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The post-election challenge in France

Interview with John Mullen by Tempest magazine


16/10/2024

What do you understand to be the main lessons from the summer’s electoral process? Given Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement National (RN) won the greatest number of votes (more than 10 million) in each round of the election, despite failing to win a majority of parliamentary seats, do you consider the outcome of the second round a defeat for the forces of the far right?

You have to look at the dynamic of the situation. What looked like the unstoppable rise to government of the fascists was pushed back by the biggest mobilization against them for decades.

The second round was an important tactical victory for the Left and for the working class. Consistent polls predicted that the RN would win more seats than any other group, and might even secure an overall majority in parliament, but they ended up in third place. However, the far right will only remain on the back foot for a short period.

Four parties of the Left formed a coalition—the Nouveau Front Populaire, the New Popular Front (NPF), comprised of the Communists, Socialists, Greens, and La France Insoumise (France in Revolt)—and agreed on a fairly radical minimum program for government in record time. They were, it is true, under tremendous pressure from below (outside the building where negotiations happened, hundreds had gathered to chant slogans of unity). The result is that we do not have a fascist government.

Those political groups who were (and are) opposed to the coalition, one must imagine, consider that it changes little or nothing who is in government. Given that Marine Le Pen’s party has declared it wants the hijab to be banned in all public places, social housing to be reserved to French nationals, and certain public sector jobs to be forbidden even to people with dual nationality, one can imagine there are few Muslims or people from ethnic minorities in France who are quite so relaxed about this prospect. Even a minority government controls the police and the schools, and fascist ministers in charge of these domains would be a demoralizing nightmare for our class.

The reason I speak of a tactical victory is that the fascists remain very strong. They have 140 or so MPs (several dozen more than before) and they garnered ten million votes. The need for a mass anti-fascist movement to go onto the offensive against them is clear.

For the moment, the National Rally is very weak indeed on the ground. In many towns they have practically no party structure, and they have not organized a street demonstration of more than 10,000 people for decades. At its annual conference the NR leadership noted that, in addition to continuing the long march through the institutions and their obsession with respectability, they absolutely must build locally. It would be quite possible for antifascists to stop them with broad campaigns of education and harassment.

Because the NR has concentrated on a parliamentary strategy, hoping to win power in the institutions to then permit a mass of street fighters, it is particularly the wrong time to argue that elections have no importance.

Earlier this month, President Emmanuel Macron, himself a figure of authoritarian neoliberalism, ignored historical precedent in overseeing the creation of the new government after the election. Macron facilitated the creation of a new government led by a prime minister (Michel Barnier) from the traditional center-right party, The Republicans,which had come in fourth place. In doing so, Macron refused to allow the NFP, with the largest number of parliamentary seats, to seek to form a government. How do you assess the stability of this government and the role that now has to be played by the NFP, La France Insoumise, and the forces of the revolutionary left, respectively? What has been the response of the Left, as well as the working-class, to Macron’s decision?

Although the present crisis is a slow-burning one, it is the deepest in the country since 1968. The constitution forbids repeat parliamentary elections until next June, so we will see weak minority governments, rapidly changing alliances, and significant space for extraparliamentary revolt.

Barnier’s government is stuffed with reactionaries who are copying ideas from the RN. But Macron would have preferred a more stable left-right coalition, and is unhappy that (so far) the left coalition, the New Popular Front, has held.

Every political organization and political alliance in the country is fragile, including the Barnier government. It took a long time for him to choose ministers, and apparently he had to threaten to resign to make Macron accept his list. The ministers are already bickering publicly about whether RN is a legitimate democratic party or not.

The NFP has reacted by insisting that Macron is in contempt of democracy and that Lucie Castets, the agreed NFP candidate for prime minister, should have been appointed. Nevertheless, nearly half the Socialist Party National Committee wanted to break the left alliance, and voted to support a compromise PM, Bernard Cazeneuve.

It seems to me essential that the whole of the Left should defend the very limited democracy we have under capitalism. It does matter whether Macron respects elections or not. La France Insoumise (but not the rest of the NFP) is campaigning for Macron to be impeached for not respecting democracy. This is a healthy, popular demand. The reactions of the revolutionaries have varied, but sadly almost none of the groups have supported the campaign for impeachment.

