the fascist presidency of bolsonaro in

brazil

the suppression of the uyghurs in china

the ultra nationalist hindu movement in

india

okay so i’m a liberal and i don’t like

those politics but is it fascism do we

need to use the f

word is this even a useful term

if we call people fascist do we lose the

argument before it’s even begun

well fascism doesn’t actually have a

single dictionary definition but it’s

ultra nationalism expressed in violent

and authoritarian ways and because

fascism is nationalist

it takes a different form in every

country in the 20th century in the uk

fascists were obsessed with the history

of england oliver cromwell henry viii

if you look in india fascism has tried

to incorporate

ancient ideas of hindu nationalism into

its belief system

in america fascists are trying to align

their activities with the history

of america’s revolutionaries against the

british colonial rule

it’s always taking that national form

and the other thing about fascism is

this confusion with nazism

nazism was fascism but not all fascists

are nazis

so if we use that word we’re not saying

that these people are behaving like

hitler

but you don’t have to behave like hitler

to merit the description of fascism

authoritarian nationalism is always a

bad thing it always brings with it

oppression arbitrary arrest and

imprisonment

violence denials of minorities rights

we can’t just stand around and say don’t

worry they haven’t opened any

concentration camps yet as if that means

things are still okay

so why are these things happening well

there are lots of factors

some unrelated but they all come

together the traditional media has

become hyper partisan

look at the way fox news has covered the

aftermath of the insurrection in america

constantly saying well we need to bring

the country together

and yet fox news has done more to put

the country apart

than almost any other channel

social media concentrates people into

bubbles they’re only talking to people

they already agree with or people who

hold

similar but more extreme views than

themselves

and there’s a dislocation associated

with globalization

many communities seeing their

traditional industries and places of

work close down

the resulting disaffection with

democratic politics

is obvious in 2008 40 percent of people

in democracies were dissatisfied by 2020

that figure is 60

and the numbers are higher in the larger

democracy such as the usa

and finally there’s the pandemic effect

of fascist politics itself

it drives fear and hostility between

countries further empowering ultra

nationalism

and that has led to a concomitant

collapse of the global order

nobody believes in the un or the eu

anymore

it’s all about my country first america

first britain first china first

might overwrite

in spite of that fascists will work

together across international boundaries

if it’s in their interests

you look at the example of trump

addressing hindu nationalist rallies in

india

or trump’s advisor steve bannon helping

far-right parties in europe get to power

vladimir putin funding again far

right across the world so

fascists will work together while

liberals are dissipated and divided

so why does this matter well

you don’t have to wait for nazism for

fascism to be a problem

i proposed this talk last year long

before the events of the 6th of january

but let’s see where that has led a

violent insurrection

at the american congress

and there are other effects all over the

world the destruction of the brazil’s

rainforest

rise in sectarian violence in india

these are all features of 21st century

fascism

fascists work together as we’ve seen if

their nationalist aims

coincide but fascism stops countries

from working together in the global

interest

if we’re going to tackle the climate

emergency fascists have to lose power

but perhaps the most important point is

that fascism isn’t democracy it’s not

what the people want

donald trump lost the election by

millions of votes

boris johnson may have a large

parliamentary majority in the uk

but he got that from 43 percent of the

vote

rodrigo duterte in the philippines a

outright fascist

won his election on 39 of the vote

it’s not that fascists are what the

people want

it’s just that fascists are better at

taking and holding on to power

so what can we do i think there are

three things

we have to fight complacency

if we look at recent events brexit the

election of trump

there’s been many occasions when people

rather lazily thought they knew what the

outcome was going to be

we have to recognize that there’s a

problem and take

action we can’t wait for things to

happen

now if you’re not happy with the f word

i don’t mind that much

but we can’t pretend that normal

politics is in play at the moment

the second thing is i think we need to

educate ourselves

i’ve done some research on this i’ve

seen that half the world’s population

are currently living in countries run by

ultra nationalists let’s learn about

that

let’s learn about how fascists operate

they dehumanize their opponents they

make them stateless they take away their

rights

but the other thing they do is they

break

constitutional orders they behave in

ways

that cause accepted methods and

behaviors

to disappear look at what happened in

america

america’s constitution relied on the

loser of a presidential election

accepting the result and conceding the

refusal to do that

has created what could easily turn into

a violent insurgency in that country

and let’s recognize that this is a

global fight

it’s not enough to worry about elections

in your own country alone

you’ve got to think about what’s

happening to democracy everywhere

educate yourself about the struggles of

the democratic movement in hong kong for

example

look at what’s going on in india realize

that this is a global issue

now there are things we probably

shouldn’t do

shouting you’re a fascist at the

supporters of ultra nationalism probably

isn’t going to help very much

we have to strengthen the appeal of the

other side

many of the people who’ve been dragged

into supporting these politics are

people

who feel that they’ve lost their way

they’ve run out of options

we’ve got to give them reasons to leave

those politics behind

so final thoughts i think a lot of

people thought

that if joe biden won the election in

america

this would be a great setback for the

politics of

violence of white nationalism of

anti-democratic forces but what we’ve

seen is the opposite

it’s not just about the elections it’s

about the norms of behavior

the norms of political behavior are

being attacked

by fascists we have to stand firm

we have to reject that and we have to

remain vigilant

you