LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment

Sunday, February 09, 2025

Trudeau Caught on Hot Mic Revealing Trump’s Plans for Canada

Joey McFadden
Fri, February 7, 2025

DAILY BEAST

Nicholas Kamm / AFP via Getty Images

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told business leaders that U.S. President Donald Trump’s interest in annexing Canada was a very real plan aimed at controlling the country’s vast mineral resources.

Trudeau was caught on a hot mic giving his assessment of Trump’s threat to take control of America’s northern neighbor.

“I suggest that not only does the Trump administration know how many critical minerals we have but that may be even why they keep talking about absorbing us and making us the 51st state,” he said. “They’re very aware of our resources, of what we have, and they very much want to be able to benefit from those. But Mr. Trump has it in mind that one of the easiest ways of doing that is absorbing our country. And it is a real thing.”

These remarks were made after Trudeau ushered the media out of the room. He continued to talk about his “conversation” with Trump, then realized the mic was still on, and ordered a staffer to turn off the recording device.

Canadian Industry Minister François-Philippe Champagne believes Trump’s tough talk about annexing Canada is a negotiation tactic. He says Canada is not changing its strategy around critical minerals.

“They need us more than ever. They understand, particularly the military guys, they are very worried about strategy in terms of being their partner, in terms of critical minerals, yeah,” he said. “I would say this is a great leverage for Canada, because the military folks understand that they cannot rebuild their industrial base, their defense, military industrial base, without Canada.”

Unifor President Lana Payne, a union leader concerned about annexation and tariffs, says she is “taking everything seriously right now because I have a lot of members whose jobs are at stake in this climate of chaos and instability.”

Trudeau says Trump is serious about wanting to annex Canada

Leyland Cecco in Toronto
Fri, February 7, 2025

THE GUARDIAN

The Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau, speaks to business and labour leaders amid the looming threat of US protectionism in Toronto on Friday.Photograph: Carlos Osorio/Reuters

Donald Trump’s recent fixation on absorbing Canada is “a real thing”, Justin Trudeau has told business leaders, warning that the US president wants access to his northern neighbour’s vast supply of critical minerals.

The outgoing prime minister was in Toronto for a hastily called summit of business and labour leaders, seeking to coordinate a response Trump’s looming threat of a 25% tariff on all Canadian imports.

Earlier this week, Trump backed away from tariffs that would have devastated Canada’s economy, granting one of his country’s largest trading partners a 30-day reprieve for further negotiations.

Related: ‘Buy Canadian Instead’: businesses vow to fight Trump’s tariffs across the border

But he has continued to mock Canadian sovereignty, repeating his description of the country as the “51st state” on social media and repeatedly calling Trudeau “governor” instead of prime minister.

Friday’s summit included discussions on stemming the movement of fentanyl, security at the border and the challenge of interprovincial trade, but Trudeau later told an audience that the president’s threats of annexation – often viewed as a negotiating tactic – were serious, and should be taken as such.

“I suggest that not only does the Trump administration know how many critical minerals we have but that may be even why they keep talking about absorbing us and making us the 51st state,” Trudeau reportedly told attendees.

“They’re very aware of our resources, of what we have and they very much want to be able to benefit from those,” he said. “But Mr Trump has it in mind that one of the easiest ways of doing that is absorbing our country.”

Canada is rich in minerals considered critical to the green energy transition, including lithium, graphite, nickel, copper and cobalt, and has sought to position itself as a trusted and stable supplier of the commodities to allied nations.

Trump’s threats, which have upended the longstanding relationship between the two countries, have dramatically reshaped federal politics and ushered in a new era of patriotism. With an election looming, all parties are scrambling to portray themselves as patriotic and ready to defend the country’s sovereignty.

In Quebec, where provincial sovereigntists have experienced a surge in popularity, the number of people calling for a referendum on the province’s secession has dropped. Between December and February, people in Quebec who said they were “very proud” or “proud” to be Canadian increased 13 points from 45% to 58%, according to an Angus Reid poll.

Related: In this Trump era of shakedown diplomacy, everything has a price

On Friday, federal cabinet ministers sought to reassure attenders.

“Our American friends understand that they need Canada for their economic security, they need Canada for their energy security and they need Canada for their national security,” the industry minister, François-Philippe Champagne, told AFP.

The trade minister, Anita Anand, said there would be “no messing” with the border.

“Canada is free. Canada is sovereign,” the employment minister, Steven MacKinnon, told reporters. “Canada will choose its own destiny, thank you very much.”

