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Misleading narratives distort antisemitism discourses

2 July 2020 0 min read

Bigotry, in all its forms, is steadily rising. Clearly, being non-racist is not enough; we need to be anti-racist to be able to combat race-related bigotry once and for all. This principle should indeed apply to all forms of bigotry, including antisemitism. However, as this article explains, misleading narratives in the documentary film Viral: Antisemitism in Four Mutations distort our understanding, and even serve as a cover, for other forms of intolerance, which can move us closer to bigotry instead of further away from it.

Anti-black racism, antisemitism, Islamophobia and other forms of bigotry are on the rise in Europe and elsewhere in the world, according to annual reports of the European Commission Against Racism and Intolerance. As a result, people are rising up in protest through #BlackLivesMatter and other movements. The global outcry and calls for change following the police killing of George Floyd vividly reveals just how prevalent racism still is. Yet, it is also clear how some organizations purporting to challenge such hate crimes can use an anti-racist message as “cover” for other forms of bigotry and intolerance, as a recent documentary has also done.

Antisemitism in films and documentaries

In cinematography, antisemitism, like other forms of bigotry, often has been afforded special attention. As a Jewish youth growing up in my congregation, I watched many of these movies dealing with antisemitism—from classics such as Ben-Hur (1959) to the more recent Schindler’s List (1993). One of the most recent and acclaimed documentaries I saw was the bold 2009 film Defamation by Israeli film-maker Yoav Shamir. I was therefore curious about how antisemitism was dealt with in the recently released documentary Viral: Antisemitism in Four Mutations by the American film-maker Andrew Goldberg. However, I felt very dispirited after watching it. Rather than meaningfully addressing the very real problem of antisemitism in the world, this documentary reproduces misleading narratives that distort discourses on antisemitism.

In this article, I will explain how the film-maker argues that there is a moral equivalence between four different forms or “mutations” of antisemitism and what’s wrong with this conceptualization of it.

Four “mutations” of antisemitism

Viral: Antisemitism in Four Mutations attempts to show how four different examples of antisemitism manifest in present-day society and the “logics” that purportedly drive antisemitism. The documentary is intended to provide what the film-maker regards as an honest view of antisemitism, but is so unbalanced that it ends up having the opposite effect.

In Part I of the movie, the focus is on the Far Right in the USA. After very moving, personal testimonies by victims of various violent antisemitic attacks, the documentary turns to an interview with a Mr. Walker, who is running for the state legislature in North Carolina. Walker insists that “God likes whites more than blacks”, argues that black persons and Muslims are the same, and finally reproduces a typical antisemitic conspiracy trope that “the Jew was created to destroy white Christian nations”. George Will, a prize-winning Washington Post columnist, then sums up the perverse “logic” behind antisemitism: “In a healthy society that has problems, people ask ‘what did we do to cause this’? In an unhealthy society that has problems, they say ‘who did this to us’? And the Jews are always a candidate.”

In Part II, the focus is on a smear campaign by the right-wing, nationalist president of Hungary, Victor Orban, aimed at the liberal Hungarian-American businessman and philanthropist George Soros. Classic antisemitic tropes are invoked, presenting clear examples of antisemitism through the use of grotesque cartoons and photoshopped images of Soros with exaggerated Judaic features. Moreover, the Hungarian media juxtaposes images of Muslims entering the country against accusations that they are “inundating your culture” and, moreover, are part of a “Soros plan”. Posters, billboards and television ads all reinforce these patently antisemitic and Islamophobic messages.

I am disgusted. However, something crucial is missing. While examples of antisemitism by Orban and others in his government are well established, paradoxically, as one interviewed professor notes, Orban does not want to be accused of antisemitism. Indeed, “he wants to pose with ‘them’—he even wears the hat”. Why is it, then, that Orban, his political party and the Hungarian government crudely reproduce antisemitic tropes while simultaneously object to being called antisemitic? The film-maker doesn’t address this crucial issue at all, also avoiding Orban’s very public cultivation of diplomatic ties with the State of Israel.

Further omissions are apparent in Part III of the film, which purports to focus on antisemitism among the “Far Left” in the United Kingdom. There is no mention of antisemitism within the Conservative Party. The focus is squarely on the Labour Party. The accusation is that Labour’s alleged antisemitism problem is due to “left-wing extremists” who condemn capitalism, criticize Israel and therefore by definition are antisemitic. This is both highly unconvincing and inflammatory, reinforced by interviews with embittered former Labour members who are also vocal supporters of Israel (and neo-liberal economic policies), such as former Labour leader Tony Blair.

Totally unaddressed are what these so-called “left-wing extremists” criticize, namely Israel’s discriminatory and brutal policies against Palestinians that have been labelled as an “apartheid regime”. While maintaining its thin claims against “leftists”, the film-maker fails entirely to engage with the many critics of these claims, such as Jamie Stern Weiner or Mehdi Hasan. Or with a comprehensive report on distorted media coverage of the Labour Party by Dr. Justin Scholsberg of Birkbeck College and journalist Laura Laker. Or with the book Bad News for Labour: Antisemitism, The Party and Public Belief by award-winning journalists and academics Greg Philo, Mike Berry, Justin Scholsberg, Antony Lerman and David Miller. To name but a few.

Part IV focuses exclusively on what the filmmaker describes as “Islamic radicalism” in France. The primary perpetrators of antisemitism, it is claimed, are “Islamic extremists”. Brief reference is made to what is described as “France’s colonial experiment”, which led to hundreds of thousands of Muslims to move to France. The implication is that those suffering from “post-colonialism” have a problem. Rather than acknowledge the country’s expansive Islamophobia, the film-maker plays directly into it, asserting that, based on “surveys”, one-third of Muslims in France are antisemitic, as compared with ten percent of non-Muslims. The suggestion that Muslims are far-more inclined than anyone else to hate Jews is both unsubstantiated, based on anecdotal examples and utterly fails to address the historical context of both antisemitism and Islamophobia.

Time for a serious discussion about antisemitism

As the film does reveal, there is clearly a problem of antisemitism (as well as Islamophobia, racism and other forms of bigotry and intolerance), deserving of a serious discussion. However, the film is so filled with distortions that it doesn’t help to really understand, let alone combat this problem.

The film’s fatal flaw, noted elsewhere by Michelle Goldberg, is its conflation of criticisms of Israel and antisemitism. Indeed, this becomes a conspiracy theory of its own that “people hate Israel because they simultaneously hate the Jews, capitalism, and Western democracy”. Moreover, by interspersing credible examples of antisemitism with highly questionable examples, the selective treatment of these four “mutations” and the drawing of a moral equivalence between them critically undermine the very important goal of addressing antisemitism.

The need for critical reflection

The global fight against bigotry must be taken seriously. Hence, a serious and balanced documentary about antisemitism would be something different entirely. It would acknowledge the context of antisemitism as being part of a broader pattern of hatred, intolerance and discrimination affecting many persecuted groups. It would include constructive criticism of the film-maker’s assumptions. And finally, it would not make simplistic and distorted assumptions that critics of Israel’s expansionist, colonial and discriminatory regime are de facto antisemitic.