On other important questions of strategy, the far left organizations are very far from unanimous. One of the bigger groups, Le Nouveau Parti Anticapitaliste—The New Anticapitalist Party (NPA), has joined the NFP as a minor player. Others are busy denouncing it.

At very short notice, the NFP was able to build an electoral coalition, one that mobilized broadly across the Left, and within working-class, immigrant, and Arab and Muslim communities, to win the largest plurality of seats. What, if any, is the ongoing impact of these mobilizations in the face of the right-wing government? Can this coalition be the basis for ongoing struggle against the Right?

To some extent. On September 7, demonstrations led by youth organizations and La France Insoumise, and looked on favorably by the leadership of the main left trade union confederation, the Confédération Générale du Travail—General Confederation of Labour (CGT), took place in some 150 towns across France. The Green party and the Communists called for people to get on the streets, but the Socialist Party did not. On September 21, there was a similar mobilization, but it was considerably smaller. La France Insoumise is at the center of this dynamic, with other parts of the NFP sometimes agreeing to join in.

It is impossible to say what will come out of a situation which sees both dynamic mass activism and plenty of discouragement on the Left. No doubt the key result on the ground is the 60,000 new people who have asked to get involved with La France Insoumise and the many hundreds who have joined the different revolutionary organizations.

The more parliament is paralyzed, the more mass action outside parliament is crucial.

There is a lot of criticism and skepticism of the NFP from sections of the revolutionary left based on the participation of the historically social liberal, and pro-NATO Socialist Party. How do you respond to this line of criticism? And how do you understand the balance of forces within the NFP between its constituent parts? How stable do you expect it to be in the face of the Barnier government?

You form coalitions with people you do not agree with. If the La France Insoumise leadership had said, “We will not ally with the social-liberals,” there would be a fascist-led government in France today. Every day gives good reason to mistrust most of the leadership of the Socialist Party (as well as the Communist Party), but it is critical that their leaders were pressured from below to sign on  to a radical program to block a fascist government.

Like every political force in France today, the coalition is unstable and the right-wing of the Socialist Party are getting organized in case the alliance falls apart. Among other crises, a small group of four or five La France Insoumise members of parliament has split off to its right, accompanied by acres of joyful newsprint from the right-wing media. Some of the less right-wing of Macron’s MPs have left his grouping, and the Greens are also having fierce internal debates.

The good news is that Macron’s plan A and plan B both failed. Plan A was the lightning speed election which was supposed to knock out a divided left and leave Macron as “our only defense against fascism.” Plan B was to split the left alliance and set up a “national unity” government with the Right and with sections of the Left outside La France Insoumise.

The huge movement of strikes and street mobilizations, which is necessary and likely, stands more chance against this weak Barnier government.

Insofar as the forces of the far right, led by Marine Le Pen’s RN—which won the greatest number of votes in each round of the election—are essentially giving support to the Barnier government, how do you assess the impact of the new government on the growth of the far right?

This support could be very temporary indeed. But obviously the fascists are hoping to advance in the crisis. Firstly, they want to gain respectability outside their own electorate, particularly in upper-middle-class circles. Secondly, they want to pretend they are the realistic alternative to discredited Macronism. Lastly, they need to encourage their fascist core with red meat racist rhetoric. It’s a difficult balance. In addition, they want to build local party structures everywhere. So, they have real strengths, but lots of weak points that antifascists can attack. There are some signs of antifascist activity increasing around the country, including in La France Insoumise.

Given the role that La France Insoumise has been playing, and its undisputed mass support within left-wing and antifacist sections of the working-class and immigrant and Arab and muslim communities, it seems clear that revolutionary socialists should relate to this in some way. At the same time, there is some criticism of its inability or failure to create a “democratic membership organization.” In what ways can the revolutionary left relate to LFI?

I was a member of revolutionary organizations in France for more than 30 years. If I am no longer a member now, it is because I think they are wrong on crucial questions and their attitudes to the French new left is at the center of this.

The emergence of La France Insoumise over the last eight years represents a remarkable success for mass left reformism, which must be clearly understood if revolutionaries are to react appropriately.

