http://www.marxandphilosophy.org.uk/pe.htm http://bostonreview.net/BR25.3/tamas.html http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2007-09-18-tamas-en.html http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,2075392,00.html http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/article.php?article_id=9991
In the Boston Review article, the second of the above links, he develops a notion of "post-fascism" defined as an "extremism of the centre" and links it to a crisis of the nation state. I know if I were teaching Politics, or a related subject, I would certainly prescribe some of this work. The following quotes seem to speak almost directly to the recent events in South Africa:
"There is no harsher enemy of the immigrant--"guest worker" or asylum-seeker--than the obsolescent lumpenproletariat,publicly represented by the hard-core, right-wing extremist soccer hooligan."
"East European Gypsies (Roma and Sintj, to give their politically correct names) are persecuted both by the constabulary and by the populace, and are trying to flee to the "free West." The Western reaction is to introduce visa restrictions against the countries in question in order to prevent massive refugee influx, and solemn summons to East European countries to respect human rights. Domestic racism is supplanted by global liberalism, both grounded on a political power that is rapidly becoming racialized.
Multiculturalist responses are desperate avowals of impotence: an acceptance of the ethnicization of the civic sphere, but with a humanistic and benevolent twist. These avowals are concessions of defeat, attempts to humanize the inhuman. The field had been chosen by post-fascism, and liberals are trying to fight it on its own favorite terrain, ethnicity. This is an enormously disadvantageous position. Without new ways of addressing the problem of global capitalism, the battle will surely be lost."
Tahir
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