About the author:

Jeff Handmaker is a senior researcher at the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS) and focuses on legal mobilisation.

He is a regular author for Bliss. Read all his posts here.

When outright racism triggers migrant precarity: Britain’s Windrush Scandal and the need to move beyond arguments on legality by Anna Cáceres

22 June 202028 June 2020 11 min read

[Versión en español abajo]

In 2018 Britain once again made news headlines, this time for the Windrush scandal that saw scores of British citizens with migration backgrounds wrongly detained and deported. Almost all were migrants from Commonwealth countries who had migrated to Britain after the Second World War and because of a series of policy changes starting in 2012 were no longer recognized as citizens by 2018. The scandal is important for two reasons. First, it demonstrates the importance of viewing ‘citizenship’ as a fluid, and indeed socially constructed, category, rather than a binary legal designation. Second, it shows how racism, when coupled with racially exclusive constructions of national identity, can be a more important trigger for migrant precarity than legal status.

The UK’s increasing flirtation over the last decade with right-wing populist discourses on migration has been well-documented and came to a legislative climax with the passing of a migration policy package known as the Hostile Environment (HE) by the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition in 2012. HE policies ostensibly sought to increase the ‘voluntary return’ rate of undocumented migrants in the UK, but in effect acted to flip the burden of proof in migration cases. Whereas previously it was up to migration enforcement officials to prove the undocumented status of an individual, HE ensured that it was now up to an increasingly random array of non-specialist civil society actors to police the migration status of their fellow residents. Such actors came to include employers, benefit officers, healthcare providers, and landlords.

It was not until 2018, when The Guardian exposed the treatment of legal migrants under HE, that criticism started to gain real traction and several internal investigations were launched. Central to this coverage was a portion of British residents known as Windrush Migrants (WM)—Commonwealth citizens who migrated to the UK between 1948 and 1973. This group was severely and systematically swept up in the HE despite having the legal right to reside in the UK.

In essence, the HE acted to reintroduce migration-related precarity into the lives of WMs, individuals who had lived in the UK for decades and no longer viewed themselves as ‘migrants’. In the literature on precarity, it is emphasised that migrants experience both traditional socioeconomic precarity—i.e. low-pay, inherently unstable work—and migration-specific forms by virtue of being non-citizens. Problems with legal status, ‘deportability’, and everyday discrimination are all common examples. However, the focus on ‘citizenship’ is limiting, as it is typically defined as a binary legal construct: one either is, or is not, a citizen.

WMs pose a unique example of a group who were citizens and then became non-citizens. Here, the history of Windrush migration is exceedingly important: most WMs had equal citizenship status to British-born residents at the time of their arrival. The passage of the British Nationality Act of 1948 had granted citizenship status, including permanent residency rights, to all subjects of the Commonwealth. These rights were progressively stripped back with the passage of several immigration acts in the 1960s and 1970s, which began differentiating between Brits born on mainland Britain and those born outside of it. By the time the Immigration Act of 1971 came into force in 1973, individuals from the Commonwealth had been downgraded from ‘British citizens’ to ‘foreign immigrants’. The case of WMs thus shows that citizenship is a fluid category, which can and is reconstructed as suits the needs of the politics of the day.

Even more importantly, citizenship as experienced by WMs was in the eyes of the beholder: white British residents. All of the WMs who were swept up in HE policies had a legal right to reside in the UK, and indeed would have been eligible for full British citizenship, had they even been aware that they didn’t have it already. Many individuals reported feeling stunned by their sudden designation as ‘undocumented migrants’ and indeed even felt betrayed by a country they perceived to be their own. Thus, Paulette Wilson, born in Jamaica but resident in the UK since 1968, had the following to say:

“I don’t feel British. I am British. I’ve been raised here, all I know is Britain. What the hell can I call myself except British […] I’m still angry that I have to prove it. I feel angry that I have to go through this”.^[1]

Two things were at play in facilitating the reclassification of WMs as illegal outsiders under the HE. First was a shocking ignorance of the history of migration to Britain and the policies that governed it. Whilst this is not surprising when discussing the myriad members of the public who were being asked to police migration, specialists at the Home Office itself appeared to be blissfully unaware as well.

This collective amnesia about the legal rights and cultural significance of WMs was facilitated by the second factor: structural racism. By asking British residents to trigger immigration checks of their fellow residents, HE opened the floodgates for the harassment of ethnic minorities based entirely on non-specialist judgements of who ‘looks foreign’. That WMs were systematically perceived as ‘foreign’, despite having all the trappings of long-term residents—cultural knowledge, fluency in English, local accents etc.—is a reflection of racially exclusive construction of the British identity in popular memory.

This is to say that in cultural discourses, the historic presence of, and indeed significant impact made by non-white individuals in Britain has been written out at a systematic level. We see this in the all-white casts of British WWII films. We see it, too, in the violent hostility to Britain’s first black female MP, Dianne Abbott, who in a parliamentary career spanning over 30 years has been on the receiving end of the most abuse received by any female parliamentarian. Finally, we see it in a national History curriculum, which in the limited areas where migration is even mentioned does so in the context of ‘race relations’, effectively glossing over the agency of these individuals in favour of reconstructing the perpetually foreign migrant victim.

Windrush migrants present a uniquely fertile case study for migration scholars of all disciplines because of what it reveals about the interplay between citizenship and racism. More importantly however, the injustices of HE have flourished in a climate of wilful ignorance. The more scrutiny this case receives, the better.

[1] Amelia Gentleman, The Windrush Betrayal: Exposing the Hostile Environment (London: Guardian Faber, 2019), P.40.

Selected literature:

Gentleman, Amelia, The Windrush Betrayal: Exposing the Hostile Environment (London: Guardian Faber, 2019).

Olusuga, David, Black and British: A Forgotten History (London: Pan Macmillan, 2016).

Paret, Marcel and Gleeson, Shannon, ‘Precarity and agency through a migration lens’, Citizenship Studies (2016), Vol.20, issues 3-4, pp.277-294.

Williams, Wendy, ‘Windrush Lessons Learned Review’, Independent Review for the House of Commons (March 19, 2020) [online] Available from: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/windrush-lessons-learned-review [Accessed on, April 1, 2020].

About the author:

Anna Cáceres is currently finishing her ResMA in Migration History at Leiden University. Her research focuses on migration and the British public healthcare system since WWII. She is particularly interested in the historic roots of contemporary migration discourses and the role – or lack thereof – of history in national identity.

Title Image Credit: Steve Eason on Flickr. The image has been cropped.