This is an organization that secured more than 7.5 million votes in 2022 and that speaks of “a citizen’s revolution.” Its leader, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, calls it “an anticapitalist force, aiming at ecological planning of the economy.” Tens of thousands of people have flocked to the movement over the last couple of months. La France Insoumise organized a summer school with 116 meetings and more than 5,000 people in August 2024. It has set up regular educational courses for activists, including “Introduction to Marxism” classes, and is taking the accumulation of cadre seriously.

La France Insoumise was the driving force behind the coalition that pushed back the fascists—and it is the force attracting the best young activists now. The organization has succeeded in transforming public debate and breaking the reigning “there is no alternative to neoliberalism” atmosphere. It has brought opposition to islamophobia into the mainstream of left politics, from where it had been absent for several decades (even though both La France Insoumise and the revolutionary left in France have some distance still to go on this question).

The organization is organizationally independent of the old reformist left (unlike, say, mass Corbynism in the United Kingdom). It now publishes books, organizes weekend schools and lectures, and seems to be becoming hegemonic on the radical left.

In sharp contrast to left reformist groups in several other countries, La France Insoumise’s leadership has held firm on the two issues on which the establishment pressure has been strongest: Palestine and police violence. Two of its leaders, Mathilde Panot and Rima Hassan, were called into the police station, accused of the crime of “supporting terrorism.”

Mélenchon had an official police complaint lodged against him by the Ministry of Higher Education because he criticized the disgusting attitude of the Chancellor of Lille University who banned the group’s lecture on the genocide in Gaza. A far-right police trade union organized a demonstration in front of La France Insoumise’s headquarters some time back. In short, La France Insoumise is the center of gravity of radical left politics.

Its emergence is the result of two phenomena. Firstly there is the generalization of political class consciousness in France after the mass political strikes of 1995, 2006, 2010, 2013, 2019, and 2023 (against attacks on pensions or on labor protection legislation) and the popular revolts of 2005, 2018, and 2023 (against police violence or rural poverty). Secondly, there was the weakness and division of the revolutionary left, which we would have liked to have become hegemonic. The result is a mass left reformism, seen as an open-ended determination to rethink the whole of society.

It would be disastrous for revolutionaries to primarily see this new force as unwelcome competition. Seeing tens of thousands of new activists flood in to defend a “citizens’ revolution” and “spectacular change” should delight every Marxist. “Debate, debate, debate” should be the priority—not “denounce, denounce, denounce!” It is essential to take as a starting point what the relation is between La France Insoumise and workers’ interests, not to start with what effect the rise of the FI will have on our small organizations.

It is easy to read online what the main newspapers of the French revolutionary left have written about La France Insoumise in the last few years. The organization is almost never mentioned, except to denounce selected actions, tactics, or slogans. You find almost no debates with its representatives, nor do you find fraternal in-depth articles explaining agreements and disagreements. I think these two kinds of articles should have been present in every issue of every publication.

Mélenchon has written seven books in the last ten years. I have been unable to find a review of any of them in the main far left publications in France.

This tendency to assess other parties of the Left in a sectarian manner has led to some serious mistakes, cutting the far left off from the most promising new masses of activists. I will mention three examples.

In the presidential elections in 2022, two separate Trotskyist candidates stood against Melenchon, obtaining 0.56 and 0.77 percent of the vote (as against Mélenchon’s 21.95 percent). What is more, the campaign of the least unpopular, Philippe Poutou, mostly spoke of radical reforms, not of revolution.

Then, two months ago, a few La France Insoumise MPs split off from the party, after having prepared a new organization (L’Après—L’Association pour la République écologique et sociale). It is becoming clear that this formation will, in fact, be less left-wing. Much of the far left supported the split and continues to support the small organization born from it, citing worries about democracy within La France Insoumise.

And, third, the far left has refused, with occasional honorable exceptions, to contradict and fight against the horrific smear campaigns against Mélenchon and other La France Insoumise leaders, which are similar to those run against Corbyn in the United Kingdom a few years ago, that he is an antisemite and “friend of Vladimir Putin” and so on.

Concerning the kind of organization La France Insoumise is building: unimpressed with the results of traditional radical left parties in France, which are frequently bogged down in endless faction fighting, its leadership wanted to try something different. The party has no formal membership, no one can be expelled, representatives at national delegate meetings are chosen by lottery, and local action groups are very much autonomous. The program is meant to hold the organization together.

