/r/StupidpolEurope

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A place to critique identity politics and general discussion of Europe from a Marxist perspective. No American or non-European idpol allowed. Please use English.

A place to critique identity politics and general discussion of Europe from a Marxist perspective. No American or non-European idpol allowed. Please use English.

/r/StupidpolEurope

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76

Imagine attacking a union because the people are white in a &gt

5 Comments
2024/05/04
03:42 UTC

36

European politicians likely to hang themselves when told to by US – Putin

6 Comments
2024/04/29
11:04 UTC

3

What's going on in your country this week? Thread 161: Russian gallows, American rope

Our weekly general thread. Talk about certain issues and happenings in your country, it can be recent news, trends you’ve noticed, national issues, the war, or anything really.

2 Comments
2024/04/29
11:02 UTC

16

Lenin Museum in Finland's Tampere to shut down in November

4 Comments
2024/04/23
12:20 UTC

1

What's going on in your country this week? Thread 160: Hotel Rwanda

Our weekly general thread. Talk about certain issues and happenings in your country, it can be recent news, trends you’ve noticed, national issues, the war, or anything really.

0 Comments
2024/04/23
06:05 UTC

0

Why doesn't the left oppose the war in Ukraine?

I see so much left content about the genocide in Gaza, while so little on the new US fund to Ukraine and the conscription law.

32 Comments
2024/04/22
11:40 UTC

12

Kenan Malik: The right has always been censorious. What has changed is that the left has provided conservatives with new weapons with which to pursue their censoriousness.

0 Comments
2024/04/22
00:43 UTC

47

Does anyone know what’s up with r-stupidpol being private?

Sorry to bother you eurojags but I’ve been offline all day and now I see stupidpol is private. Anyone know what’s up? It’s my last bastion for any kind of sane political conversation and I’m silently weeping over here.

27 Comments
2024/04/21
06:11 UTC

4

What's going on in your country this week? Thread 159: Never be a friend to Frankfurt

Our weekly general thread. Talk about certain issues and happenings in your country, it can be recent news, trends you’ve noticed, national issues, the war, or anything really.

4 Comments
2024/04/17
12:45 UTC

49

Mario Draghi - "Oops"

8 Comments
2024/04/17
12:31 UTC

13

Somewheres, Anywheres, and Nowheres; observations on class and nationalism

A few days ago, there was a rather curious incident in Coolock, Dublin. At a protest against a centre being set up to house immigrants, some counterprotestors showed up, and were chased away. One of them dropped their phone, which was unlocked, later revealing them to be a mainstream journalist, who was apparently involved in the counterprotest as part of a totally impartial investigation into nationalist politics, and supposedly not for political reasons, if you can beleive that. Predictably this story hasn't gotten mainstream traction though the Burkean, a right wing outlet, has been reporting on it for anyone interested in reading further.

While collusion between the state, media, NGOs, and so on, with certain progressive activist groups is interesting its also not particularly new, nor really is there much to analyse at least in this case; the ruling class wants immigration so it sponsors counterprotests (or at least provides the nucleus of such movements) whenever people protest immigration. Fairly simple. But what did get me thinking was the class basis of these movements. The anti immigration protestors are largely working class, the pro immigration counterprotests much less so - in this case a journalist was involved!

Opponents of nationalism - at least those on the left - often try to deny that large parts of the working class are nationalist, but when they are forced to admit otherwise they often pivot to claiming that this is because capital is buying them off with claims of national superiority or something along those lines. This might have been believable, perhaps even true, at certain points in the past but in modern Ireland or the rest of the English speaking world the message from on high is very clear; nationalism is bad! Even those political parties which are regularly denounced as ultra right wing by many progressives are typically more accepting of immigration than the average liberal was 20 years ago! So far from being led around by the ruling class, working class nationalists hold to their nationalist positions in spite of it.

All that said, nationalist instincts are neither exclusive to the working class nor universal within it. Instead it seems to cross roads with class due to the conflict between the groups who are sometimes described as Somewheres and Anywheres, which I beleive comes from David Goodhart's essay Too Diverse? from about 20 years back. The Somewheres are those who are more locally rooted, typically less educated, and tend to be more conservative and parochial. The Anywheres are largely the opposite, they aren't tied down, they are more educated, and are more liberal and even globalist in outlook. Even if neither of these groups are a class, it should be obvious as to why they tend to correlate with class, even if not perfectly.

But something is often left out of this equation. While the Somewheres can come from any strata of society, even if they are more common at some levels than others, is the same actually true of the Anywheres? Well, not really. The Anywheres rely on at least a degree of wealth and status to support their lifestyles, so simply adopting their attitude does not grant access to the same results, the same ability to live essentially the same lifestyle in one western country or another. So what happens to those who share the attitude of the Anywheres, but lack the support structure? They become Nowheres.