Cuando el racismo abierto produce la precariedad de inmigrantes: el escándalo de Windrush en el Reino Unido y la necesidad de sobrepasar el enfoque sobre legalidad por Anna Cáceres

En el 2018 el Reino Unido estaba de nuevo en los medios, esta vez por el escándalo de Windrush que vio a cientos de ciudadanos Británicos con antecedentes migratorios incorrectamente detenidos y hasta deportados. Casi todos eran inmigrantes de países de la Mancomunidad[1] que habían inmigrado al Reino Unido en los años siguientes a la segunda guerra mundial, pero que en 2018, bajo nuevas políticas introducidas a partir del 2012, no eran más reconocidos como ciudadanos Británicos. El escándalo es importante por dos razones. Primero, demuestra la importancia de concebir al “ciudadano” como una categoría fluida y construida socialmente, en vez de una designación binaria legal. Segundo, demuestra cómo el racismo, cuando se encuentra mezclado con construcciones de la identidad nacional que son racialmente exclusivas, puede ser un catalizador para la precariedad de inmigrantes más importante que el estatus legal.

En la última década, el creciente alineamiento del Reino Unido (RU) con los discursos populistas de derecha sobre la inmigración ha sido ampliamente documentados, y llegando a su clímax legislativo con la aprobación de políticas sobre la inmigración llamado el Ambiente Hostil (AH) por la coalición Conservadora- Liberal Demócrata en el 2012. Las políticas del AH aparentemente buscaban aumentar la tasa de ‘retorno voluntario’ por los indocumentados, pero en actualidad sirvieron para invertir la carga de prueba en casos de migración. Mientras antes era la responsabilidad del oficial migraciones aprobar el estatus indocumentado de las personas, AH aseguró que ahora una jurado aleatoria y no especialistas de miembros del público, estaban a cargo de vigilar el estatus migratorio de sus compañeros residentes. Este jurado llegó a incluir empleadores, oficiales a cargo de subsidios estatales, proveedores de servicios médicos, y propietarios.

No fue hasta el 2018, cuando The Guardian expuso el tratamiento de inmigrantes legales bajo el AH que las críticas ganaron verdadero apoyo y varias investigaciones internas fueron iniciadas. Una de las piezas centrales de esta cobertura mediática fue una porción de residentes Británicos conocidos como los Inmigrantes del Windrush (IW) – ciudadanos de la Mancomunidad que llegaron al RU entre el 1948 y el 1973. Este grupo fue severa y sistemáticamente marginalizados por el AH, aunque tenían el derecho legal de permanecer en el RU.

Esencialmente, el AH sirvió para reintroducir una situación de precariedad de inmigrante a las vidas de los IW, personas que llevaban décadas viviendo en el RU y ya no se veían como ‘inmigrantes’. En la literatura sobre la precariedad, se pone énfasis en que los inmigrantes sufren una forma de precariedad atada al estatus de ser inmigrantes, además de la precariedad tradicional, económica – es decir sueldos bajos, y empleo inestable – a causa de no ser ciudadanos. Dificultades legales, la posibilidad de ser deportados, y la discriminación cotidiana son todos ejemplos comunes de la precariedad de los inmigrantes. Sin embargo, el enfoque sobre la ‘ciudadanía’ es limitante, porque en general la ciudadanía está definida como una designación binaria y legal: uno es, o no es, un ciudadano/a.

Los IW son un ejemplo único de ciudadanos que fueron convertidos en no-ciudadanos. Aquí, la historia de la inmigración del Windrush es sumamente importante: El Acto de la Nacionalidad Británica del 1948 dió estatus legal equivalente a los residentes natales del RU, incluyendo derechos de residencia, a todos los sujetos de la Mancomunidad, y entonces también a la mayor parte de los IW. Estos derechos fueron poco a poco revocados con el paso de varias políticas de inmigración en los años 1960s y 1970s, que empezaron a diferenciar entre británicos nacidos en RU y los nacidos afuera. Cuando llegó a promulgarse el Acto de Inmigración del 1971 en el 1973, las personas de la Mancomunidad ya habían sido degradadas de ‘ciudadano Británico’ a ‘inmigrante extranjero’. El caso de los IW demuestra que la ciudadanía es una categoría fluida, que se puede y es reconstruida para servir los intereses políticos del día.

Aún más importante, la ciudadanía experimentada por los IW era condicional y dependía de la aprobación del observador: en este case los residentes blancos del RU. Todos los IW afectados por las políticas del AH tenían un derecho legal a permanecer en el RU, y hasta hubiesen sido aptos para solicitar la ciudadanía británica completa, si se hubieran enterado que ya no la tenían. Muchos de ellos reportaron un shock terrible al darse cuenta que de repente estaban designados como indocumentados, y hasta se sentían traicionados por un país que percibían como el suyo. Así, Paulette Wilson, nacida en Jamaica pero residente en el RU desde el 1968 dijo lo siguiente:

“No me siento británica. Soy británica. Fui criada acá, todo lo que conozco es Gran Bretaña ¿Qué diablos puedo decir que soy sino Británica? […] Todavía estoy enojada que lo tengo que demostrar. Me siento enojada que tengo que pasar por esto” .^[2]

Dos factores facilitaron la reclasificación de los IW como extranjeros ilegales bajo el AH. El primero fue una escandalosa ignorancia sobre la historia de la inmigración al RU y las políticas que la rigieron. Mientras esto no es sorprendente cuando consideramos la miríada de miembros del público que fueron reclutados para vigilar la inmigración, miembros del ministerio del interior también aparentaron estar felices con su ignorancia en el tema.

La amnesia colectiva sobre los derechos legales y la significancia cultural de los IW estaba facilitada por un segundo factor: el racismo estructural. En pedir que los residentes Británicos inicien investigaciones migratorias contra sus compañeros residentes, el AH abrió las puertas al acoso de minorías étnicas basado exclusivamente en el juicio de no-especialistas en quien “parecía extranjero”. Que los IW estaban sistemáticamente percibidos como “extranjeros”, aunque tenían todas las características de residentes de largo plazo – conocimiento cultural, fluidez en el inglés, acentos locales etc. – es un reflejo de la construcción popular de una identidad Británica que es racialmente exclusiva.

En los discursos culturales en Gran Bretaña, existe una amnesia colectiva sobre la presencia histórica, y el impacto significante creado por personas no blancas. Esto los vemos en los repartos completamente blancos de las películas Británicas de la segunda guerra mundial. También lo vemos en la hostilidad violenta dirigida a la primera parlamentaria negra del país, Dianne Abbott, que en una carrera que ha durado más de 30 años ha recibido más abuso que cualquier otra mujer parlamentaria. Finalmente, lo vemos en un currículo nacional de historia, que en los pocos lugares donde se menciona la inmigración, se hace solo en el contexto de las “relaciones raciales”, efectivamente encubriendo la voluntad de estas personas en favor de reconstruir un inmigrante perpetuamente victimizado.

Los IW presentan un caso únicamente fecundo para investigadores de la inmigración de todas disciplinas por lo que demuestran sobre el intercambio entre ciudadanía y racismo. Aún más importante, las injusticias del AH han florecido en un ámbito de ignorancia intencional. La mayor atención que se le dé a este caso, mejor.

[1] La Mancomunidad de Naciones es una asociación de países que formaban la mayor parte del imperio Británico. Se inauguro en el 1926, cuando empezaron las primeras holas de descolonización y ha sido una forma de mantener influencia británica en estos territorios.

