Ranjona Banerji: A vote against fascism & insularity

A French woman and European citizens celebrate the defeat of the French farright party Front National near the Eiffel Tower at the Trocadero Plaza in Paris PicAFPThe election of Emmanuel Macshyron as the President of France on Sunday appears to have given the nonrightwing across the world a sense of hope some relief in this roiling ocean of rightwing anger and hatred I use the term nonrightwing because its not easy to know what to call those of us who dislike or abhor or are even vaguely ambivalent about regressive reactionary narrowminded prejudiced thinkingThe term left is inefficient and inaccurate in this regard liberal does not account for everyone and many people do not want to be connected with either term often for valid reasons Donald Trump recently discovered that he belongs to the same political party as Abraham Lincoln or perhaps Trump sees it the other way around and was suitably surprised and impressed The term republican has come to mean narrowminded regressive antipoor and prejudiced to so many people that it is hard to correlate the man who fought to end slavery in America with todays Republican PartyMarine Le Pen wanted a France that was more French by her own standards but was rejected by 66 per cent of the electorate The people preferred a relative political novice On a drive from Oxford to London this week I saw UK Independence Party UKIP signs asking to replace multiculturalism with integration UKIP however got smashed in recent polls So did Britains Labour Party as the UK gets ready for general elections and a predicted Conservative sweep Brexit or Britains exit from the European Union remains a massive bone of contentionThere is a theory that the world is making a turn to the right heightened by political victories in India the Philippines Turkey the USA and Britain But Canada the Netherlands and now France have demonstrated that not all people no matter their fears and biases feel that society as a whole must feed on hatred and insularity It is hard to know where exactly to put Vladimir Putin of Russia since he seems to exist in his own bubble with a preference for rightwing parties and politics in other nations At any rate a preference for people like Donald Trump and Marine Le PenFor politicians everywhere though there is a warning of sorts here Traditional professional politicians are increasingly being rejected by the voter Macron does not even have a proper political party Trump crashlanded into a party having flirted with its opponent Closer to home the rise of Arvind Kejriwal and the Aam Aadmi Party pointed to that same voter mistrust Even if Kejriwal appears to be in trouble now voter anger remains The most traditional of all Indian political parties the Congress is feeling that heatHow rightwing India has become or will become or should not become is still a matter of debate in spite of some terrible realities around us Various victories of the BJP give the rightwing strength and confidence Together with that we have some frightening violent behaviour patterns emerging as the BJPs brother organisations flex their muscles Regressive and reactionary are almost kind words when you try and apply them to people being murdered for transporting cowsIndias rightwing follows the same global principles of hatred and violence against the other Together with that we have some interesting ideas courtesy the RSS of how Hindus should have more sex and also the sort of sex that produces tall fair babies The search for mythical rivers civilisations kings and bridges continues The fact that neighbourhood relations are at alltime lows that Kashmir is in turmoil that demonetisation repaired nothing have not yet seen any electoral effect I use the word yet because nothing does really last forever Anyone with any claims to understanding Hinduism especially its socalled Hindutva champions should at least understand that I do not hold my breath howeverUntil then those of us who do not succumb are happy to be mocked and dismissed as lone voices Whatever our sensibility we are happy to stand against fascism in any form The much benighted terms of left and liberal may need to be redefined or refreshed but until then they remain preferable to words like prejudiced and bigotedTo have a closed mind filled with hatred may be a human impulse but it is not my mind And perhaps as France has shown it is not necessarily needed when it comes to a sense of nationhoodRanjona Banerji is a senior journalist You can follow her on Twitter ranjona Send your feedback to mailbagmiddaycom