Meeting held on Monday 21st August 2017
7 people were present and 7 sent their apologies.
We discussed the rise of the American Right (following right wing demonstrations in Charlottesville and Trump’s inadequate condemnation of the far, ‘alt’-right); and recent terrorist outbreaks in Barcelona. It was suggested that USA has a long history built upon racism (slavery, Amerindians) and wondered whether the recent outbreak was no more than an expression of common racist views in USA. It was suggested that this was different from far right in UK. (although no mention was made of the celebration of Nelson in UK who was a white supremacist if ever there was one.) Trump’s appeal to the racist white ‘base’ may well not lead to the fulfilment of the promises he has made to them. Although there appeared to be some evidence that US employment is increasing. But it is difficult to imagine that Trump’s policies will lead to decreasing inequality.
Regarding the recent terrorists (as opposed to the far right??) it is difficult to understand what they want. The idea of a Caliphate may be an ideological objective, but it does not seem to have a possibility of immediate realisation as a political project like, for example, lay behind ANC and IRA ‘terrorism’. We considered the recent terrorist outbreaks to be at least indirectly the consequence of Western interference in the Middle East. Appalling dictators, like Sadam Hussein and Assad have at least succeeded in keeping the lid on fundamentalist terrorism.
Fears of the rise of the far right and of terrorism led to a more general consideration of whether or not the world was now a more dangerous place than previously. There was disagreement about this. And it is difficult to compare, for example, the fear of Nuclear War in the 1970s to the present fears about climate change. However we may feel about levels of fear, there are important questions regarding the politics of fear: how fear is used and provoked as a means of political control; and also the connections between the fear, of such things as climate change or terrorism, and the underpinning inequalities that are both a cause and a consequence of such fear. At present, much fear, and arguably terrorism itself to some extent, is a consequence of inequality. Thus a progressive response to such fears must be to focus upon policies which address inequality. We considered how vested interests of wealth (for example, in the context of Venezuela where Chavez failed to reduce the wealth of the tiny wealthy elite) undermine radical socialist policies to address inequality. Capitalism – with its dependency upon inequality – will not easily give up the fight. Although it was suggested that the inherent contradictions of capitalism being manifested, for example, in the arguments around Brexit could give some hope for change.