[2] Amelia Gentleman, The Windrush Betrayal: Exposing the Hostile Environment (London: Guardian Faber, 2019), P.40.

Literatura Seleccionada

Gentleman, Amelia, The Windrush Betrayal: Exposing the Hostile Environment (London: Guardian Faber, 2019).

Olusuga, David, Black and British: A Forgotten History (London: Pan Macmillan, 2016).

Paret, Marcel and Gleeson, Shannon, ‘Precarity and agency through a migration lens’, Citizenship Studies (2016), Vol.20, issues 3-4, pp.277-294.

Bio de la autora:

Anna Cáceres está terminando su ResMA en Historia de Inmigracion en la Universidad de Leiden. Su investigación se concentra sobre la inmigración y el sistema de salud pública en el Reino Unido a partir de la segunda guerra mundial. Está particularmente interesada en las raíces históricas de los discursos actuales sobre la inmigración y el rol – o no, como sea el caso – de la historia en construir la identidad nacional.

Crédito de la imagen del título: Steve Eason en Flickr. La imagen ha sido recortada.

Brexit tales of discontent: the revenge of Empire by Helen M. Hintjens

9 December 201916 May 2020 5 min read

Nobody knows what happens after UK general elections on 12 December 2019: Brexit, a referendum on Irish unity, on Scottish independence, or a No-Deal exit from the EU? In 1977, Tom Nairn in The Break up of Britain warned that during “extreme difficulties and contradictions, the prospect of break-down or being held forever in the gateway… may lead to… nationalist dementia for a society” (p. 349). The election taking place this week will decide whether the ghosts of imperial ancestors win the day, or whether younger generations can save the UK from its divided self.

Crisis? Which one?

Uncertainty over Brexit is wreaking havoc on the Brits. Those who want to remain in the EU are in despair; those who want to leave are angry. Most are sick of it. Britain’s collective mental health, already poor before Brexit, is worsening dramatically.

Illustration 1: anti-depressant prescriptions in England: another opioid crisis.

In 2012, the Jimmy Savile scandal erupted, resulting in a public crisis in confidence in the British establishment. The public enquiry under then-PM Teresa May into “Historic Child Sexual Abuse” involved serious charges against MPs, celebrities, and royals. The crisis recently resurfaced when Prince Andrew gave a BBC interview on his Epstein connection. He was soon forced to withdraw from UK public life. The Savile crisis is almost forgotten, yet in 2012, John Simpson in The Guardian called this “the worst crisis I can remember in my nearly 50 years at the BBC”. Brexit is now the second “worst crisis in 50 years” in less than a decade.

Myths and lies

Some see the 2016 Referendum result as based on myths and lies. The language of war—betrayal, surrender—gained currency. More recently, the Labour Party accused Johnson and his rich friends of planning a ‘Big Short’ on a No-Deal Brexit. Pro-Brexiteers accuse Remainers (termed ‘Remoaners’) of thwarting the “will of the British people”. Tory MPs who are pro-Remain have been thrown out of the Conservative Party. Support for Brexit remains in rural, small-town and post-industrial England, despite the dire warnings of Operation Yellowhammer [1]. In London, Bristol and Birmingham, and across Scotland and Northern Ireland, the majority wants to Remain. Welsh opinion has moved towards Remain, or even Independence.

Illustration 2: Humour is essential

This joke sums up the dilemma for smaller UK countries: “An Irishman, a Scotsman and an Englishman go into a bar. The Englishman wants to leave, so they all have to leave”. Brexit humour abounds, and it helps a little, but only a little.

Macho English Nationalism

On Gender and Brexit, Aida Hozic and Jacqui True comment whilst “men took up 85% of the press space and 70% of television coverage”, during the Brexit campaign, “women [became]… visible as actors… to ‘clean-up’ the mess left by their male counterparts” (p. 276). Women and men voted similarly on Leave-Remain. Young people were notably more pro-Remain than their elders. Commenting in Third Text, Finlayson comments: “Farage’s Brexitism… opposes the small, ordinary, decent, local and familiar to the big, distant and untrustworthy”, showing a ‘little Englander’ mentality harking back to Empire. Pro-Brexit rhetoric centres on ‘guts’ and courage: “…phrases [that] invoke boyhood stories of wartime bravery against the odds and of standing up to boarding school bullies” (pp. 602-603), and tales of the Empire.

Illustration 3: Brexit and Dangerous Jingoism

Outdated imperial values are dangerous. Both racist and sexist, such values risk renewing sectarian violence in Northern Ireland. The murder of Labour MP Jo Cox and UK-wide spike in hate crime since the Referendum leaves minorities fearing the future. And small-minded English nationalism merely intensifies Scottish, Northern Irish, and Welsh nationalism. The 12 December 2019 elections are crucial.

Algorithms and Rule by Nobody

In today’s networked age, algorithm-based ‘filter bubbles’ limit social media users’ suggested content to their existing comfort zone. Guardian investigative journalist Carole Cadwalladr found that the Leave campaign defeated Remain by using such filtering algorithms effectively [2]. Causing suspicion of his motives, Boris Johnson recently refused to allow the publication of a parliamentary report on Russian social media interference in UK elections.

Pro-Brexiteers also frame Brexit as revolt against ‘faceless Brussels bureaucrats’, echoing Hannah Arendt’s ‘Rule by Nobody’. Yet EU neoliberalism could give way to UK financial deregulation, a danger with the UK constitution now collapsing. Abandoning compromise also means Britain could break into three or four national units. Sectarian and anti-minority violence would likely accompany this break-up.

End Thoughts

Nairn warned the Brits—especially the English—of the danger of rooting around in their imperial past for renewed nationalist identity symbols: “… once these well-springs have been tapped there is no real guarantee that the great forces released will be ‘controllable’” (p. 349). As minorities in the UK live in fear of the future, Brexiteers need constant reminding that words can be mortally dangerous. We are now in Karl Marx’s vision in The Eighteenth Brumaire where “[t]he tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living… [drawing]… from them names, battle slogans, and costumes in order to present this new scene in world history”. Rather than plunge back into its imperial past, and end up divided, it is hoped the UK electorate will vote to remain in the EU. The question now will be whether the EU will want us!

At a Research in Progress Seminar 12 December 2019 ‘BREXITLAND FAIRY TALES’, Helen Hintjens will elaborate on some of the points in this blog. 13.00-14.00, ISS. This happens to be on the same day as the UK national parliamentary elections!

[1] The latest Operation Yellowhammer document was released on 2 August 2019. It predicts shortages of medicine, “risk… panic buying… [which could] exacerbate food supply disruption”, “[u]rgent action… to ensure [continued] access to clean water”, “[the disruption of] [la]w enforcement data/information sharing UK-EU”, and “[p]rotests and counter-protests… across the UK” alongside “… a rise in public disorder and community tensions”.

In Northern Ireland “growth of the illegitimate economy” especially in cross-border areas“.

