The Rejuvenation Of Ethnonationalism; Onrushing Stripping Of Human Dignity
By Farhaan Wahab –FEBRUARY 1, 2020
Farhaan Wahab
“What the far right visualizes and prepare for is not a frontal seizure of power but a hurricane from below, carried out by a widespread and pliable mass of the wretched of this earth led by a well-disciplined counterrevolutionary elite.” ~ Aijaz Ahmad; In theory, Class, Nation, Literature
The rejuvenation of far-right in the Western Hemisphere was contagious.
Ethno-nationalist authoritarian-right are rampaging across the world. Dictatorial figures who have appalling past of advocating race supremacy, xenophobia are being elected. One democratic country after another comes in the hands of the proponents of ethno-nationalist cults which similarly emulate each other regardless of geographical and cultural factors.
In the post-colonial nations and the western democracies, nationalism has become a seductive antidote offered to the societies that are exposed to suffering. The failure of post-colonial nation-building, mimicry of modernity, Neoliberal seduction and the rising inequality that is created by the so-called free-market capitalism have been the major contributing factors to this increasing trend. This idea is often interpreted through an exclusive nationalist language.
As Pankaj Mishra writes in his book Age of anger “Nationalism is more than ever before, a mystification, if not a dangerous fraud with its promise of making a country “great again” and its demonisation of the other; it conceals the real condition of existence, and the true origins of sufferings, even as it seeks to replicate the comforting balm of transcendental ideals within a bleak, earthly horizon “.
As a result, highly diverse nations polarised on a specific basis which eventually turning them into a moronic inferno. This picture is similar to Max Weber’s despairing diagnosis of the modern world as an “iron cage” in which those who are subjected to immense suffering, seek escape only through the false promises of a charismatic leader.
In the case of Sri Lanka, despite their bitter nightmarish experience with Mahinda dynasty, once again the majority have chosen to prolong their reign. This time, racial and cultural anaesthesia blended with nationalism – boosted after Easter Sunday tragedy -was dripped to collective conscious by media pundits and prominent hate peddlers.
Consequently, the majoritarian society that had been in a long search for a strong Sinhala man found its Dutugemunu over the demise of minorities political aspirations.
Now We have a president who is an alleged war criminal responsible for the slaughtering of more than 40,000 Tamils in Mullivaikal and hundreds of forced disappearances along with the murders of journalists.
The problem with such leadership at the national level is you get people to talk and behave in a violent manner. Needless to say, that goes along with rioting impulses against those who are considered as excluded or the ‘other’.
At a point, these secondary characteristics are likely to define the collective conscious. We have already seen how this particular aspect has worked after the election victory of wannabe despot Gotabaya Rajapaksa. Attacks on minorities and the supporters of the opposition increased in many folds.
The so-called strong man is the embodiment of popular racism and majoritarian chauvinism. Existence of his power gives shape to such widely shared attributes (read it as insanities). The man and his family got a great penchant for corruption and illegal wealth accumulation.
Some might disagree with this point but from the beginning, this particular family has exhibited its extreme lust for greed. The new money with irresistible urge to display and excise power. Unlike Modi in India or other right-wing macho counterparts, he has no deeper dogmatic roots, a family with politicians and bureaucrats that managed its way from its middle-class background to all the way up to find itself in an affluent position. Now it is forced to breathe power so that it can protect its wealth, but that’s not the end of it. Fascism is a parasite that always finds its incubator in figures like Gotabaya who are inherently accommodative. Already Neo liberal bubble is further fueled and seen a smooth track to carry out its economic onslaught.
When such misadventures badly backfire in order to consolidate their power, figures like Gota who hold significant tendencies for Militarised Totalitarianism would tend to ease the situation through nurturing constant hostility towards the minorities and other disfranchised people.
Characteristically Gotabaya does not fit into the typical definition of a demagogue, but his political presence has been the embodiment of demagoguery that is carefully nurtured to alter the political landscape of Sri Lanka. Rhetorics of Sinhala nationalism found its long searched-finest a grade strong man to demonstrate its majoritarian power.
When a self-proclaimed strong man with authoritarian tendencies seize power,
1. They wipe out the opposition with a significant margin and make them vulnerable.
2. They give most seductive speeches about development, infrastructure and economy, to the insecure middle class that is endlessly dreaming of joining the elite club.
The lumpen proletariats as Chris hedges write are more often the enemy of the revolution and the natural ally of fascists. They gravitate to the reactionary armed vigilante groups, lured by the intoxication of violence, and build their warped ideology around conspiracy theorists and hate-mongering nationalists.
We see this among some Trump supporters and white militias and hate groups all over the world.
They (strong man) represent the desires that are residing on the subconscious mind of the middle class. So the strong man continues to feed such neon light dreams. Sometimes they carry out particular development projects which have no relevance to working classes or underprivileged classes. Nothing adds any value to them but the middle class would continue to get this euphoric pleasure from a distance, remember how middle class celebrated the inauguration of lotus tower and highway projects. As Walter Benjamin said “Our alienated middle class experienced its destruction as an aesthetic pleasure of first order.” the ostentatious trash was a personal insult to the poor. What middle class forgets to notice is while they are at this euphoria, the government is dismantling the democratic institutions and gradually, the state is moving towards a military regime.
