{"id":189320,"date":"2018-04-01T00:00:11","date_gmt":"2018-03-31T18:30:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?p=189320"},"modified":"2018-04-03T08:25:59","modified_gmt":"2018-04-03T02:55:59","slug":"neo-populist-wave-sweeps-the-west","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/neo-populist-wave-sweeps-the-west\/","title":{"rendered":"Neo-Populist Wave Sweeps The West"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><span class=\"s2\">By <a href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?s=Kumar+David\">Kumar David<\/a> &#8211;<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_157865\" style=\"width: 160px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/Kumar-David-Colombo-Telegraph.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-157865\" class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-157865\" src=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/Kumar-David-Colombo-Telegraph-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/Kumar-David-Colombo-Telegraph-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/Kumar-David-Colombo-Telegraph-50x50.jpg 50w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-157865\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Prof. Kumar David<\/p><\/div>\n<p class=\"p1\"><strong><span class=\"s1\">Populist earthquake redraws Italy\u2019s political landscape &#8211;\u00a0<\/span><span class=\"s2\">Neo-populist wave sweeps the West<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"p5\"><span class=\"s2\">\u201cIn democracy, citizens first exercise the powers of sovereignty, and the powers will be abased and afterwards lost if they are committed to an unwieldly multitude\u201d. ~\u00a0<\/span><span class=\"s2\">(<i>Decline &amp; Fall of the Roman Empire<\/i>, Ch. II; Edward Gibbon)<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p8\"><span class=\"s2\"> For long I have described <a href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?s=neo-populism\">neo-populism<\/a> as a Twenty-first Century phenomenon both in the capitalist West; and elsewhere as the progressive capitalism of Modi or the semi-fascist peril of a return of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?s=Rajapaksa\">Rajapaksa<\/a>. If we use the term neo-populism too widely for the far-right (Hungary\u2019s immigrant demonising Fidez, Austria\u2019s FPO, Holland\u2019s PVV and Germany\u2019s AfD), loonies like Trump, \u2018Big Tent Centrists\u2019 like Italy\u2019s Five Star, France\u2019s Macron, and left populists like Spain\u2019s Podemos, then we empty the concept of content. Therefore, today I will confine myself to a broad discourse and just one example.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p8\"><span class=\"s2\"> I delineate modern neo-populism by three characteristics; ethnic or nationalist extremism, cultural backwardness, and economic populism. If I use the Rajapaksa undertaking to give it local context; it is ethno-centrist (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?s=Sinhala-Buddhist\">Sinhala-Buddhist<\/a>), culturally regressive cum anti-elitist (anti-modern cum anti-Western) and haphazardly economic-populist. Two additional features worth mention in the local case are great-leader besotted and home to corrupt politicos.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p8\"><span class=\"s2\"> Though we identify great-leader infatuation and domicile of corrupt-politicos as markers in the Rajapaksa case, these are not universal in the West where neo-populists cannot, generically, be termed corrupt. Ethno-centrism is universal; \u201cno immigrants, blacks, Muslims\u201d; \u201cWe are the people\u201d (Germany); \u201cTake back control (Brexit), \u201cMake America Great again\u201d, etc. The great leader feature though not universal goes back well before Rajapaksa decided to ride again, to Il Deuce, Mein Fuhrer and Peron. Trump-populism is pompous. The fading libido of jaded lecher and convicted tax-fraudster Silvio Berlusconi, against whom there are 20 trials still pending, has resurfaced. A pompous leader, even if sordid, is a frequent but not universal adornment of populism\u2019s paraphernalia.<a href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/Luigi-di-Maio-and-Matteo-Salvini.jpeg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-189322\" src=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/Luigi-di-Maio-and-Matteo-Salvini.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"901\" height=\"343\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/Luigi-di-Maio-and-Matteo-Salvini.jpeg 901w, https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/Luigi-di-Maio-and-Matteo-Salvini-300x114.