[2] https://www.spectator.co.uk/2019/11/exclusive-dominic-cummingss-secret-links-to-russia/

Cadwalladr also in: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/may/17/dark-money-democracy-billionaires-funding

Image Credit Main Photo: Williams Murray Hamm on Flickr

About the author:

Helen Hintjens is Assistant Professor in Development and Social Justice. She publishes on asylum policies and on post-genocide reconciliation in the African Great Lakes region, and Rwanda in particular.

Distorted anti-Semitism allegations in UK’s Labour Party are a cover for Israeli apartheid by Jeff Handmaker

4 March 201919 June 2020 5 min read

On 18 February 2019, Luciana Berger and six other British Members of Parliament (MPs) left the UK Labour Party. The most prominent reason provided by the departing MPs, led by Berger, is that the Party had become ‘institutionally anti-Semitic’, due mostly – or so it would appear – to Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn’s outspoken criticisms of the Israeli government and military. As discussed in this blogpost, which draws on a longer article published on Mondoweiss, these allegations are both dangerous distortions of anti-Semitism and serve as a shameful cover for Israel’s regime of apartheid.

In the extensive reporting that followed the departure of the Labour MPs, a Spectator columnist alleged that this was the beginning of the end for Labour, while the Guardian claimed that the party faced an anti-Semitism crisis. It was hardly mentioned in any of this reporting that the seven Labour Party members who decided to leave were all closely tied with Labour Friends of Israel, an avowedly pro-Israel organisation. Berger is its former director.

A report by the Media Reform Coalition identified ‘myriad inaccuracies and distortions’ in the reporting of anti-Semitism claims against the Labour Party, which prompted a public statement by prominent journalists and scholars. Fomenting a strategy of disinformation is consistent with claims made by Jonathan Cook, a highly respected author and long-time journalist, who has established that the Israeli Ministry of Strategic Affairs has long been actively seeking to marginalise its critics through a range of measures.

But where did the anti-Semitism claim come from?

The IHRA Definition

The contemporary ‘debate’ over anti-Semitism within the Labour Party relates to August 2018, when pro-Israel members of the party proposed the incorporation of a highly controversial definition of anti-Semitism. Called the “Working Definition of Antisemitism” and drafted in 2016 by a group called the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), the IHRA definition contains vague and dangerously far-reaching conflations of criticisms of Israel and references to the holocaust.

The lobby to incorporate the IHRA definition was fierce and unrelenting, largely led by Berger and others affiliated with Labour Friends of Israel. At the time of the August 2018 debate, there were even efforts to smear Hajo Meyer, a Jewish survivor of Auschwitz who had once spoken at a Labour Party rally where he made comparisons between the Nazi regime and his observations of Israeli policies. Meyer, an outspoken retired theoretical physicist, recorded his experiences in a moving memoir The End of Judaism: An Ethical Tradition Betrayed, published in 2012.

Steven Garside, a member of the UK Labour Party and Palestine Solidarity Campaign who strongly opposed the IHRA definition, maintained that erroneous allegations of anti-Semitism were in fact related to Corbyn’s harsh criticisms of the Israeli government and military. Ash Sarkar of the Sandberg Instituut condemned the move as a threat to free expression. Prominent human rights lawyer Geoffrey Robertson warned that the definition would suppress legitimate criticism of Israel while failing to cover genuine cases of anti-Semitism.

But despite these criticisms and warnings, Labour ultimately decided to incorporate the definition in full.

Since then, emboldened by the wide-ranging IHRA definition, groups such as Labour Friends of Israel and the Jewish Chronicle, with very little substantiation, have sought to equate criticism of Israel as “Jew hate”.

For liberal supporters of Israel, adopting the IHRA definition has been a crucial strategy. However, the true aim of such vacuous, yet highly damaging allegations is to avoid a critical dialogue on Israel’s policies of apartheid against Palestinians. Unlike South Africa apartheid, which from the 1960s became increasingly reported, understood and eventually condemned, Israeli apartheid has been shamefully underreported and is far less understood.

So what does Israeli apartheid look like?

The many forms of apartheid in Israel

Israeli apartheid takes many forms, whether this be the overt racism enshrined in Israel’s 2018 “Nation-State law” that discontinued Arabic as an official language, which is now being challenged in Court, or Israel’s continued blockade and bombing of Gaza (since 2005) that is currently the subject of a preliminary examination by the International Criminal Court.

Apartheid also takes the form of literally hundreds of insidious Israeli military orders, including Order 101 that makes it impossible for Palestinians to legally protest. Israeli regulations make it virtually impossible for Palestinians to build a home. This is due to the fact that Israel’s land and zoning regulations are, according to Israel’s Basic Law, oriented around “preserving” the land for Israel’s Jewish inhabitants.

But the most insidious manifestations of Israeli apartheid are the decades-long, everyday experiences of Palestinians. Farmers have to stand in long lines to reach their sheep in the agricultural village of Qalandia (that is surrounded by a high, concrete wall). School children in Hebron cannot walk to school without being stopped daily by soldiers at a military checkpoint to check the contents of their schoolbags. The UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women has heard numerous cases of official abuse against Palestinian women, including a seven-month pregnant woman assaulted at a checkpoint.

Given these examples, and much more, of Israel’s apartheid policies, it is exasperating that there is such a resistance to criticise Israel. And yet, this is exactly what happens. Liberal groups such as Labour Friends of Israel in the UK, Centre for Information and Documentation on Israel (CIDI) in the Netherlands and others repeatedly fuel the public’s outrage on anti-Semitism through disingenuous use of the IHRA definition, yet simultaneously maintain a silence that Israel’s policies amount to apartheid, not unlike the approach of like-minded liberal groups in Israel.

Apartheid cannot compete with a global social justice movement

Just as was ultimately the case in South Africa, neither Israel’s government, nor its most adamant, liberal supporters, can compete with a global social justice movement committed to ending Israel’s regime of apartheid. Rooted in equal rights claims, this movement is bolstered by growing judicial attention to Israel’s commission of war crimes and a highly successful, Palestinian-led global campaign of boycott divestment and sanctions (BDS).

The success of the BDS movement is acknowledge to have transformed the debate on Israel-Palestine. Indeed, as prominent Israeli journalist Gideon Levy has put it, BDS has been a true success story for the movement, succeeding to undermine Israel’s strongly cultivated image as a liberal democracy.

The conclusion that can be drawn from all this is that just like those who turned a blind eye for decades to apartheid in South Africa, the failure of Luciana Berger, Labour Friends of Israel, CIDI, and others to confront Israeli apartheid will place them all on the wrong side of history.

Image Credit: https://www.stopthewall.org/apartheid-wrong

About the author:

Jeff Handmaker is a senior researcher at the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS) and focuses on legal mobilisation.

He is a regular author for Bliss. Read all his posts here.

IHSA Conference 2018 | The instrumentalisation of disasters by David Keen

10 September 201818 May 2020 8 min read

Today, not just disaster but the functions—and instrumentalisation—of disaster have been brought right into the heart of Europe. If widespread official violence and the instrumentalisation of disaster can happen right under the eyes of a free press and under the watch of two of the world’s most established democracies, what then is possible in greater seclusion? This blog is based on a keynote speech delivered at the International Humanitarian Studies Association Conference held in August 2018 at the ISS.