Every day tabloids carry the news of former army personnel being appointed to democratic institutions. Once you establish yourself as an influential person who brings fortune to the country, you get a free license to act upon your own desire. Freedom of expression or civil liberties loses its characteristics in the system.
The middle class do not worry about losing them because those have no meanings in the alienated middle-class apolitical life.
Our insensitivity toward the violence on minorities is appalling. Apathy is a collectively shared national trait of Sri Lanka at large. In the post-colonial Sri Lanka, we have been through many riots, slaughtering and mob violence.
None of the victims of pogroms received any justice. Justice for victims of mass violence is not luxury that a tiny country like Sri Lanka cannot afford. But as customary and international law, binding all the states, the international human rights system defines justice as redressal for victims and survivors.
Thousands of people are still weeping for their loved ones, lost in the treacherous political conflicts.
Whenever we face a national crisis, euphoric youth on Facebook often shout out for one nation, one country. They have been repeatedly told by the so-called patriotic forces that Sri Lanka has to be homogenised to be united.
This notion was imported from India. RSS’s slogan has been about the homogenisation of India on the Hindu nationalist line. Enthusiasts think this is a call of an epochal revolution that will change the country. But what their euphoria prevents them from seeing is the true meaning of the slogan ‘One nation’ which is an outright calling for minorities to give up on their uniqueness and embrace sinhalisation.
This proto-fascist slogan that radically denies the difference and multilateral social arena have found its place among urban youths and rural communities.
This particular slogan has replaced the word solidarity, even minorities also sometimes use this phrase to express their loyalty toward the country ( often after being subjected to pogrom ) But the question is what defines the one; Is it the national identity that is set along the line of shared values or is it just the majoritarian identity and culture which is considered to be Indigenous and Sri Lankan?
The answer is in the post-colonial Sri Lanka the majoritarian culture and preferences tended to define what Sri Lanka is. The gist of such a slogan is outright sinhalisation of everyone and everything.
Native informers and Sinhala intellectuals find Muslims of Sri Lanka to be a highly exceptional and backward bunch who are alien to Sri Lankan Sinhalese culture. Therefore people like Ali Sabry calling Muslims to embrace the identity “Sinhalese Muslims.” To legitimise his pronouncements, he brings bogus and patronising anthropological references.
Upul Shantha Sannasgala in an interview after Easter attack expressed his displeasure and accused Muslims of not being open like their counterparts; The culture talk is the basis of the emergence of popular fascism as Robert Paxton best describes it in his book Anatomy of fascism “Fascisms seek out in each national culture those themes that are best capable of mobilising a mass movement of regeneration, unification, and purity, directed against liberal individualism and constitutionalism and Leftists class struggle. The themes that appeal to fascists in one cultural tradition may seem merely senseless to another. The foggy Norse myths that stirred Norwegians or Germans sounded ridiculous in Italy, where fascism appealed instead to a sun-drenched classical Romania.”
This Sinhala-centric cultural anaesthesia was often injected by people who tend to justify pogroms; therefore, very covertly one would defend the attacks and subjugation of minorities. Using cultural logic to justify the political conflicts, socilogised the violence and rioting impluses Manupilate the of the democratic aspiration and pluralism. Such normalization of violnece creeps up on the day to day life, where the collective political memory tend to embrace fascism as a natural position in crisis and this helps vicious forces justify their existence. Often it is established as a positive attitude towards the minorities.
When the European notion of the mono nation-state was imposed on highly diverse Asian societies just after the colonial experience, led those societies into a dilemma in adapting to highly centralized nation-state. The countries which were liberated from the colonialism have greater tendencies for the civil war. Because of the unsettled questions which are left to be answered, such as who belongs and who don’t, who rules and who should be ruled etc.
Right after the independence the native majoritarian elites sought to secure the power by pushing the virtue of their ethnic majority. Consequently, newly emerged nation-state adapted series of majoritarian measures to establish their ethnocratic dominance. And it was the tipping point that gave birth to the interdependent communal based politics. Socialist republicanism was interpreted through the Sinhala supremacy. Majoritarian elites begun nation-building project by excluding a community. New rulers revoked the citizenship of upcountry Tamils that was the very first inauguration of institutionalized majoritarian chauvinism.
In the post-colonial world, a lame reason is always given whenever a third world authoritarianism comes to be questioned. Former subjects needs a little dose of dictatorship to be disciplined and modernised. Set aside neocolonialism, even the subjects firmly believe in this great wisdom. Political elites’ logic of authoritarianism interprets that chaotic third world needs an authoritarian figure and an undemocratic system to build a nation has historically resulted in violence and caused unimaginable calamities. Establishing such notions gives birth to nationalist leaders from Hitler to present-day Modi.
The argument of development serves as a free pass for the political elite to generate wealth while the entire society is being polarised and exploited economically, morally and politically. Neocolonialism can boost such impulses for the sake of free-market capitalism. The societies that have been exposed to years of colonial subjugation find themselves in a dilemma. It creates the most humiliating and degrading position where the unsettled questions of post-colonial time stimulate further certain impulses; that weed out minorities and those who considered as aliens – eventually bigotry and internal operations flourish.