Not all Nowheres are in that position due to a lack of understanding of their position though. That describes those who have fallen out of Anywhere status but cling to the ideals, and those who have adopted those ideals for whatever reason, but have failed to achieve the status necessary to realise them. But there are also plenty of Somewheres, who, because their traditional forms of solidarity have been chipped away at and broken apart, have nowhere left to turn to. And on top of that, you have migrants who haven't been adopted into the Anywheres, assimilated into the native Somewheres, or been able to create a somewhere of their own.

What does all of this mean politically? Well, in the first case, it is clear that nationalist politics, despite the claims of some, are neither the result of false consciousness, or of privilege. But it is also the case, that it is not strictly a class politics, whether in terms of relation to means of production, or the more simplistic relative income, though in both cases there is a correlation. One unavoidable conclusion though, is that it is impossible to claim to be for the working class without taking into account the political reality of nationalism, or to demand a vaguely defined solidarity between native and immigrant workers without even attempting to address the obvious differences in interests which so often exist between the two.

More than this though, it demonstrates something which should have long been obvious to anyone paying attention; the working class never wanted to lose the few things they did have, they have not benefitted from being told to give up their traditional norms that were so often claimed to have been forced on them by the bourgeoisie, and they are less and less willing to support anyone who insists on telling them that they need to accept endless "progress" in order to achieve more secure living standards. It is not impossible that some sort of agreement may be reached between Somewheres of different allegiances, or Somewheres and those who are currently Nowheres, but as long as "real socialism" demands that everyone should become Anywheres, then socialism will remain impossible.

2 Comments
2024/04/10
03:01 UTC

4

What's going on in your country this week? Thread 158: This only was wanting, now comes the night

Our weekly general thread. Talk about certain issues and happenings in your country, it can be recent news, trends you’ve noticed, national issues, the war, or anything really.

1 Comment
2024/04/09
21:56 UTC

8

What's going on in your country this week? Thread 157: Fall of the Watermelon Salesman

Our weekly general thread. Talk about certain issues and happenings in your country, it can be recent news, trends you’ve noticed, national issues, the war, or anything really.

6 Comments
2024/04/01
11:49 UTC

7

What's going on in your country this week? Thread 156: WW3 Edition

Our weekly general thread. Talk about certain issues and happenings in your country, it can be recent news, trends you’ve noticed, national issues, the war, or anything really.

6 Comments
2024/03/26
18:28 UTC

5

What's going on in your country this week? Thread 155: House Riggers

Our weekly general thread. Talk about certain issues and happenings in your country, it can be recent news, trends you’ve noticed, national issues, the war, or anything really.

2 Comments
2024/03/17
11:55 UTC

11

Are farmers in your country like their finnish counterparts, rightwingers that hate the poor and believe every conspiracy? Evolution of finnish peasantry 1987-2019, or why it's 1918 again.

38 Comments
2024/03/12
16:52 UTC

53

It’s been ten years since Berkin Elvan , a 15 year old boy , died after 269 days of coma because of a tear gas canister that was shot at him by the police during Gezi Park Protests in Turkey

Berkin Elvan a 15 year old boy was shot by a gas canister fired by the police in 2013 June , during Gezi Park Protests in Turkey in . He stayed in come for 269 days and his bodyweight dropped from 45 kilograms to 16 kilograms . Erdoğan said that “They say “who gave the orders to the police” who gave the orders ? I gave the orders to the police!” about his killing and later described the boy as a terrorist and booed Berkin’s mother together with his crowd during a political rally . Berkin was memoralized by even by Devlet Bahçeli leader of far-right Nationalist Action Party affiliated with Grey Wolves and Veli Küçük who was a Gladio affiliate when he was killed .Today Berkin Elvan’s lawyer Can Atalay is in jail and his killer , Fatih Dalgalı , is still outside with no arrest warrant despite him being sentenced to 16 years of jail time

3 Comments
2024/03/11
16:54 UTC

12

What's going on in your country this week? Thread 154: The Pope's Divisions

Will be resuming the weekly threads on the request of some users here. Talk about certain issues and happenings in your country, it can be recent news, trends you’ve noticed, national issues, the war, or anything really.

6 Comments
2024/03/10
14:47 UTC

22

Meet Finnish Minister of Justice (also a lawyer)

5 Comments
2024/03/07
13:26 UTC

20

European Citizens' Initiative to tax great wealth: which countries are signing the most.

0 Comments
2024/02/24
17:18 UTC

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