Visiting Calais in October 2015, the child psychiatrist Lynne Jones asked, “how is it possible that on the borders of a north European town, there are some 6,000 people living in conditions worse than those I have encountered with Somali refugees on the Ethiopian border, Pakistanis after a devastating earthquake, or Darfuris in the deserts of Northern Chad, one of the poorest countries in the world?”

It was shocking to realise that such a situation could develop—and be allowed to develop—in the heart of Western Europe. When disasters have occurred in more distant lands, government and aid officials have often pointed to obstacles like remoteness, insecurity and the rainy season. But Calais is an hour-and-a-half by train from London and Paris.

Where the functions of disaster have been recognised, this has often been in relation to ‘faraway’ places. These functions may include political repression in a ‘state of emergency’ as well as profits from price movements and from the depopulation of resource-rich areas. But today, not just disaster but the functions—and instrumentalisation—of disaster have been brought right into the heart of Europe.

The instrumentalisation of disasters

A big part of the instrumentalisation of disasters today is the logic of deterrence. Many aid workers and human rights workers saw the appalling conditions on the Greek island of Lesbos as part of an attempt to deter migration. In Calais, government officials have sometimes made it pretty clear that they want to maintain pressure on the migrants and to make conditions so bad as to discourage people from coming, and migrants/refugees in Calais themselves also saw a connection. For example, one young Sudanese man from Darfur said in the summer of 2016 when we were in Calais that “beatings are getting worse as large numbers are here now and they [the police] want to discourage it.”

The political instrumentalisation of Calais has involved not just deterrence, but also political theatre aimed at domestic audiences. This is partly about stirring up fears and then exploiting them politically. Particularly in the run-up to the UK’s Brexit referendum in June 2016, Calais was repeatedly on the front page of the UK’s Daily Mail, the Daily Express, and the Sun—considered right-wing newspapers. It somehow symbolised, crystallised and exacerbated very deep-rooted fears about immigration, criminality, disease, terrorism, and loss of control.

Another political pay-off from the high-profile situation in Calais was that it allowed the British government under Labour and then under David Cameron to send a strong message that, even while still within the EU, the UK was taking tough measures to control illegal immigration. When UK border controls were set up in France in 2002, this contributed to a sharp fall in UK asylum applications. It also had the effect of fostering the informal migrant settlements around Calais, which were then used to underline the necessity of strong controls.

Ever since the first major settlement in Calais in 1999, there have been periodic police actions to intimidate and disperse people. I think a great many British people do not realise what has been done ‘on their behalf’ in Calais and surrounding areas. This is an example of what Mark Duffield referred to a long time ago as ‘functional ignorance’. The UK government is been deeply complicit in this particular ‘hostile environment’, and indeed Calais migrants have often expressed this view. The UK has helped to plan and fund dispersals and has also sometimes taken credit for them. For example, a 2010 UK government press release welcomed the package of actions agreed with France the previous year, saying a key measure was “the dismantling of the illegal encampments along the Channel and North Sea coast.”[1]

In October 2016, French police, in coordination with the UK, destroyed the most famous ‘jungle’ camp, which had been established on a landfill site ridden with asbestos in January 2015. But such measures tend to disperse migrants and make them less visible rather than actually resolving the situation. In his book Illegality Inc., Swedish anthropologist Ruben Andersson brilliantly documented the way migration controls shift the problem geographically while allowing short-term gains from appearing tough.

In Calais, the violence of French police has been well documented, for example by the Refugee Rights Data Project (now Refugee Rights Europe) and by Human Rights Watch. One Calais volunteer told us: “Everyone has had experience of teargas or rubber bullets. The head injuries from rubber bullets were terrible.”

Sadly, the very enterprise of the migrants seems to have attracted further police repression. This may reflect what Noam Chomsky once called the threat of a good example. While we were at the camp in 2016, there was a series of large-scale police raids on the surprisingly vibrant network of shops and restaurants, closing some and confiscating food, drinks and documents.

Violent action and the plausibility of propaganda

This brings me to Hannah Arendt’s concept of ‘action as propaganda’ – essentially the use of violent action (often by totalitarian regimes) to create a world in which implausible propaganda becomes more plausible over time. One historical example she gave was confining Jews to insanitary ghettoes and camps so that they came to appear disease-ridden and even less than human, in line with Nazi propaganda. Calais has been a horrendous example of ‘action as propaganda’, with harsh punishment of any signs of cultural or economic life; meanwhile, violence and disease are generally portrayed as part of the threat that Calais poses, ignoring the reality of a community that could be extraordinarily kind and hospitable. Even the violence and disease that have occurred in the camp have overwhelmingly been a consequence of neglect and overcrowding. Meanwhile, the very brutality of police responses has helped reinforce the message that these vulnerable people are somehow an existential threat to Western populations.

Calais is part of a much wider phenomenon of outsourcing migration control. This involves a large dose of de-responsibilisation, a fairly systematic tolerance for human rights abuses that are in some sense functional and that can also be conveniently blamed on others.

And if widespread official violence and the instrumentalisation of disaster can happen right under the eyes of a free press and under the watch of two of the world’s most established democracies, what then is possible in greater seclusion?

EU member states have enabled the Libyan Coast Guard to turn back thousands of people to Libya, where they face torture, sexual violence and other horrendous abuses[2]. In Sudan, the Rapid Support Forces (which grew out of the notorious Janjaweed militias responsible for genocide) have been deployed against migrants (usually from ethnic groups victimised in the genocide) as part of Sudan’s effort to demonstrate to the European Union that it can contain flows of migrants[3].

We need to be extraordinarily wary of the signals sent when certain populations are deemed systematically to be unwanted and even, in Arendt’s telling word, ‘undeportable’. Arendt showed that in the 1920s and 1930s, in a context of mass expulsions in Europe and a corresponding unwillingness to receive these people, “the very phrase ‘human rights’ became for all concerned—victims, persecutors, and onlookers alike—the evidence of hopeless idealism or fumbling feeble-minded hypocrisy.”[4] The Nazis had carefully tested the ground and found that almost no-one was willing to receive the Jews, Arendt stressed, before they launched their project of elimination.

How can all this possibly be justified? Well, today the shadowy figure of the ‘people smuggler’ has acquired important political functions as a scapegoat and a convenient alibi for neglect and abuse by a range of political authorities and unaccountable militias. Studies of the diverse economic and political functions of counterinsurgency and counterterrorism suggest that the rebel or terrorist has frequently become a kind of useful enemy[5]; I would suggest that in many ways the figure of ‘people smuggler’ has stepped conveniently into this pre-existing paradigm. And like the terrorist, the ‘exploitative smuggler’ is also routinely reproduced by the policies of those who claim to revile him, not least the tightening of immigration controls (as Andersson and others have shown).

