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Global Justice School 2005

Globalization, nation-states and the challenges

of nationalism, communalism and 'identity politics'

Peter, 7 June

 
Introduction

- Identity, autonomy, separatism

- Place of report in session: Part 1 (gender) & Part 2 (fundamentalism)

- Difficulties: 

(1) vast diversity of national and other identities

(2) Dangers of 'immediate history'

- Motto of report: from Lenin

- Two broad categories: national/ethnic identity and LGBT identity

- Objective analysis and subjective experience, individual and collective

 
Part 1. The national question in the era of globalization

Nationalism and internationalism: a contradiction of capitalism

- Bourgeoisies need national markets and national states

- At the same time bourgeoisies must expand beyond their national markets

- Limits of Marx and Engels' understanding (in the Communist Manifesto)

- Forms of this contradiction: bourgeois revolutions, colonialism, decolonization

Globalization and nationalism: myths and realities

- Partial and dependent integration of periphery

- 'Governance' and national sovereignty

- Uneven regional development

General guidelines for positions on national questions

- Why abstract internationalism is not enough

Support for oppressed nations

- The right to self-determination: Stalin's checklist

Need for a concrete approach to each national question

Sovereignty, citizenship and autonomy

Minority rights, autonomy and communalism

Indigenous struggles in Latin America: from Mariateguí to Nicaragua's Atlantic Coast

- Ecuador: CONAIE and Pachakutik/Nuevo País

Chiapas: Mexican sovereignty and Indian autonomy

- Mindanao: a tri-people struggle — for ... ?

- African-Americans: African Blood Brotherhood, SNCC, Malcolm X, Black Power

- European Muslim immigrant communities

- Europe: nationalisms against the EU

Part 2.  Sexual 'identity politics': queer nationalism and queer theory
'Identity politics'

- Class and identity

- Imposed or chosen identities? Single or multiple?: Civil society and pluralism

- Separatism and autonomy

Queer nationalism

- 'I hate straights'

- Against assimilationism

- An anti-identity identity?

Queer theory

- Bensaïd's critique

- Foucauldean bio-politics

- Social liberation and individual emancipation

- Concrete totalization

Universalism and identity: towards a new internationalist culture