Trade, tariffs and threats: Canada’s Trump problem

To the new US president, Canada seems less like a partner or rival and more like a neighbour whose economic dependence can be exploited.

Qurat ul ain Siddiqui

Published January 23, 2025
PRISM/DAWN

Donald Trump is back in the White House, and with him, a renewed sense of foreboding hangs over Canada’s most vital relationship. His recent salvos — reviving the spectre of tariffs, calling Prime Minister Justin Trudeau a “governor”, and threatening “economic force” — have shattered any illusions of a reset. Instead, they’ve reopened old wounds from Trump’s first term, a time when Canada’s economic stability seemed at the mercy of his whims.

For Canadians, Trump’s return stirs fears of renewed trade tensions. The steel and aluminium tariffs, the contentious North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta) renegotiation that birthed the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), and the strategic use of trade as a political weapon — all are chapters from a playbook Trump appears ready to revisit. This time, however, there’s a new brazenness. His dismissive remarks about Trudeau and Canada hint at a deeper lack of respect.

To Trump, Canada seems less like a partner or rival and more like a neighbour whose economic dependence on the US can be exploited. This approach could exacerbate economic challenges and prompt retaliatory measures from Canada.

An economic crisis waiting to happen

The US accounts for over 70 per cent of Canadian exports, from Ontario’s auto parts to Alberta’s crude oil and Saskatchewan’s wheat. So when Trump speaks of tariffs, these industries don’t just worry, they panic.

In Alberta, energy producers are bracing for potential disruptions to the US supply chain, which could devastate one of Canada’s most crucial economic lifelines. In Ontario, just-in-time manufacturing networks that rely on seamless cross-border trade are at risk of being derailed by tariffs.

Quebec, too, is nervous. Aluminium producers and aerospace manufacturers remember all too well the bruising rounds of negotiations that forced painful concessions during the USMCA talks. Farmers across Canada are eyeing Trump’s rhetoric with trepidation, knowing how quickly trade disruptions can devastate agricultural exports.

Trump’s second term, then, isn’t just a diplomatic challenge for Canada but a full-blown economic crisis waiting to happen. The interdependence of the two economies, once a strength, now feels like a weakness. And Canada’s leaders know it.

In Ottawa, the Trudeau government, now tested by years of navigating Trump’s unpredictability, faces a more fragmented domestic front. In 2018, Canada’s strategy during the Nafta crisis was centralised, cohesive, and largely effective. But this time, provincial leaders are asserting themselves in ways that both enrich and complicate Canada’s overall approach.

Ontario premier Doug Ford has emerged as a staunch advocate for his province’s auto sector. His focus is clear: protect jobs, safeguard manufacturing, and push back against any measures that would harm Ontario’s economy. But Ford’s calls for action underscore the larger challenges of uniting Canada’s provinces in the face of Trump’s policies, particularly as Alberta’s premier Danielle Smith, by contrast, has focused on critiquing Ottawa’s approach — her sharp rhetoric highlighting both the urgency of the situation and the fractures in Canada’s internal political landscape, exposing the difficulty of presenting a unified front.

Breaking the dependence

In Washington, Trump’s approach to foreign policy is anything but conventional. His erratic musings — whether about buying Greenland or challenging Panama’s control of the canal — reflect a politics that thrives on chaos and his rhetoric about Canada shows a willingness to upend norms to have his way.

Trump’s threats of using “economic force” against Ottawa are a chilling reminder of his transactional worldview. Every relationship, whether with allies or adversaries, is a zero-sum game. And Canada’s dependence on the US market makes it an easy target for his brand of economic brinkmanship.

But the unpredictability doesn’t stop at trade. Trump’s fossil fuel revivalism clashes directly with Canada’s clean energy ambitions, creating potential friction in areas where cooperation once seemed possible. His disdain for multilateral agreements further complicates Canada’s efforts to diversify its trade relationships, as global markets remain volatile under his influence.

Calls for trade diversification have grown louder in Canada, but the reality remains stark. Despite agreements like the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) with the European Union and the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) with Asia-Pacific nations, the US remains the dominant market for Canadian exports. Breaking this dependence isn’t just a matter of signing new deals; it requires fundamental shifts in supply chains, business strategies, and government priorities, and all these shifts take time.

Trump’s tariffs and threats create an immediate urgency that long-term strategies can’t address. For now, Canada must focus on protecting its most vulnerable industries while laying the groundwork for broader diversification in the future.

A twofold challenge

As the 2025 federal election looms in Canada, the political stakes are also immense. Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre has seized the opportunity to attack Trudeau’s handling of Trump, branding it as weak and ineffective. Meanwhile, New Democratic Party leader Jagmeet Singh is calling for stronger protections for workers, appealing to Canadians who feel left behind in the global economy.

