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