Politics; Rise of Right-wing Activism:
‘World order’, according to learned is the arrangement and position of countries in global power equations. From time to time, world order kept changing, from kingship to democracy, from multi-polar to bi-polar during the cold war, from bi-polar to Uni-polar after the disintegration of the Soviet Union, and again towards multi-polarity as many philosophers questions the hegemony of the US. Politics and rise of right-wing activism.
The world saw the rise of liberalism during the European Gold age. World order does not stay stagnant as evident by lessons from the past. Are we again seeing the rise of conservatism in the New World Order?
The Revolt of Right-Wing Extremism and Politics:
‘New World order’, in general terms refers to a new period of history followed by a dramatic change in political ideas and thoughts.
Some conspiracy theorists also relate the new world order as a system to eradicate the sovereignty of nations, provided by the treaty of West-Phalia in 1648-which is considered the root cause of the emergence of the modern nation-state.
Most of human history is filled with violence, fire, vehement and ruthless behavior. After suffering and atrocities, people and ideas of liberalism started to rise and the lesson was learned. Human rights are the burning concept these days and we demand justice and an amoral world we are in search of a better world and making this world a better place to live.
We have Geneva Convention and international Red Cross Movements. Improvement is seen in the past years, but we are again seeing the rise of right-wing politics. Now, I will be analyzing the reason and causes why right-wing is prevailing across the globe?
First of all, differentiate between left and right-wing politics. Left-wing is progressive while right-wing is conservative. The basic difference between left and right-wing politics is about individual liberty and the power of government. Left-wing politics is marked by pro-revolution and pro-change tactics.
The concepts of liberalism and regulation of the economy by the government are the basic concepts of the left-wing. Whereas, right-wing politics is marked by nationalism and support for religion. Right-wing activists want a limited role of government in people’s life.
Here is a conspiracy theory about world order as well. There is also a left/right paradigm as well. The change will not be made. There is a false illusion that people can bring change but those in the shadows control the whole world order. Either they are left-wing-wanting less regulation of the economy or right-wing-wanting regulation of the economy.
Fact remains that those who control the system are beyond the right and left politics. One big and underground government is there, away from the eyes of the public pulling the strings of ordinary people changing the world order.
There is the unprecedented rise of right-wing politics across the globe. Far-right extremism is also a growing concern for superpower America as well. Not only America, but the whole of Europe is also deeply affected by the menace of extremism. France is one of the best examples. Recent examples are Hijab Ban Talks, and killings at Christchurch, New Zealand.
Anti-immigrant populist leads the roost. India under Modi -Hindutva ideology and also rise of TLP in Pakistan in recent years shows the rise of right-wing ideology.
Benjamin Netanyahu is a leader of the far-right and remained premier for a long time, now replaced by Naftali Bennet. France’s Emmanuel Macron, UK’s conservative party, Xi Jinping of China, Hungarian premier Viktor Orban, Poland prime minster-Mateusz Morawiecki, and Modi under India points toward the rise of right-wing across the globe and even ex-president of superpower Mr. Donald Trump and also the rise of Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil shows the emergence of right-wing extremism worldwide.
Right-wing is winning across the globe in the new world order. Right is willing all over the world. What can be the reason? Left is getting left and lost in left whereas you can analyze, the right is learning from the experience and even from the left itself.
Right is pragmatic-as Xi Jinping is nationalist but is regulating the economy for sake of protection of power and one-party government and his hold on that party also. Modi also has reservations about free trade and supports his own Indian market.
Generation identitarians is an identitarian nationalist movement in France pointing towards the again rise of right-wing politics. Emmanuel Macron repeatedly talked about the radicalization of Islamist separatist groups. The slogan of Refugees, not welcome is the slogan of right-wing politics.
Views of the far-right about ethnic cleansing are wicked. The mixing of races is strictly prohibited by far-right activists. The ideas are not new, but decades old. They resorted to culture so that anyone cannot blame them for racism.
Generation identity placement in Europe is traced back to the theory of Great Replacement. A conspiracy theory that Europeans are being replaced by other races and if you want to preserve your race, you should eliminate other races means basically other races are inevitable threats for your own supreme race.
A conspiracy theory from France conquered the global far-right. Camus coined the word “the great replacement: in 2011 impressing the global far-right activists. Far-right activists are driven by the idea of racial purity.
People are extremists and everyone is possessive of respect for his culture. Also, with the evolution of society, cultures are more inter-mingled and everyone knows inns and out of other cultures. These far-right activities are gaining the floor across the globe and are also cherished by the activists as well. Violence attracts people and far-right activities are gaining popularity and are also liked by individuals as well. The social media act as a platform for discussing thoughts and meeting people with the same ideologies.
Read more: https://www.unifrog.org/know-how/understanding-the-political-spectrum
Failure of left-wing politics also gave rise to right-wing politics. Whether Obama or Congress in India, after their failure, people tried to bring change and this change of mind of people brought the right-wing into power. Another thing is nationalism and the problem of immigration and local people voted against illegal immigration.
Another problem is that the left-wing gets beyond the far left criticizing right-wing politics. We can say that more adaptable right-wing activism and left-wing going far beyond can be the reason for rising of right-wing activism in the new world order.
One of the minor reasons for rising of the right-wing is that the citizens might think that their government is not supporting their ideology and preserving their culture. A climate of intolerance is also there in India against which the Indian writers return their awards to the government.
India, portraying its secular image in the world is deeply rooted in RSS ideology. Maybe, the reason is that Hindutva may think that their government is secular and they are overlooking their basic identity. The same is the case with Pakistan, where we see the rise of the right-wing as evident by the recent power shown by TLP assuming that the government is not preserving the religion of the state.
Samuel P Huntington’s clash of civilizations was ground-breaking and talked about the battle of ideas. The future of conflict will be cultural and civilizational conflict. Every individual wants to see his culture at the top of the table. There is a tug of war between the cultures going on.
Every civilization has a unique culture, language, and religion. There will be clashes and conflicts among the civilizations. It is happening as said by Huntington and we are seeing a rise in conservatism and identity-based conflicts in the mainstream.
Cutting it short, tables can turn as the world order keeps on changing and progressing. It is a cycle that keeps on going contributing to the evolution of society and ideas as well. But, we can say that different leaders in the world are not limited not only to either wing of politics as they are resorting to another side of politics as well and are progressing as well e-g China resorting to nationalism as well as the regulation of the economy and also India, with nationalism and identity-based politics and putting constraints on the free trade. In nutshell, it still remains a dilemma to figure out the best in left and right-wing as matters of international politics are subjective.
This article is written by Shehryar Ahmed, a student of International Relations at the National University of Modern Languages, Islamabad. He is interested in politics, International Relations, Diplomacy, and International Law.