Ottawa’s challenge is twofold: managing the immediate risks posed by Trump while demonstrating a long-term vision for Canada’s economic sovereignty. This requires not only engaging with US stakeholders but also building domestic consensus across provinces and political parties. Canada’s experience during Trump’s first term offers lessons for navigating his second.

The relationships built during Nafta renegotiations remain valuable, and the goodwill of US border states like Michigan and New York can serve as a buffer against Trump’s more extreme policies. However, Canada cannot rely solely on these tools. A more proactive approach is needed, one that combines diplomatic engagement with bold domestic action.

This means investing in industries that reduce dependence on the US, from clean energy to technology. It also means strengthening ties with other trading partners and doubling down on diversification efforts. And it means confronting Trump’s rhetoric not with outrage, but with strategic resolve.

The writer is a journalist covering energy transition, emissions markets, and climate finance.

Trump’s new world

Rafia Zakaria

DAWN

The writer is an attorney teaching constitutional law and political philosophy.

IT has probably been the busiest week President Donald Trump has ever had, and it has the whole world worried.

The Indians are worried about what the imminent slashing of H-1B visas and the elimination of birthright citizenship will have on their middle class, which exports tech talent to America.

The Chinese are worried about the 10 per cent tariffs that Trump is promising to impose on them. Canada is worried about strident statements about how Canadian goods will face tariffs to bring down the trade deficit with them.

Mexico is worried about the same thing, as well as Trump’s labelling the country as being “run by drug cartels” and the imminent deportation of millions of undocumented Mexicans from the United States.

The EU is worried about Trump’s statements regarding trade deficits, trade restrictions on European goods to match EU restrictions on US goods and Trump’s lack of enthusiasm for sustaining Nato or its defence promises.

Denmark is worried about losing Greenland and Panama is worried about losing the Panama Canal; both of which Trump has announced the US would like to take over (without ruling out the use of military force).

It is undoubtedly going to be a new world under Donald Trump. First among all of this are likely to be the enormous changes that will come about to US immigration policy. Indians have good cause to be worried.

Trump is not only promising to crack down on illegal immigration but also slowing down legal immigration to a trickle — something which will likely impact Indians, as India sends the most immigrants and workers to America from Asia. Indian newspapers have been dominated by coverage of the issue over the past week.

Many commentators have even expressed alarm regarding the change in the rule regarding birthright citizenship. Constitutionally, any child born in the territorial US automatically gets American citizenship.

However, an executive order signed by Trump this week wants to change this saying that it will not apply to children of those on non-immigrant visas (including student visas and work visas) or children of undocumented workers.

According to discussions in Indian newspapers, this would change the calculations of many in the Indian middle class who choose to avail these visas and then try to have children while they are in the US so that they will be American citizens.

Trump’s order changing the grounds for citizenship has been challenged in US federal court, with a judge temporarily blocking the order. In the meantime, even if the rule is not immediately implemented, it likely augurs a period of uncertainty concerning the measure.

Indians have good cause to be worried as India sends the most immigrants to the US from Asia.

Those who are in the US illegally face a difficult time ahead as well. This is true regardless of where they have immigrated from. This would include Pakistani citizens who are currently in the US.

Immigration raids that are supposed to begin this weekend are likely to be used to round up people in areas with heavy immigrant populations. Those who may fit this category should know that they do not have to answer any questions if they are approached by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers if they are not near or at the US border.

There is no duty to provide identification or documentation when approached in places that are not US border checkpoints unless there is probable cause that has led the agent to suspect that the person may be illegal.

Racial profiling of people is not an adequate basis for probable cause. Not offering up identification or answering questions is not in itself grounds for detaining any person who appears to be an immigrant.

Those who run businesses that employ people who may be undocumented can ask ICE officers for a judicial warrant if their place of business is targeted for a raid. They can also instruct their employees to refuse to show identification or proof of legal residence unless such a warrant has been produced.

It is not just that the US is shutting its borders to the world and to American citizenship but also to products. In a speech telecast at the Davos summit, Trump announced that he will reduce the corporate tax rate from 40pc under Biden to 15pc if businesses choose to manufacture their product in the US.

Interest rates are also likely to be slashed under Trump which may provide Americans — who listed inflation as one of their major reasons for dissatisfaction with the Biden administration — with some hope.

The focus on rejuvenating American manufacturing is geared to increasing job opportunities for Americans, particularly in the rust belt states that have experienced a downturn ever since manufacturing in the US began to be outsourced.