Revolutionaries may agree or disagree with these methods (though no one is asking our opinion, to be clear), but they give rise to a situation that has advantages for Marxists. You can be an activist in La France Insoumise and a member of another organization. You can openly publish your own paper and have your own meetings.

Personally, I can’t see why revolutionaries won’t work openly inside La France Insoumise. Two or three Trotskyist groups do, keeping their independent voice. But even groups that prefer to stay outside should be ten times more interested than they are in debating with La France Insoumise people on the many crucial questions thrown up by the present crisis.

Despite its important work building up movements, the revolutionary left is a small player, and needs to recognize this. Mostly, what we have to offer is ideas, analysis, history.

Many debates are in progress inside La France Insoumise. How should we understand women’s oppression? How can a radical program be implemented? What should we think of the animal rights movements, privilege theory, the crisis of imperialism, or left patriotism? Marxists have a huge contribution to make to these discussions.

There are also numerous serious disagreements between Marxists and the leadership of La France Insoumise over French imperialism, the role of parliament, the potential for constitutional reform, and so on.

But in La France Insoumise, we have an attractive, dynamic mass organization looking for a “citizens’ revolution.” We Marxists want a workers’ revolution. But in a situation in which 90 percent of the working class do not see a clear difference between the two, it’s better to be inside the hall discussing the way forward than standing in the bus shelter across the road, searching through lists of tactical decisions by La France Insoumise looking for one to denounce.

This interview first appeared on the Tempest website. Reproduced with permission.

Genocide Joe: Not welcome in Berlin!

Demo: Friday 18th October, 5pm, Alexanderplatz Weltzeituhr


15/10/2024

On 18th October, US president Joe Biden is expected in Berlin on a state visit. Genocide Joe wanted to come last Friday, but climate change does not respect the travel plans of imperialist geopolitics. Because of Hurricane “Milton”, the biggest supporter of the genocide in Gaza had to cancel his trip.

Despite this, hundreds took to the streets of Berlin behind the slogan “Not Welcome: Genocide Joe” to show their rejection of the US politics of war in the Middle East and Ukraine. They were repeatedly and brutally attacked by the Berlin police and many people were arrested,

Now, “Genocide Joe”, as he is lovingly called by family and friends, will paralyse our city on Friday with an oversized state visit. We will gather once more on Berlin’s streets and show the main sponsor of Israel’s genocidal vendetta how welcome war criminals and mass murderers are in Berlin: that is, not at all!

It is fully clear: without the support of the USA, the Israeli army’s devastating campaign of destruction and retribution against the Palestinian and now the Lebanese people would be unthinkable.

Under the pretext of fighting terrorism, the USA is allowing the pariah state Israel to implement the restructuring of a whole world region, which will kill hundreds of thousands and end with the expulsion of millions of people.

We can already see the consequences: over 50,000 dead in Palestine within the last 12 months at the hands of Israel. Hundreds of thousands mutilated and injured. People, whose whole families have been wiped out. Children, who have lost their parents. Parents, who must busy their children. Devastated cities. Misery. Grief.

And in Lebanon the same. Thousands of civilians now dead. Innumerable injured and traumatised. A country is being systematically destabilised. A society destroyed with the explicit support of the USA.

It is not just Joe Biden who is standing firmly on the side of Israel’s murderous politics. Last week, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz once more confirmed that he would carry on supporting Israel’s genocide by delivering weapons. While a majority of UN members are demanding a ceasefire in Gaza, Biden and Scholz want more weapons, more bombs, more war.

For this meeting of warmongers in Berlin the whole city will once more be put into a state of emergency. Snipers on the roofs, manhole covers welded shut, and rush hour traffic will be so efficiently blocked that Last Generation will be jealous. Working people will be saddled with paying millions of Euros, although the majority of the population do not want anything to do with the World Order wars of the USA, which they condemn.

We will not accept this madness so simply. In solidarity with the people of Gaza, the West Bank and Lebanon, in solidarity with all victims of US politics, we are calling a demonstration against US imperialism’s warlike politics on Friday 18th October 2024, at 5pm at Berlin Alexanderplatz.