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/Luigi-di-Maio-and-Matteo-Salvini-768x292.jpeg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 901px) 100vw, 901px\" \/><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p9\"><span class=\"s2\">Ethno-centrism, anti-modernism, cultural backwardness, rejection of internationalism, and anti-elitism, need further some comment. Fear of waves of immigration &#8211; sudden large-scale ethnic mingling with those of a different colour or faith and fear of cultural dilution &#8211; has been the largest psychological factor driving masses of people into the arms of the far-right in Europe. The simplistic left-liberal stance of open borders, welcoming all men as citizens of the world, or the lesser version of throwing borders open to all who are oppressed in their homes, has proved infeasible. As the Danish labourer said to the Australian aid-worker \u201cWhy don\u2019t you take them to Australia?\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p9\"><span class=\"s2\">I despise brown skinned Lankan emigrants who gripe about discrimination in the West but had no qualms in oppressing and disenfranchising Upcountry Tamils as <i>kalathonis<\/i>, though they had been here for generations<i>.<\/i> Still the truth is that racist and religious intolerance in America and Europe, though nowhere near as bad as bigotry among my compatriots, is the biggest single factor in the rise of neo-populism in those countries. It is not only cultural differentiae; claims for social services and housing, food-stamps and willingness of immigrants to work for less worsens unemployment and erodes wages. Stories, true or false, of Somalians collecting social-security in two or three different places, Armenians taking over neighbourhoods and variations on Donald Trump anti-Mexican bigotry is standard fare in the US. <i>Vox populi, vox dei<\/i>, so, where there is strong public sentiment, immigration limits are needed however squeamish liberals and left feel. Would the liberals and the left rather have a neo-populist backlash? <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p9\"><span class=\"s2\">This is a bitter retreat: a concession to cultural primitivism, anti-modernism, religious mumbo-jumbo and prejudice. But it is an unavoidable retreat. Fortunately, European and American neo-populisms are not anti-Wi-Fi, do not preach that men can booze themselves silly but women not permitted to buy a bottle of beer, or that <i>halal<\/i> meat is infected with quotations from the Koran. For that you need the political cave-men of the Joint Opposition, a constitution-violating president and a bunch of looney <a href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?s=BBS\">BBS<\/a> monks. We, of course, have all that. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p8\"><span class=\"s2\"><b>Italy, one nation or two?<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p8\"><span class=\"s2\"> I will devote space to last month\u2019s Italian general election to bring into focus some features of exploding Twenty-first Century European neo-populism. One should minimise names and numbers since details obscure the big picture but it won\u2019t be possible to do so altogether.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p8\"><span class=\"s1\">League<\/span><span class=\"s2\">: An alliance of the right-extremist Northern League (NL) of Matteo Salvini and Berlusconi\u2019s mainstream conservative Forza Italia (FI). The driving ideology of this coalition is right neo-populism like France\u2019s National Front and Dutch, Austrian, German and other excrescences. The alliance won 37% of the vote \u2013 the largest of any group and secured 265(P)\/137(S) seats \u2013 P for parliament S for senate. It gained 138(P)\/20(S) seats. Both NL and FI have their base in prosperous northern Italy and are strongly anti-left and anti-immigrant. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p8\"><span class=\"s1\">Five Star Movement (M5S)<\/span><span class=\"s2\">: Led my Luigi Di Maio (who has not so much as run a bakery or <i>sillara kadde<\/i> before!) came out as the largest single party securing 33% of the vote and 227(P)\/112(S) seats. Its gains were<\/span> <span class=\"s2\">114 (P)\/58 (S). Known as a Big Tent it is what in Sinhala we call an <i>achcharu<\/i>. It has no particular ideology but its base is in poor Sicily and less developed southern Italy. It is not rightist or racist. M5S\u2019s founder was stand-up comic Beppe Grillo whose motto is \u201c<i>va fa un culo<\/i>\u201d. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p9\"><span class=\"s2\">The rise of both NL and M5S is stunning. Imagine 70% of Italians voted for populists! The two populist outfits won 20 million votes between them; the Democratic Party secured only 7 million. Nobody apart from these three did any better than Lanka\u2019s snivelling sects, the JVP included. Calling the JVP a trifle is harsh but deserved condemnation.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 \u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p8\"><span class=\"s1\">Democratic Party<\/span><span class=\"s2\">: Led by outgoing Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, the DP is Italy\u2019s traditional social democratic centre. The once powerful Italian Communist Party vanished into the shadows when the Soviet Union disappeared but it was one of the four minor parties in the DP led centre-left coalition which secured a mere 22% of the popular and 122(P)\/60 (S) seats. It lost 227(P)\/65(S) seats. Seat changes, up and down, seem huge but unsurprising in a first-past-the-post system.