"White racial self-interest" is racism and far-right identity politics
Screentshot : Göteborgs Posten
Hynek Pallas, who often writes about racism, has in 2019 reviewed Eric Kaufmann’s book “Whiteshift. Populism, Immigration and the Future of White Majorities”. Pallas has adopted his review to the public debate in Sweden where Kaufmann’s book and opinions have been promoted by several right-wing opinion-makers, often with collectivist and even undemocratic views such as that right to asylum should be abolished, and that government should be provided with extrajudicial powers as when it comes to handling terrorism.
According to Pallas, the perception that immigration is threatening Swedish culture was for a long time limited to far-right portals but had since the 2016 refugee crisis become more normalised in several established media partly because many right-wing opinion-makers are repositioning themselves in the debate about migration and identification.
Pallas writes that Kaufmann’s arguments and conclusions are based on that politics in Western countries is reshaping by a demographical change in a political struggle between white etno-nationalists and moralising anti-racists. According to Kaufmann, white identity is under threat from non-white immigration, leading to support for right-wing populism. Therefore, Kaufmann is proposing that whites as a group should uphold their cultural and racial self-interest as an ethnic group.
Therefore, Pallas wonders if right-wing oriented Swedes that have presented Kaufmann’s book and ideas in public debate really understand what Kaufmann is proposing? As Pallas writes:
“there is a certain irony that columnists who have shown hatred against both identity-politics and critical race studies, the academic discipline that foremost has dealt with analysing (white) majority groups in interactions with non-whites, are now embracing identity-politics and pretending as if nobody has ever researched white reactions before”.
According to Pallas, the case with critical race studies has been to present that racist reactions occur within majority groups because both skin colour and nationalism play a large role and that racism is historically seen, from transatlantic slave trade to racial segregation, based on power and repression. And also that racism as a term is changing all the time, for example, modern racism is more often based on myths about “culture” than race.
Thereby, Pallas argues that an important part of Kaufmann’s project is to discredit the research about racism during the last decades with the aim to disconnect racism as a motivational factor among majority groups. By doing so, Kaufmann aims to criticise multi-culture och promote very restrictive immigration because, in his views, immigration is threatening white majorities.
For example, Pallas writes regarding Kaufmann that in order to “protect feelings” of majority groups and still “remain a humanist” Kaufmann is proposing camps in Europe and the USA where refugees will live during their whole lives if necessary and that only a small number of refugees will be allowed to live in “white societies”. According to Kaufmann, this proposal is “realism” and “wrong” rights for asylum seekers and refugees should be dismantled.
Another interesting aspect is Pallas writes about is that Kaufmann argues that immigration is a less important issue in Eastern Europe since refugees are neet seeking themselves to those countries. Kaufmann claims this despite the fact that immigration was, as during 2016-2018, one of the most important topics for voters as in Hungary and Poland according to research as via Eurobarometer.
Pallas also writes that Kaufmann’s book is full of mistakes, overblown assumptions and contradictory statements. For example, Kaufmann writes that it is not racism to “protect your racial self-interest” as his attempt to disconnect white nationalism in the USA from power politics and instead make white nationalism into a cultural mark. It is true, according to Pallas, that there are problematic and overblown anti-racist behaviours regarding “white privilege” myths but that Kaufmann is using such problems within anti-racism to argue that anti-racism has become as a religion with high priests that never can be questioned.
It is nothing wrong in principle to analyse reactions against immigration, as Pallas writes. But that new ethnodemographers are trying to make racism disappear, including the history of racism and the real danger of racism is wrong. For example, as Clara Sandelind has written regarding Sweden, our perceptions of immigration are also based on our perceptions about Swedishness. It will be impossible to integrate if our perceptions are not open because someone will always “differ” and be exposed to arbitrary and repressive behaviours.
Pallas also writes that if we as humans do not want to live in a world where citizenship is provided on ethnocultural grounds and where human rights are being dismantled - it is time to criticise such behaviours among individuals as Kaufmann.
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