Take to the streets! Be a spanner in the works of the imperialist madness and tell the US president what you think of him: Genocide Joe not welcome!

Hebron/Ramallah Photojournal

A Palestinian theleftberlin reader is currently visiting the West Bank. This is his visual report


14/10/2024

Anti Palestinian Authority graffiti in Ramallah

 

Areas A and C: The West Bank is divided into Area A (Palestinian control), B (Partial Palestinian control) and C (Israeli control). The foregrounded hill is in Area C where Palestinians are virtually never granted building permits. The hill on the horizon (to the right) in Area A is covered in buildings.

 

An Israeli military station next to a gate outside a Palestinian town entrance

 

A building bombed by Israeli forces in downtown Ramallah

 

The word ‘Fatah’ (the ruling party in the West Bank) next to a star of David; the party is wildly unpopular in the West Bank.

 

Graffiti outside the German consulate in Ramallah

 

A torn poster advertising the 2020 Human Rights Day with ‘Resist’ spray painted on top.

 

Kufr Aqab’s ‘Concrete Jungle‘: Palestinians in municipal Jerusalem could lose their residency if they live outside these buildings, causing crowding and vertical expansion of their neighbourhoods. The empty hill where serving as the photographer’s vantage point is outside the municipality.

 

Graffitti reading, ‘Mia Khalifa – My blood is Palestinian’

 

A settlement overlooking a Palestinian vineyard; such settlements are violations of international law.

 

A screenshot from a 250k member telegram channel where people post minute by minute updates on roads status—gates, checkpoints and alternative routes.

(Below) Open and closed gates:Israel installs these ‘simple’ gates at all palestinian towns’ entrances. The gates are usually closed when there’s an incident, but since October 7th, it’s arbitrary.

(Below) Qalandia checkpoint, the gateway to Ramallah, on a quiet day: Cars, army posts and chaos.

(Below) A roadway skirting the West Bank Barrier

 

Revolution in Lanka?

A Marxist party’s victory in Sri Lanka could represent a glimmer of hope in trying times. How optimistic should one really be?


13/10/2024

Sri Lanka have recently been in the news for electing a “Marxist-Leninist” government. This has sparked a variety of reactions in international left circles, ranging from “prosperity is ahead for Sri Lanka” to “sounds sus, I need to read more about this”. I shall set out why being suspicious about this was the correct option.

First, some recent history: In 2021, Sri Lanka entered the worst economic crisis in the country’s independent history. This rapidly spiralled, leading to shortages in everything from paper to medicines to food. The crisis peaked in 2022, leading to the president at the time (Gotabaya Rajapaska) fleeing the country, as protestors burnt down his family home. Gotabaya and his brothers were particularly unsavoury characters. Their family dominated Sri Lankan politics through the “centre-left” Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) for decades. In 2015, the Rajapaksa Bros. were purged from the party. Their loyalists, had moved further and further to the right. They formed a splinter Sinhalese Buddhist chauvinist party (the SLPP), which won the 2019 elections. Following the events of 2022, a centre-right caretaker government (the UNP) was appointed. The UNP, too, had its own internal split in 2020, when their deputy leader Sajith Premadasa formed the SJB, pivoting towards a more centrist and socially progressive platform.

The elections last week featured a political surprise, when the JVP, an entirely unrelated “Marxist-Leninist” party won a three-way race between the JVP, the SJB, and the UNP. The JVP used to be rather revolutionary, having participated in multiple armed uprisings against the government in the 70s and the 80s. Their last insurrection failed to bring in the revolution, though it did lead to nearly 60,000 deaths. And while the JVP didn’t exactly hold back from murdering civilians, dissidents, and other kinds of leftists, almost half of these were JVP members, murdered by the government’s death squads. The end result was the JVP abandoning their revolutionary goals and joining mainstream politics instead.