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p11\"><span class=\"s2\"> Why the electrifying rise of populism? What does the clash of two populisms spell for Italy? The first question is easier. May I first blurt the compulsory party line? \u201cGlobal capitalism is bust; it evokes hopelessness in the population\u201d. Let\u2019s rub in the numbers: 70% voted for populists \u2013 right neo-populists in the North, \u2018Big Tent\u2019 <i>achcharu<\/i> populists in the South. Hope was the one commodity in short supply; collapse of faith in establishment parties and traditional economics drove millions to strange new places. Recall Trump\u2019s base, Brexit and Germany\u2019s AfD surge? Emmanuel Macron is a less evil variant of the same exasperation of the masses. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p12\"><span class=\"s2\">They said the global left was finished a decade ago; now liberalism too is finished. Isn\u2019t it time to build a defensive coalition on a social-democratic programme (social equity and political democracy) and a broad economic programme? Observe that both variants of Italian populism paid little heed to Italy\u2019s ailing economy, failing competitiveness within Europe, and its giant debts.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p11\"><span class=\"s2\"> Over in our neck of the woods Sinhalese and Tamils, and Buddhists and Muslims gouge out each other\u2019s eyes and tear out jugulars. In Italy though they speak the same language, worship the same graven idols in their churches and belt out the same Neapolitan golden oldies, the split between industrialized north and deprived south is stark. It will eventually threaten national unity. The stats are bleak: the economy of the South shark 7% in 2001-2016 but Italy as a whole grew by 1%; 700,000 people from the south emigrated north or abroad; youth unemployment in the South is 45%. So, M5S swept nearly every FPP seat in the South, but got almost nothing in the North; the League vice-versa. The Leagues flat-tax (23%) proposal is rejected in the South as a gift to rich Northerners and the M5S\u2019s minimum wage demand finds little support in the North. One nation united by a common language, faith and culture; divided by economic inequality!<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p11\"><span class=\"s2\"><b>Neo-populism, a menagerie of strange bedfellows<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p11\"><span class=\"s2\"> Bet you can\u2019t answer this one. Who said \u201c(the) global power structure has robbed our working class, stripped our country of its wealth and put money in the hands of a handful of large companies and political entities\u201d? If you said Marx, Lenin or Castro you couldn\u2019t be more wrong.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p11\"><span class=\"s2\"> Actually, modern neo-populism has no ideology. Come on; grant that Macron, Putin, Modi and Trump (whose only ideology is narcissism) have no guiding creed in the sense of left vs right, socialism vs capitalism or liberalism vs state. So, what fuels the common neo-populist surge? Data for America alone answers the question. Millions are out in the cold; 40 million live below the poverty line, add those just above, those without hope and the ideologically ultra-right, and there you have the Trump Base \u2013 the 30% ever faithful. In North and South Dakota, Alabama and some other states nearly 40% live below the official poverty line.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span>Sustained inequality and iniquity of political-economy explain the surge of Twenty-first Century neo-populism, as it does inter war fascism.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p12\"><span class=\"s2\">Oh, and that quotation you got dead wrong; that was Donald Trump in Davos in January 2018. In Davos, super-rich CEOs and Heads of grand governments weep for the poor. And we deplete the ocean when we overfish; and we destroy the earth when we ravage its climate; and we foster neo-populism when we alienate the people. It would all be a circus were it not so depressing.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p> [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":48,"featured_media":157865,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,46,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-189320","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-colombotelegraph","category-constitutional-reforms","category-editorial"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Neo-Populist Wave Sweeps The West - Colombo Telegraph<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/neo-populist-wave-sweeps-the-west\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Neo-Populist Wave Sweeps The West - 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