Tragedy or Farce?

Back in 2016 I wondered if we were living in “Weimar Little England”.

The current BBC series on the rise of the Nazis (the timing of which must have upset some of the Brexiteers), coinciding as it does with Johnson’s proposed prorogation of Parliament, brings to mind the observation; “the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce.”

Our contemporary crop of right-wing populists (Trump, Bolsonoro, Modi, Johnson etc.) do not (yet?) appear quite the same as the outright fascists of the 1930s, but then those same fascists did not at first appear as they are now seen.

Certainly, a pernicious nationalism is rampant, whether it is expressed in the treatment of children on the border of Trump’s USA, the claim that it is Brazil’s right to burn the Amazon, the oppression of Kashmir or the promotion of a “no deal” Brexit (and comparing our country to others is a useful reminder of how small the UK is).

The right-wing populists of the present are unlikely to evolve exactly as their predecessors did a little less than a century ago – because they have arisen in different global circumstances. In the 1930s elements of the European ruling class flirted (and more than flirted) with fascism as a bulwark against a threat from the left.

The fascists of the 1930s were a brutal response to the threat of socialism. Today – sadly – there is no grave threat to capitalism from the organised working class in its heartlands, nor is there any external threat as was once posed by the Soviet Union.

In the second decade of the twenty first century it is simply the case that capital no longer needs to fend off a threat from a combative working class with social welfare, civil liberty and democratic rights.

However, that does not mean that we can be reassured that our contemporary farce will be less brutal and dangerous than the tragedy of the past. In the context of the climate crisis, we are in a world where humanity could choose to respond with international cooperation – but probably won’t.

Right wing nationalism everywhere will instead identify “others” who should be excluded from rights or from access to resources, whether these are Central American refugees trying to cross the Rio Grande, indigenous people trying to defend the Amazon or Muslim citizens in Kashmir (or elsewhere in India).

Here in “Weimar Little England” this “othering” will rely in particular upon racism, extending its victims to include (white) Europeans who might not previously have expected to be on the receiving end of the bigotry which is barely beneath the surface of English nationalism. There is no reason to suppose that right-wing populism in this country will be gentler or more civilised than elsewhere in the world.

Boris Johnson is aiming for a General Election in which he will seek to represent an idea of “the people” which excludes those “others”. We need a different, inclusive, idea of “the people” based upon the popular mobilisations which are taking place against the prorogation of Parliament if we are to direct that mobilisation into support for progressive socialist policies in that General Election.

We are not doomed to repeat past tragedies as either tragedy or farce.