Closely related to the relentless official focus on the ‘human smuggler’ is the tendency to place everything within an ‘anti-crime’ framework. Again, crime is a reality, but it is very dangerous when anything and anyone remotely connected to migration—including the attempt to claim asylum—is labelled as criminal. The emerging ‘anti-crime’ framework is also a great alibi for abusive officials or neglectful officials and a great way of disguising official involvement in fuelling conflict.

The redefinition of humanitarianism

Closely related to the war on crime and on human smugglers is a fairly systematic redefinition of humanitarianism. Humanitarianism has today been routinely redefined as the prevention of dangerous journeys. In these circumstances, Western government policies that make these journeys more dangerous; for example, the curbing of search-and-rescue in the Mediterranean, or encouraging violence in Calais, or even turning a blind eye to attacks on migrants travelling through Mexico serve as another form of Arendt’s ‘action as propaganda’. Within this emerging system, drowning may come to serve two related functions—first, as deterrence and, second, as propaganda for the allegedly ‘humanitarian’ project of preventing people from making the journey in the first place.

It seems to be a case – to paraphrase Henry II’s infamous reported incitement to the murder of archbishop Thomas-a-Becket, of “who will rid us of these troublesome migrants?” As with the creation of ‘safe areas’ in Bosnia that turned out not to be safe, Western governments cannot be honest about the evolving situation in France, Greece, Libya, Sudan, Mexico, Turkey, Sri Lanka and many other countries when they are obsessed with containing people within those environments.

[1] UK Prime Minister’s Office, 2010, UK-France Summit 2010 Declaration on Immigration, November 2. https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-france-summit-2010-declaration-on-immigration

[2] Amnesty International, 2017, Libya’s Dark Web of Collusion, December

[3] Suliman Baldo, 2017, Ominous Threats Descending on Darfur, Enough, Washington, November; Susanne Jaspars and Margie Buchanan-Smith, 2018, Darfuri migration from Sudan to Europe; From displacement to despair, ODI, London, September forthcoming

[4] Hannah Arendt, 1951, The Origins of Totalitarianism, New York, Harcourt Brace.

[5] David Keen, 2012, Useful Enemies: When Waging Wars is More Important than Winning Them, Yale University Press.

About the author:

David Keen is Professor of Conflict Studies, London School of Economics. He has worked extensively on understanding war, including its causes and functions.

Economic diplomacy: bilateral relations in a context of geopolitical change by Peter A.G. Bergeijk and Selwyn J.V. Moons

17 July 201818 May 2020 5 min read

Economic diplomacy, although perceived as marginally important by neoclassical economists, is a highly relevant topic first and foremost because it works in practice, but also because it provides an essential policy answer to the increasing uncertainty of international transactions. In this article, Peter A.G. van Bergeijk and Selwyn J.V. Moons, editors of the recently released Research Handbook on Economic Diplomacy, briefly introduce the topic of economic diplomacy and highlight the value of the new publication, to which several ISS researchers have contributed.

The eminent breakdown of multilateralism and supranationalism due to Trump and Brexit has led to a revival of the debate on economic diplomacy, properly understood as a broad field that comprises those aspects of diplomacy that are aimed at:

the opening of markets to stimulate bilateral cross-border economic activities such as imports, exports, mergers and acquisitions and greenfield foreign direct investments;
the building and use of bilateral cultural, political and economic relationships between countries in order to assist domestic companies; and
the use of bilateral economic relationships, including (the threat) to discontinue these activities, as a tool of diplomacy.

Neoclassically oriented economists in the past have considered this topic of marginal interest only. Their analysis typically heralds the costs of government intervention and the benefits of free international trade and investment flows. Consequently, the economic analysis of positive and negative diplomatic interactions did not feature prominently on their research agenda. But it is increasingly being recognised that economic diplomacy is a highly relevant topic, especially in Development Studies, (a) because economic diplomacy works (Moons 2017, 2018, Muniz 2018), (b) because it is more important for developing countries and emerging markets (Rhana 2018) and (c) because it provides an essential policy answer to the increasing uncertainty of international transactions (Bergeijk and Moons 2018).

Surprise and confusion

The international economic reality of 2018 is surprising and confusing. Europe struggles with its trans-Atlantic ally, and the UK’s exit and a new Italian government with an anti-EU attitude contribute to this sense of confusion. America is separating itself from its traditional partners (the EU, NAFTA, and the OECD). The trade relationships between the world’s economic #1 and #2 are more strained than ever before. Trust in the multilateral backbone of the world economy evaporates and US hegemonism is weakening. Clearly a new and better understanding of the interactions between governments is necessary because of the changing playing field and dynamics.

Brave new world

Four key stylized facts that apply to this new environment make the Research Handbook on Economic Diplomacy: Bilateral relations in a context of geopolitical change timely and highly relevant:

In the brave new world of Trump and Brexit, trade and investment uncertainty increases significantly with a negative impact on trade and investment;
Trump’s open confrontational approach to foreign policy as a form of negative diplomacy bears costs both in the US and abroad;
Bilateral relationships become more relevant and valuable, especially for developing and emerging economies; and
Bilateral economic diplomacy needs to be carefully designed and properly managed in order to generate optimal impact.

Representing a move away from Eurocentric books on the topic, the Research Handbook offers relevant and focused contributions that provide three valuable lessons for current and future policies. First, in addition to the full coverage of positive interactions, our contributors also explicitly consider the impact of negative interaction. Second, the Research Handbook in addition to the analysis of OECD markets provides a comprehensive set of detailed empirical analyses of developing and emerging economies in Africa, Asia and Latin America. The contributions by 31 leading experts from industrial nations, emerging economies and developing countries in five continents provide a unique perspective on both the heterogeneous dynamics of economic diplomacy and the tools to analyse the impact and efficiency of economic diplomats both qualitatively (case studies, interviews) and quantitatively (macro-economic gravity models, micro-economic firm level data, surveys, meta-analysis, cost benefit analysis). Third, the Research Handbook provides detailed discussions of information requirements, data coverage and the impact of (changes in) the level and quality of diplomatic representation. The studies in the Research Handbook thereby reveal how and under which conditions economic diplomacy can be effective, providing clear guidance for evidence-based policy.

Evidence base

What are the major findings and implications of recent research? First, economic diplomacy works and this is true both for positive and negative interaction. One can build on positive interaction to strengthen economic ties and similarly the twitter tsunami of the current US president and his increasing reliance on economic sanctions will carry a significant cost (Rose, 2018). Second, uncertainty itself already reduces international specialisation: the threat of trade disruption and discontinuation of treaties in itself influences perceptions and thereby the behaviour of consumers, firms and governments. Third, a one-size-fits-all approach does not work. Economic diplomacy should be aimed at the niche where its contribution can be most significant: complex products, complex markets and countries with diverging political, cultural and historical background (Moons 2017).

