Wednesday, October 03, 2007

The Common Enemy revisited - pt1

Just to clarify a couple of points from that last post...

My suggestion that people with contrasting ’Left’ and ‘Right’ Wing views might have a common enemy and their own common purpose is not the same thing as suggesting that racism, xenophobia or Hate in general is something that people can overlook.

However, I do find it fascinating how people’s opposition to something like expansion of the role of the EU for example is framed and shaped by their political views

  • Those with right-leaning beliefs who oppose the EU may do so on the basis that it impinges on national sovereignty
  • Those with left leaning beliefs who oppose the EU may do so on the basis that it is undemocratic and initiatives such as a common currency make it much easier for corporations to shift capital and jobs from place to place, playing one group of workers against the other

The underlying causes for their rejection of the EU as it stands are essentially very similar – a fear of unrepresentative elitist hegemony – but that shared concern is obscured by some of the baggage associated with Left and Ring Wing belief systems

…and the language people use

When I think about the possible negative impact of the EU my concern is that it may become a fully Fascist entity - a seamless integration of industry and government, controlled by an unaccountable few

Yet other people, more Right Wing people, chuck terms like ‘Communist’ and ‘Marxist’ around when talking about the EU

So, is the EU really all things to all people - Communist, Marxist and Fascist - or is the language we use letting us down?

I am not discounting the fact that there are fundamental differences between people with Left and Right Wing views of how the world should work but I do believe that flexibility of thought is constrained by mass media promotion of restrictive terminology and pre-packaged ideology

I also believe that this is deliberate

Maybe I’ve read Orwell too many times

.

4 comments:

Rory Winter said...

I support a European Union and I have no problem with using the Euro as I did when I lived in Spain for two years.

There IS a European Left about which our home-grown variety appears to remain stubbornly unaware. That's why I refer to Little Englanders. Brits are, by nature, xenophobic and consider themselves somehow superior to Continentals.

The very fact that Brits refer to 'Europe' as another place is a dead giveaway. They seem to hate the fact that they live IN Europe!

In the 'nineties I was involved in a very successful campaign to save the dolphins and other cetacea in the Moray Firth. Instead of wasting my time campaigning at Westminster I went straight to Brussels and Strasbourg and got the big guns of the European Commission on our side.

I was impressed by the open and people-friendly nature of both the European Parliament and the European Commission and that experience left me a convinced pro-EUer which I remain.

It was in the 'nineties that the Commission and Parliament were hijacked by the neoconservatives and the multinationals and when democracy was forced onto the back-burner.

But to blame 'Europe' for that is a serious mistake and just echoes the Murdoch newspapers who'd have Britain out of the EU and into NAFTA (North American Free Trade Association).

It falls into the Tory trap of opposing the European Human Rights Convention whose content is caricatured and distorted by the traditional, authoritarian Right who would have us remain as subjects not citizens.

As a European I would always choose to throw my lot in with the European Left and continue the struggle as a European rather than from a NAFTA banana republic.

The problem we are faced with at all levels in contemporary Britain is one of introversion and defeat. Goering was right when in the 1940's he predicted that in twenty years time Britain would be an overcroweded little island dwelling on the glories of its past.

As long as we dwell in our fantasies we shall continue the deterioration.

Stef said...

There IS a European Left about which our home-grown variety appears to remain stubbornly unaware

For sure

I can't speak for Spain but I know Italy pretty well and there's a vibrancy in its politics and political expression that's certainly missing here in the UK

What are the chances of the British Left successfully holding a 'Go Fuck Yourself Day' targeted at the political elite...

http://151.1.253.1/vaffanculoday/

Stef said...

and FWIW personally I'm all for closer ties with Europe not least because my family come from 'There'

Rory Winter said...

"What are the chances of the British Left successfully holding a 'Go Fuck Yourself Day' targeted at the political elite..."

Brill! The risk, however, is that they'd be saying it to each other :-(