The politics of grievance

One of the chief assumptions of liberalism, at least a certain strand of liberalism and democratic theory, is the hope that the public sphere would be governed by reason: specifically, deliberative reason. But emotions are never far from politics; in fact, they are always built within politics. Elections in France and UK will be a good proof of it.

According to Eva Illouz, Professor of Sociology at école des Hautes études en Sciences Sociales, emotions are never far from politics; in fact, they are always built within politics. In the last decade, what we have observed is general agreement on grievance. Grievance seems to characterise a lot of countries. It has come in the form of people voting for candidates who seem to reject the traditional ways in which politics are done. Many people use the word “anger” to refer to some of the processes that have been happening in many countries, when “grievance” is more appropriate. A grievance is a long-lasting anger, and it is one that invokes a higher principle. And many groups in many societies are finding reasons to have a grievance.

Homi K. Bhabha, Anne F. Rothenberg Professor of the Humanities, Harvard University, gives his definition of globalisation. “Here you have, on the one hand, the circulations of goods and finances, with major conventions established for trade, and on the other, you have ethnonationalist groups which are emerging at the leadership level, which do not allow the free passage of people and which boost a certain kind of religious nationalism or racial nationalism – deeply provincial, deeply problematic and against the spirit of any kind of global cosmopolitanism. So, in what sense can we ever be at home and not feel displaced or homeless at the same time? Conceptually, politically, psychically?”

Gareth Stedman Jones, Professor of the History of Ideas, Queen Mary University of London explains how the development of neoliberalism has led to the ever-increasing marginalisation of collective institutions, like trade unions or cooperatives and so on, and the development of an ever-more crude, possessive individualism, which is meant to account for human behaviour. “What is needed is the rediscovery of some of the points produced by not only Marx but the labour movement around him, and that is the idea of the dignity of labour in itself. We’re not just consumers. We’re people who produce things. We do things. We should be accorded recognition and dignity in accordance with that. If Marx saw the situation at the moment, he would be pretty depressed. But what he would also think is that, given his theory of history, things will change.”

For Donald Sassoon, Emeritus Professor of Comparative European History, Queen Mary University of London, the fear of globalisation is conjoined with the successes of globalisation. Some will win; some will lose. Sassoon gives an example of how globalisation can affect ordinary people. “Late 19th century Romania was the fourth largest exporter of wheat in the world. The Romanian peasants had a horse and a cart and they sold their wheat, usually to Jewish entrepreneurs, who sold it on the world market. Then, someone in the United States perfected a tractor and produced more wheat and the international price of wheat dropped. That ruined Romania. The Romanian peasants were victims of globalisation. They did not know that the fault, if there was a fault, was with American tractors. But they sold the thought it was the Jews’ fault, as they were no longer buying as much wheat as they used to. As a result, there were pogroms.”

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