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Ireland's political and cultural magazine
6 0 June 2017
“I
DON’T LIKE ‘-isms’,” War of Independ-
ence veteran George Gilmore once said
to me. “Heaven save me from the Marx-
ists!”, an exasperated Karl Marx is reputed to
have exclaimed. “All the ‘-isms’ are ‘-wasms’ ”,
was a witticism following the collapse of East
European communism in 1991.
Nonetheless ‘-isms’, ideologies of one kind or
another, show no sign of vanishing. We all sub-
scribe to some ideology or other once we have
developed political views and think or say that
our Government or the powers-that-be ought to
do this or that, even if we do not know it or fail
to give it a name.
They are slippery things, “-isms”, shifting in
meaning from place to place and accreting
different connotations over time. One person’s
praiseworthy “-ism” is likely to be regarded as
reactionary by at least some others, depending
on their politics. That is why sensible people
who engage in political or polemical debate and
want to avoid fruitless argument will seek first
to define their ideological terms if they use
them.
INTERNATIONAL
Populism, nationalism, globalisation, left/right
wing and other slippery terms
by Anthony Coughlan
'Left’ now used for
‘liberal’ not pro-worker
The Deutschemark for
the Euro-bomb, monetary
union for political union,
has been an objective of
the Franco-German duo
since the 1992 Maastricht
Treaty
Illusrion: Chd Crowe
June 2017 6 1
“Populism” is a new “-ism” that has come into
fashion only this past year. It refers to electoral
or referendum outcomes that the elite who con
-
trol mainstream public narratives do not approve
of – e.g. Brexit, Donald Trump’s election or the
growth of EU-critical movements like UKIP,
Marine Le Pen’s National Front and the Alterna-
tive for Germany party.
‘Nationalism’ is one of the oldest ideologies,
from Latin ‘natus’, referring to where people
were born. In Ireland the word has traditionally
had positive connotations as referring to the
aspiration or movement for an independent
State, which most Irish supported. Thus Pearse
and Connolly were nationalists, as were De
Valera, Collins, Cosgrave, Lemass etc.
In modern Germany by contrast ‘nationalism’
is seen as a bad thing. ‘Nationalist’ is a term of
abuse. The Nazis were nationalists. Hitler’s
nationalism brought a catastrophe on Germany,
as Mussolini’s did on Italy. The words are redo-
lent of reactionary and anti-human doings.
Clearly the same word, ‘nationalism’, can refer
to quite different, even diametrically opposite,
things in different contexts – to movements for
national self-determination and independence
on the one hand, with connotations of patriotism
and love of country, and to imperialism on the
other, the aspiration to conquer or dominate
others, and associated chauvinism, racism and
xenophobia.
It is interesting how negative associations
have come to attach to the words ‘nationalism’
and ‘nationalist’ in Irish public discourse since
1970. The decades since have spawned a whole
school of ‘anti-national’ revisionist history-writ
-
ing which tended to disparage past movements
for Irish independence. The IRA’s campaign of
violence from 1970 to 1994 was one reason for
this. The commitment of the Republic’s Great and
Good to European economic integration since we
joined the EEC in 1973 was another. After all if
one thinks that history is moving towards a
supranational United States of Europe, talk of
national independence for individual States is
out-of-date and Europe’s national histories need
to be drastically revised.
‘Internationalism’ is probably the most helpful
‘-ism’ to fall back on when one is dealing with
national questions. Internationalists desire the
emancipation of mankind. The human race is
divided into nations. Therefore internationalism
stands for the right to self-determination of
nations. That was first advanced as one of the
Rights of Man in the French Revolution. It is now
a basic principle of international law, enshrined
in the UN Charter, and is a fundamental of
modern democracy.
Internationalism does not mean that one is
called on to urge every national community to
seek a State of its own. Some nationalities are
quite happy within multinational States as long
as their rights as a minority are respected. But
if enough ‘nationals’ want to have a State of their
own, that is their right, and internationalism
calls for democrats everywhere to show solidar-
ity with them if they seek it.
In France’s recent presidential election the
basic conflict, we were told, was between ‘glo-
balisers’ and nationalists. Nearly half the voters
in the first round of the French election backed
candidates who were critical of either the EU or
the EU-currency. They were anti-globalisation.
By contrast, the victory of Emmanuel Macron,
the most europhile of the candidates, was seen
as a win for globalisation’s supporters. Macron’s
walk to the podium for his victory speech was to
the tune of the EU anthem, not the French one.
He plans to save the euro-currency by pushing
for more integration in the Eurozone. The carrot
he is likely to hold out to a reluctant Germany is
the prospect of France’s nuclear weapon being
‘Europeanised’. That way Germany will get its
finger on a collective nuclear trigger. The Deut-
schemark for the Euro-bomb, monetary union for
political union, has been an objective of the
Franco-German duo since the 1992 Maastricht
Treaty.
‘Globalisation’ is at once a description of fact
and an ideology, a mixture of ‘is’ and ‘ought’. It
refers to important trends in the contemporary
world: ease of travel, free trade, free movement
of capital, the internet. The effect of these on the
sovereignty of States is often exaggerated.
States have always been interdependent to
some extent. There was relatively more globali-
sation, in the sense of freer movement of labour,
capital and trade, in the late 19th century than
today, although the volumes involved were much
smaller. At that time too most States were on the
gold standard, a form of international money.
In contrast to the 19th century modern States
do more for their citizens, are expected by them
to do more, and impinge more intimately on
people’s lives than at any time in history, most
obviously in providing public services and redis-
tributing national incomes. Globalisation
imposes new constraints on States, but con
-
straints there always have been. Nation States
adapt to such changes, but they do not cause
States to disappear or become less important.
Globalisation as another newly fashionable
ideology refers to the interests of transnational
Big Business and High Finance that seek to roam
the world looking for profitable investment
opportunities and want to be free of State con-
trol on capital movement. Transnational capital
has an ambiguous attitude to Nation States. On
the one hand it seeks to erode the sovereignty
of States generally in order to weaken their abil
-
ity to impose constraints on capital movement
and restrain ‘the furies of private interest’. On
the other hand it looks to its own State, where
its corporate HQ and the bulk of its share owner-
ship is usually concentrated, to defend its
political and economic interests internationally
when these are threatened.
And what of ‘Left’ and ‘Right’, left-wing and
right-wing? Those slippery categories have come
a long way since they referred to the chairs taken
by Jacobins and Girondins on either side of the
French Revolution’s National Assembly hall. In
the 20th century Left and Right referred to the
mainstream concerns of the classical Labour
movement, its political parties whether pink, red
or scarlet, and its trade union and co-operative
components. Those concerns related mainly to
what should be the boundaries between State
provision and private market provision and to
issues of income and wealth distribution.
And today? Nowadays the mainstream Left
has embraced globalisation and the ‘free’
market. It no longer argues for the socialisation
of industry or the defence of national independ
-
ence. Imperialism it regards as an outdated
category. Most left-wing parties these days con-
centrate on championing what are essentially
liberal causes, what one might call ‘life-style
politics’, couching their demands in a rhetoric of
human rights.
Thus in Ireland today to be ‘on the Left’ one
must support the liberal agenda of divorce, abor-
tion, same-sex marriage, euthanasia etc. And
support the EU and further integration. To be
critical of or opposed to some or all of these
trends is to be ‘rightwing’. The meaning of Left
and Right is clearly different from what it used
to be.
Nowadays, unlike so many media people who
are happy to push every new ideological fashion,
we must, to make any sense of what we are
saying, define our terms in plain language and
hope that by doing so we bring a bit of light into
the ever more confusing public discourse.
Anthony Coughlan is Associate Professor Emer-
itus in Social Policy, Trinity College Dublin
To be critical of the
liberal agenda of divorce,
abortion, same-sex
marriage, euthanasia
and of the EU and further
integration is to be
‘rightwing’. The meaning
of Left and Right has
changed’.