To understand the implications of their victory, we must first examine the debt crisis itself. There are many compounding factors here: from the prosaic (COVID affecting tourism) to the absurd (the government banning the use of fertilisers and pesticides). Broadly, Sri Lanka’s debt crisis is symptomatic of a wider trend in the global South. The underlying reason is the US/UK/EU’s collective response to the 2008 crisis, the grand shitshow better known as quantitative easing. The resulting zero-interest rate period and immense liquidity in US dollars, led to a glorious decade of capital looking for the best scams it could find all over the world, in the hopes of the highest yields. Institutional investors flooded the world looking for cheap returns. In the global North, this brought us NFTs and podcast bros; in the South, it led to rapidly growing sovereign debt crises. The lack of capital controls in global South countries meant that money would leave as quickly as it had entered. Once borrowing rates spiked, the smaller amongst these were saddled with debt that they could not possibly service, owed to mostly Western corporations. More than half of Sri Lankan bilateral debt was Chinese; but most Sri Lankan debt was not to foreign governments, but to the private sector. Enter the IMF, with a sack full of bailouts with all the usual conditions. Cut down on public spending, on education and healthcare; sell unprofitable state-owned enterprises; or basically, get fucked. The end result? Greece; Argentina; Egypt; and Sri Lanka.

So how “Marxist” are the JVP anyway? What does it even mean to be Marxist in an island nation the size of Sri Lanka? The JVP are not going to pivot Sri Lanka away from value-form, or from the production of commodities rather than use-values. To do so given their geopolitical standing would be economic suicide. Socialism in one country has always been a bit of a pipe dream, but when the country is a small tropical island with the population of Moscow, the pipe dream turns into a joke. The JVP’s policies are social democratic at best: increased public spending, and a renegotiation of the IMF deal. Given that this might potentially be the best any party could do given the circumstances, surely we should be somewhat relieved?

The catch, because there has to be one, is the legacy of the Sri Lankan Civil War, and the ensuing genocide of the Sri Lankan Tamils.

Intermezzo: Civil War

The roots of Sri Lanka’s decades-long civil war, as with most postcolonial civil wars, date back to British colonialism. Sri Lanka is a diverse island, with many of its ethnic groups having inhabited the island for centuries if not millennia. These included the Sinhalese-speaking, Buddhist majority; a Tamil-speaking, mostly Hindu minority; the Moors (yes), a Muslim Tamil-speaking community; a separate Indian Tamil community, brought over as indentured workers by the British; and many other smaller groups, such as the indigenous Vedda people. British modernity—and its drive to explicitly and rigidly define identity, leading to the association of ethnic subjectivities with nationhood—led to a struggle for state power in British state institutions. Tamils at the time had better access to English-language education and were overrepresented in the civil service. Their demands for power-sharing after independence were rejected, and the Sinhalese majority instead proceeded to consolidate state power. 

In and of itself, this would not have been terrible, had it led to an inclusive democracy. Yet one of the first steps that the independent Sri Lankan government took was to pass the Ceylon Citizenship Bill (1948), disenfranchising practically all Indian Tamils in Sri Lanka, rendering them stateless. In 1952, the government began sponsoring Sinhalese settler-colonialism in the Tamil-inhabited north of the country, leading to pogroms and ethnic cleansings of Tamil civilians. The Sinhala Only Act (1956) replaced English with Sinhalese as the main language of the country, with no legal recognition of Tamil, effectively leading to a purge of Tamils from state institutions (note that Sinhalese and Tamil are about as mutually intelligible as Hungarian and Romanian are, or Finnish and Swedish). When the Prime Minister at the time tried to water down the language act, he was promptly assassinated by an outraged Buddhist monk.

Continuous Sinhalese-Buddhist chauvinism led to the understandable rise of secessionism amongst the Tamil minority, who began to demand an independent state in the north of the island—Tamil Eelam. It rapidly birthed armed struggle, with the birth (amongst other groups) of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. The (extremely violent) war broke out in 1983. The Sri Lankan military routinely massacred ethnic Tamils, participated in mass sexual violence, and carried out thousands of enforced disappearances, euphemistically called “white van abductions”. The Tigers responded in kind, carrying out revenge attacks, suicide bombings, and successful political assassinations. Say what you will about the Tigers, you cannot say they lacked ambition: their list of successful assassinations included the President of Sri Lanka, and the Prime Minister of India. But violence ultimately begets violence, and the Tigers were far from “clean”. They refused to shy away from murdering civilians; they enlisted child soldiers and carried out more than 83 suicide attacks over the course of the war; and they were exceptionally brutal towards rival Tamil factions. In 1990, they expelled all Muslims from Tamil Eelam, accusing them of collaborationism. 

