User Profile

Som Cas Mudde skriver i Expo, er ytre høyres fremgang og det liberale demokratiets krise et resultat av politiske valg. I motsetning til mange andre nedtoner han betydningen av sosiale medier, og han retter i stedet pekefingeren mot politiske eliter som har omfavnet ytre høyre, «ofte mer av strategiske grunner enn av ideologiske», og i en tro på at de selv skulle tjene på det. De som faktisk har tjent på det, er ytre høyre. I flere land har høyreradikalismen dessuten ikke blitt mer moderat de siste årene. Den har istedenfor blitt mer radikal, åpnere i sin omfavnelse av anti-liberalt tankegods.

Det moderate rommet krymper. Med Trump som amerikansk president og med høyreradikalismens vekst i Europa, er det grunn til å frykte at denne utviklingen vil fortsette. Det kommer til å svekke den liberale høyresiden. Det kommer til å gå utover minoriteter. Det kommer til å gi mer spillerom til autoritære regimer og til fiender av det liberale demokratiet.

Kanskje står vi også foran en femte høyreradikal bølge, der det parlamentariske ytre høyre kaster masken, og man åpent inntar anti-demokratiske posisjoner.

— Hat: fortellinger om ytre høyre by Øyvind Strømmen

David Broder mener at italiensk politikk flere ganger har gitt et forvarsel på internasjonale fenomener. «Kollapsen i det italienske partisystemet først på 1990-tallet og den italienske politikkens svingninger gjør at fenomener og trender kommer raskere til overflaten der», sier han, og legger til:

“Det vi har sett i Italia siden Berlusconis første regjering, ligner veldig på det vi ser i hele Vesten: de politiske partienes sammenbrudd, en mer lederfokusert politisk modell og at skillet mellom mainstream sentrum-høyre og ytre høyre-krefter forsvinner, og det selv om de siste har røtter i historisk fascisme eller sprer rasistiske konspirasjonsteorier.”

— Hat: fortellinger om ytre høyre by Øyvind Strømmen

In our traditional systems of Law we remember, however, that everyone is an idiot from time to time. Punishment is harsh and swift, but afterwards there is no criminal record, no grudge against the transgressor. Perpetrators are only criminals until they are punished, and then they may be respected again and begin afresh to make a positive contribution to the group. In this way, people will not lie and shift blame or avoid punishment by twisting rules to escape accountability. They can look forward to a clean slate and therefore be willing and equal participants in their own punishment and transformation, which is a learning process more than anything else.

— Sand Talk by Tyson Yunkaporta

Speaking of Rome, it must be acknowledged that there is nothing new about imperial cultures imposing classifications on Indigenous people. The Romans classified the Gauls in three groups this way: the toga-wearing Gauls (basically Romans with moustaches), then the short-haired (semi-civilised) Gauls, then the long-haired (barbarian) Gauls. Although I have spent a lot of my life in Australia as a long-haired Gaul, I have to question my right to claim that now. If I am honest with myself I need to acknowledge that I can’t remember the last time I ate turtle outside of a funeral feast, as a way of living rather than a remembrance of people and times lost. My feet, hands and belly have become soft and I use the term ‘neo-liberalism’ far more often than I use the word miintin (turtle). I may think to myself, ‘Oh, it’s the season to dig turtle eggs and yams now and the wild pigs feasting on those things will have really good fat. I should go for sugarbag (wild honey) now too.’ But I’m standing on a train commuting to work in Melbourne because I don’t have the patience and discipline to languish in a work-for-the-dole program in a remote community, waiting to chase pigs at the weekend. I have to admit I’m something of a short-haired Gaul.

— Sand Talk by Tyson Yunkaporta

White Christians have also forgotten several elementary historical details. They have forgotten that the religion that is now identified with their virtue and their power – ‘God is on our side,’ says Dr Verwoerd – came out of a rocky piece of ground in what is now known as the Middle East before colour was invented, and that in order for the Christian church to be established, Christ had to be put to death, by Rome, and that the real architect of the Christian church was not the disreputable, sun-baked Hebrew who gave it his name but the mercilessly fanatical and self-righteous St Paul. The energy that was buried with the rise of the Christian nations must come back into the world; nothing can prevent it. Many of us, I think, both long to see this happen and are terrified of it, for though this transformation contains the hope of liberation, it also imposes a necessity for great change. But in order to deal with the untapped and dormant force of the previously subjugated, in order to survive as a human, moving, moral weight in the world, America and all the Western nations will be forced to re-examine themselves and release themselves from many things that are now taken to be sacred, and to discard nearly all the assumptions that have been used to justify their lives and their anguish and their crimes so long.

— The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin

In spite of the Puritan-Yankee equation of virtue with well-being, Negroes had excellent reasons for doubting that money was made or kept by any very striking adherence to the Christian virtues; it certainly did not work that way for black Christians.

— The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin