Why racism is on the rise in so many democratic states
“The limited ability of national governments to pursue any agenda that has not first been endorsed by international capital and its proxies is no longer simply the cross they have to bear; it is the cross to which we have all been nailed. The nation state is the primary democratic entity that remains. But given the scale of neoliberal globalisation it is clearly no longer up to that task.”
So writes Gary Younge in a piece in today’s “Guardian” which asks who’s in control – nation states or global corporations? As citizens feel increasingly out of control, they are persuaded to blame various minorities.
“The targets of this intolerance shift according to the context: Roma in Hungary, Romanians in Britain, Latinos in the US and Muslims almost everywhere in the west. But the rhetoric and the true nature of the crisis remain constant. Parochial identities describe the protagonists, but it is global economics that shapes the narrative.”