The war went on for 26 years, with multiple pauses for negotiations, occasionally under the aegis of the widely unpopular Indian Peace Keeping Force, who were rather prone to committing war crimes themselves. The final stages of the war, after the collapse of a Norwegian-mediated peace process, were marked by the Mullivaikkal massacre. The military, having evacuated Tamil civilians to a tiny strip of land designated as a no-fire zone, fired upon them with heavy artillery, killing as many as 140,000 civilians in a matter of months.

If all of this should remind you of current events, it is because there are undeniable parallels. The developing national consciousnesses under a modernity entirely unsuitable to existing social arrangements; the emergence of ethnic chauvinist “democracies”; state-sanctioned land-grabs for a chosen ethnicity; and the endless, inevitable cycles of violence that follow. The parallels between Mullivaikkal and Rafah are strikingly depressing, as is the knowledge that the Sri Lankan Armed Forces acquired weapons from the United States and Israel. 

(while acknowledging these parallels, we must also remind ourselves that Sri Lanka can and should be analysed on its own terms)

—

Today, the Tigers have been defeated. The Sinhalese Buddhist identity is hegemonic across the island. The army generals that led the genocide are celebrated as war heroes; Tamil remembrances are banned. Every single Sri Lankan party was culpable in the genocide. This includes the “Marxist” JVP, who were often worse than other parties. After all, their first insurrection involved the racial profiling of Tamils as “fifth columns” for Indian imperialism; and their second was a response to the (inadequate) Indo-Sri Lankan accords that granted limited autonomy to the Tamils. More recently, the JVP were in government during the Asian Tsunami of 2004, when the peace process was ongoing. The government at the time agreed to work with the Tigers to help distribute food aid to the Tamil provinces, prompting a JVP withdrawal from the coalition. Little has changed since then. The leader of the party has promised not to hold those found guilty of human rights violations accountable. He has expressed support to maintain the Buddhist supremacist nature of the nation-state. He refuses to fully implement their constitution’s 13th Amendment promising increased devolution to provinces. And while talk is cheap, the SJB (who also happened to win all Tamil-majority districts) have taken a more conciliatory stance on many of these issues.

Sinhalese supremacist Marxists theoretically justify their positions by convincing themselves that all national minorities are reactionary fifth columns, or that devolution is reactionary identitarianism anyway. There is nothing new under the sun. We, as leftists, should not celebrate this any more than we would a Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht win in Germany. We must have higher bars for political actors, beyond merely looking to see if they have the M-word in their party description. Broader Tamil demands today are extremely reasonable. This include implementing the 13th Amendment; independent international investigations into war crimes; justice for the families of the victims of the white van abductions; and resettlement of Tamils displaced during the war. By any yardstick, these are very uncontroversial demands.

At the end of the day, we must also bear in mind that Sri Lanka occupies a certain role in global relations. It isn’t that Sri Lanka is necessarily poor. Per capita, it is the wealthiest South Asian state, on par with Brazil prior to the crisis. But Sri Lanka is heavily indebted to Western corporations, backed by institutions able to wreck the country through sanctions if austerity demands are not met. This forces us into being slightly charitable towards Sri Lanka. There exists a genuine, wide, ethnic Sinhalese peasantry and working class. If the JVP are sincere about public spending, they will need to form alliances. This includes smaller nations in the global South in the same boat as Sri Lanka, as well as larger states that could act as counterweights to the IMF. Whether they are capable of doing so remains to be seen.

As for the rest of us, living in Europe—those of us who explain the rise of the far-right in Europe as a consequence of falling material conditions should ask ourselves one question. Precisely what do we expect will come of the very tenuous peace on the island, should its citizens be driven further and further into impoverishment?

“Don’t Watch Pornos, Don’t Vote Grüne!”

Results in Recent German State Elections Show that the Far-Right is the Most Popular with Young Voters in Germany


12/10/2024

The AfD’s recent wave of electoral successes in Germany’s Eastern states relied heavily on one age group that consistently voted for them in high numbers — the youth. With voters 24 years and under on their side, the AfD seems set to become a powerful force in German politics for a long time to come.