Relevance for developing countries and emerging markets

Bilateral economic diplomacy is important for building a good country image and to promote an emerging market as a reliable trading partner with high quality export products, especially in developing countries. It is a relatively more significant determinant of bilateral exports among African states compared to regional integration (Afesorgbor 2018). New modes of economic diplomacy and (development cooperation) are being developed based on China’s pioneering approach to development (De Haan and Warmerdam 2018). Economic diplomacy, however, is not a panacea as Maharani (2018) clarifies while discussing challenges such as lacking exporter preparedness, substandard logistic infrastructure and budgets that remain below those of neighboring countries.

References:

Afesorgbor, S.K., Economic Diplomacy in Africa: The Impact of Regional Integration versus Bilateral Diplomacy on Bilateral Trade chapter 20 in Research Handbook on Economic Diplomacy: Bilateral Relations in a Context of Geopolitical Change, editors P.A.G. van Bergeijk en S.J.V. Moons, Edward Elgar: Cheltenham, UK

Bergeijk, P.A.G. van en S.J.V Moons (2018) ‘Introduction to the Research Handbook on Economic Diplomacy’, chapter 1 in Research Handbook on Economic Diplomacy: Bilateral Relations in a Context of Geopolitical Change, editors P.A.G. van Bergeijk en S.J.V. Moons, Edward Elgar: Cheltenham, UK

Bergeijk, P.A.G. van, S.J.V. Moons en C. Volpe-Martincus (2018) ‘The future of economic diplomacy research’, chapter 23 in Research Handbook on Economic Diplomacy: Bilateral Relations in a Context of Geopolitical Change, editors P.A.G. van Bergeijk en S.J.V. Moons, Edward Elgar: Cheltenham, UK

Arjan de Haan and Ward Warmerdam China’s foreign aid: towards a new normal? chapter 22 in Research Handbook on Economic Diplomacy: Bilateral Relations in a Context of Geopolitical Change, editors P.A.G. van Bergeijk en S.J.V. Moons, Edward Elgar: Cheltenham, UK

Moons, S.J.V (2017) Heterogenous Effects of Economic Diplomacy: Instruments, Determinants and Developments. PhD thesis ISS.

About the authors:

Peter van Bergeijk (www.petervanbergeijk.org) is Professor of International Economics and Macroeconomics at the ISS.

Selwyn Moons has a PhD in economics from ISS. His research focus is international economics and economic diplomacy. Selwyn is currently working as Partner in the public sector advisory branch of PwC the Netherlands. Previously he worked in the Dutch ministries of Economic Affairs and Foreign Affairs.

Deglobalisation Series | Deglobalisation 2.0: Trump and Brexit are but symptoms by Peter A.G. van Bergeijk

13 March 201818 May 2020 4 min read

We live in strange and usual times. Actually, this is what people always do. And all people always think that their era is unique. We seem to live in the times of Trumpism, Brexitism and deglobalisation. It definitely feels like something unique. But it is not.

Our grandparents have been here before. Of course, the voices and characters on the world stage are different. But the stories of the Great Depression of the 1930s and the Great Recession that we are still living today are similar.

The start is a financial crisis. Then follows a collapse of world trade and world investment that marks the end of decades of intensifying globalisation characterised by increasingly free international trade and capital flows. This collapse starts a period of deglobalisation that at first is hidden under the veil of recovery, but later becomes clear as a reduction of the share of international trade in production. This happened in the 1930s and it is happening now.

Graph Deglobalization 2.0 — Deglobalisation 1.0 (in the 1930s) and 2.0 (today)—these two periods are shown in red. Index numbers 2007=100.

Many observers make the error of blaming Trump and Brexit for deglobalisation. They are wrong and confuse the symptoms and the causes of the disease. Why are Trump and Brexit only symptoms? Because the virus of deglobalisation is widespread: the Dutch referendum opposing the treaty with the Ukraine, and the Belgian opposition of the trade agreement between the EU and Canada, are just two examples. And in other countries such as Austria, Germany and France, anti-globalist election platforms have gained significant strength. An interesting observation is that anti-globalism now has a strong foothold in the Global North, with much different attitudes in the Global South, particular among the BRICS countries.

Déjà Vu: The 1930s (and today)

Although deglobalisation is a recurring phenomenon, scientists have so far treated the different periods of deglobalisation as isolated cases, limiting our knowledge of deglobalisation to a hermeneutic understanding of this real-world phenomenon. In science “one” is typically not enough, but economists and political scientists have unfortunately limited their research to the most recent manmade trade disaster at hand.

The problem is that we therefore do not learn from history, do not compare it with other occurrences of the phenomenon, and cannot correctly understand our current situation.

Of course, the two major phases of deglobalisation are not identical twins. I would like to add: fortunately so. One can only learn if both similarities and differences occur. The two phases of deglobalisation were equally triggered by a demand shock in the wake of a financial crisis. Both in the 1930s and in the 2000s the composition of trade was a second key determinant: manufacturing trade bore the brunt of the contraction.

Before the start of deglobalisation, income inequality increased significantly, and the recent rise in inequality has been linked to international trade. And as in the 1930s, the political institutions are key for understanding where and when deglobalisation of economies occurred. Unlike is often assumed, a “world” trade collapse and its deglobalisation aftermath is characterised by significant heterogeneity of country experiences and practices, implying that a one-size-fits-all approach to deglobalisation will be deemed to fail.

Democracy and deglobalisation

The differences, however, are equally important. In the 1930s, democracies supported free trade, and deglobalisation was driven by autocratic decisions to strengthen self-sufficiency. In the 2010s, political institutions are just as significant, but now democratic decisions drive the deglobalisation process worldwide. Indeed, while the industrialised countries this time avoided the pitfalls of protectionism and deflation, they have experienced different political dynamics.

It is important that their significance measurably and significantly occurs well before the presidential elections in the US or the Brexit referendum. Trump and Brexit are consequences of the underlying political dynamics. These manifestations have a self-reinforcing character, but fighting them will not cure the world economy from the deglobalisation virus.

This raises an important question regarding the concept of the liberal peace (trade between democracies reduces the probability of war by increasing the cost of conflict) that underpins the Bretton Woods institutions. Now that the 19^th and 20^th Century hegemons are repositioning towards lesser integration into the world economy, the maintenance of the multilateral rules for trade and investment are under threat; thus the very concept of the liberal peace may be eroding. It is interesting to see that the developing and emerging economies understand the importance of these rules and regulations against the power play of economic world leaders. China, the emerging hegemon of the 21^st Century , is one of those important voices. In the era of Trump and Brexit, it is essential that this voice is heard.

This contribution is the first of a series of blog articles on deglobalisation. It is based on a peer reviewed journal article that econometrically investigates the deglobalisations of the 1930s and the 2000s:

van Bergeijk, P.A.G. (2018) ‘On the brink of deglobalisation…again’, Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society rsx023. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/cjres/rsx023

Peter van Bergeijk is Professor of International Economics at the Institute of Social Studies (of Erasmus University Rotterdam), one of Europe’s leading development studies institutes. He is author of On the Brink of Deglobalization: An Alternative Perspective on the Causes of the World Trade Collapse, Edward Elgar 2010. His latest book, Deglobalisation 2.0, is to appear in 2018.