I am becoming old (and starting to shout at clouds). Thinking about what has changed politically in my time, I think that it is the collapse of internationalism. I am talking about the left here. This is odd because leftists spend a lot more time thinking about racism now. In many ways young leftists, white and 'of colour' have a much more sophisticated understanding than we did when we were young. So what has gone wrong? A few guesses:
1. The failure of the anti-colonial movement. Independence was formally achieved, but in the best of scenarios the colonial powers were replaced by a new extractive ruling class. In the worst, the faces changed but the power relations remained.
2. The end of Bretton Woods accelerated the divergence between golf and non-golf playing nations. In the 70s life in this country was not so vastly different from the majority of the world. For example, cities were chaotic, dirty, smelly places of industrial life and communities. Villages were not just dormitories. The difference between Paris and Dakar is much starker now.
3. The rise of the university here and at the same time the fall of the organised working class. This is incoherent in my head, but for all the radical posturing of academics, the academy is an institution of power. Much of the critique is aimed at 'making space for outside voices' that reduces to 'finding a place in the middle class'
I think what that means is that internationalism looks like a dead end. There isn't an exciting movement to join holding out the hope of liberation for all. If Ukrainians throw out Zelensky and NATO, what have they got? Putin and Russian. Similarly in Iran, Sudan, Palestine and Syria. Equally leftists in golf playing nations are embedded in the global ruling class. We are in islands of security and order. It is hard to want to overthrow that even if you are not focused on becoming middle class.
#Internationalism, #TheLeft, #AntiImperialism
npub1mg…mj7ru
2026-07-19 10:05:12 UTC
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npub1mggz9purlf3lzvcynfke9ktrhqeexztx7v2hfc3xrreuymnkv09q7mj7ruPublished at
2026-07-19 10:05:12 UTCEvent JSON
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"content": "I am becoming old (and starting to shout at clouds). Thinking about what has changed politically in my time, I think that it is the collapse of internationalism. I am talking about the left here. This is odd because leftists spend a lot more time thinking about racism now. In many ways young leftists, white and 'of colour' have a much more sophisticated understanding than we did when we were young. So what has gone wrong? A few guesses:\n\n1. The failure of the anti-colonial movement. Independence was formally achieved, but in the best of scenarios the colonial powers were replaced by a new extractive ruling class. In the worst, the faces changed but the power relations remained. \n\n2. The end of Bretton Woods accelerated the divergence between golf and non-golf playing nations. In the 70s life in this country was not so vastly different from the majority of the world. For example, cities were chaotic, dirty, smelly places of industrial life and communities. Villages were not just dormitories. The difference between Paris and Dakar is much starker now. \n\n3. The rise of the university here and at the same time the fall of the organised working class. This is incoherent in my head, but for all the radical posturing of academics, the academy is an institution of power. Much of the critique is aimed at 'making space for outside voices' that reduces to 'finding a place in the middle class'\n\nI think what that means is that internationalism looks like a dead end. There isn't an exciting movement to join holding out the hope of liberation for all. If Ukrainians throw out Zelensky and NATO, what have they got? Putin and Russian. Similarly in Iran, Sudan, Palestine and Syria. Equally leftists in golf playing nations are embedded in the global ruling class. We are in islands of security and order. It is hard to want to overthrow that even if you are not focused on becoming middle class. \n\n#Internationalism, #TheLeft, #AntiImperialism",
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