After each of the three elections in Thuringia, Saxony and Brandenburg, the Tagesschau released charts describing “who voted for whom”, breaking down voters into set categories based on age, gender, etc. The charts unfortunately do not allow for cross comparison, such as looking at both age and gender at the same time. Despite this, the statistics give useful insight into Germany’s electoral climate.

In Saxony, the CDU barely beat the AfD in the overall vote, receiving 32% to the latter’s 31%. The next closest competitor was the Bundnis Sarah Wagenknecht (BSW), which reached only 13%. When the votes are broken down by age however, 31% of people aged 18-24 in Saxony voted for the AfD, while the CDU came a distant second with only 18%. The CDU’s lost votes among youth mostly went to Die Linke (8% among youth instead of 4% in the general population) and the Greens (8% instead of 5%), although neither party came close to the AfD.

In Thuringia, the situation is even bleaker. While the AfD easily won the most votes in the general population with 33% (their closest competition was the CDU with only 24%), the 18-24 year old age group voted for the far-right party at 38%. Their closest competition in this age group was Die Linke, with a measly 16%. This means that the AfD in Thuringia was over 20 percentage points higher in the youth vote than their nearest competitor.

In the more recent Brandenburg elections, the incumbent SPD led with 31% of the overall vote, while the AfD came a close second with 29%. The two parties’ closest competitors were BSW with 14% and the CDU with 12%. Here, the AfD received 31% of votes from the age group 16-24 (Brandenburg has a lower voting age than the other states). Unlike the other two states however, in Brandenburg the AfD’s support was consistent within 3 percentage points across all age groups, with the exception of 70+ of whom only 17% voted for the AfD. Of this oldest age group, 49% cast their ballot for the SPD.

This hits on another pattern, in all three states the oldest voters were the least supportive of the AfD. In Saxony, only 24% of the 70+ population voted for them, while these senior citizens voted for the CDU at a rate of 45%. In Thuringia, the AfD similarly received only 19% of this age group’s vote, while the CDU received 31% and Die Linke 20%. In fact, the left-wing party’s result among 70+ year old voters in Thuringia was its highest result in any age group in any of the three states.

The AfD’s vote also had a clear breakdown by gender (of which the polls only recognise “male” and “female”). In Saxony the AfD received 35% of the male vote and 26% of the female vote. In Thuringia, it was 38% for men and 27% for women, and Brandenburg saw a similar 35% to 24% split. In each state, men voted around 10% more frequently for the AfD than women.

While the statistics do not show us how men in the youngest age group voted, other clues point to a predominance of young men in Germany’s neo-Nazi scene, where groups like Der Dritte Weg actively recruit new neo-Nazis in schools and gyms. Whether it’s videos of Nazis marching in Magdeburg, from the anti-pride neo-Nazi demonstration in Bautzen, or photos from the anti-Pride demonstrations in Saxony, the view is often the same: crowds of predominantly young white men. It is unclear if the makeup of these crowds is because the young men are the most prominent in Germany’s far right scene, or that they are the most radical. Most likely, it’s some combination of the two.

The AfD has clearly seen an opportunity in recruiting youth, and has turned its energies towards TikTok. Statistics from the beginning of the year show that the AfD is Germany’s most popular political party on the app. More recent information suggests this may have been at least partially responsible for their successes in the state elections as well.

The party often explicitly targets young men, such as the politician Maximilian Krah’s cringeworthy advice for those who don’t have girlfriends: “don’t watch pornos, don’t vote Grüne, go outside in the fresh air […] and don’t be sweet, soft, weak and Left.” It may be dumb, but the video has over 700,000 likes. While Krah is crass and scandal-prone, other figures in the AfD such as Ulrich Siegmund are smoother and have more followers.

While the party’s electoral wins can’t only be reduced to its social media strategy, their efforts towards and success on TikTok seems to show that the AfD is committed to targeting younger voters, and turning out to be skilled at it. The party’s direct and open critique of the current status quo hits a note as the material conditions in Germany become increasingly impoverished and youth face decreased opportunities. At the same time, the mainstream parties simply maintain the status quo. With the youth on their side and the Bundestag elections coming up in a year, the AfD’s recent successes seem to only be the beginning.