"Identity politics: That's what we had in Germany between 1933 and 1945."One of Richard Wolin's German friends had that to say in reference to America's culture wars. It's quoted in a piece about Foucault the neohumanist. Kanan Makiya seems to have a similar view of identity politics. That, he says, is precisely what they have in Iraq right now:
Once the Pandora's Box of Saddam's regime was lifted the furies came rushing out. That was natural. But when people have been oppressed on the basis of their identity (for their Kurdishness, for their Shiiteness) and then have a chance to discover and express those identities for the first time in many years, these identities become powerful political forces. My fear is that no-one is speaking for the country as a whole across confessional and ethnic identities. Identity politics becomes too powerful at the expense of democratic politics. We need somebody to speak for Iraq as a whole, for the federal union. We need leaders for whom the victimhood of his or her sect or ethnic group is not the be-all and end-all of politics. I repeat, the competition over victimhood – 'we suffered, you suffered, I suffered, I suffered more than you so I should get more' – is a natural organic outgrowth of Saddam's tyranny. The politics of victimhood is one of the diseases that tyrannies leave behind within terrorised populations. And everybody truly is a victim in Iraq. Moreover, everybody feels themselves a victim. But forging a politics out of being a victim, subsuming yourself in that condition of victimhood, is a debilitating thing. It's not a good thing to be a victim. It's a terrible thing. It's not a quality but a condition. Victimhood is something you have to overcome rather than something you should wave as a flag, or carry as a banner. A great deal of politics, not only in Iraq but the Middle East as a whole, and across the left for that matter, is about elevating victimhood. This is a legacy we have to overcome.He goes on to say that the Palestinians "have done this to excess, to the point of self-destruction, so many times," and then cites Nelson Mandela as an example of a figure who has demonstrated that it is possible to rise above that level.
Then again, for aficionados of the politics of mediocrity, there's always the kinder, gentler, softer model of identity politics as a prison/haven, "at once confining and empowering."
Let freedom ring in the safe sanctuary of the jailhouse? Rock on.