The US is the richest and largest economy in the world. The Trump administration is seeking to harness this power to bully other countries out of territory and resources.

Of course, the US has been doing this in places like the Middle East and South Asia since the beginning of this new millennium, but now it appears it is Western countries, like the EU states and others, who will face the brunt of American bullying. These countries were happy to look away from US overreach when it came to the ‘war on terror’, Iraq and Afghanistan.

Now a new kind of US war has been launched, and its targets are countries who were spared in the last age of US power. It is these nations that are the targets of this new age of American overreach. They didn’t speak up when America did this to others and so the already bullied by America will have little to say now it is someone else’s turn.

rafia.zakaria@gmail.com

Published in Dawn, January 25th, 2025

Climate Trumped?

Malik Amin Aslam Khan

DAWN

The writer, a member of the governing board, SDPI, is a former minister of climate change.

THE inevitable has happened to a world which was bracing for the unpredictable. Trump 2.0 inauguration day was hyped with a flurry of executive orders — almost a fourth of them linked to climate change. The disturbing list includes reversing policies promoting electric vehicles, declaring an energy emergency, unleashing a new wave of oil and gas drilling while cancelling offshore wind power leases and for the second time in the last decade, announcing a US exit from the Paris climate agreement.

All these portend a precarious future for a world reeling under the effects of climate change. The science of climate change is clearer now than ever before, and just last month, leading climate scientists raised alarm bells as the world breached the 1.5 degrees Celsius threshold for the first time and 2024 was logged as the hottest year in recorded history. At the same time, the stark reality continues unabated with climate-triggered super floods, raging forest fires, unlivable temperatures and freak cyclonic storms forcibly gate-crashing the resilience of most countries.

Most importantly, the associated economic costs of this unleashed fury are following suit by burdening impacted countries, like Pakistan, with billions in unbearable climate damages.

Amidst this raging whirlpool of interlinked consequences, the politics around climate change has remained lethargic. Like Covid, it demands a concerted and coordinated global consensus. The Paris Climate Accords of 2015 garnered it around a bottom-up model with each of the 195 countries, including the US, ‘voluntarily’ contributing towards the goal of trying to keep the global temperature rise below the consequential threshold of 1.5°C. The consensus was built on trust and a promise of climate finance and the momentum of delivery was just beginning to gather pace. The last thing it needed was a staggering climate reversal from the historically largest carbon polluter and one still recovering from the catastrophic California forest fires and the devastating storms, Helene and Milton, hitting it in 2024.

America’s exit from the Paris Accords will have serious consequences.

The announced US exit from the Paris Accords will, undoubtedly, have serious consequences.

Firstly, while it fractures the required global ambition for slashing emissions, it will also be interpreted as an abdication of responsibility, which stands to damage the integrity of the US leadership on the global stage. The erratic oscillation between the ‘green new deal’ and ‘drill baby drill’ will certainly not improve its international reliability.

Secondly, it will create a leadership vacuum on the climate stage. The previous exit of the US, although it got reversed before operationalising, clearly saw the rest of the world unifying with China as well as individual US states stepping up the leadership ladder to fill the vacuum. That, in all likelihood, will happen again.

Thirdly, the US risks losing out on the associated clean energy boom, estimated at over $2 trillion last year, as it sprints in the opposite direction to the electric mobility and renewable energy transitions happening across the world. Thus, the shock and awe attack on climate change may well backfire.

Another surprising aspect is that this reversal does not seem to be based on climate denial as other aspects of Trump 2.0 are actually premised on the acceptance of climate change. The Greenland push is based on the climate-induced melting of the region, opening up a race to control new trade corridors and the precious natural resources being unearthed.

Similarly, the control of the Panama Canal is necessitated by the acceptance of a climate-triggered drying up

of Lake Gatun, which has restricted ship movement and is, thereby, compelling prioritised control. The only logic driving this swift shift seems to be that more drilling will bring down gas prices and control inflation. However, if effective, it would have happened as the US is already the largest oil producer. While this flawed strategy can see many other slips between the cup and the lip, what it certainly threatens to exacerbate is the runaway global temperature rise.

It can only be hoped that a rethink will take place. The world critically needs the innovative leadership of the US, with its potential to unleash and globally drive a green and low-carbon transformation. The issue of climate change is not about political posturing or controlling inflation but an unwinnable confrontation between humanity and nature.

The world needs to collectively get off the warpath with nature and restore the delicate balance which has been disturbed. Otherwise, nature will relentlessly continue to react. This is not a war that can be won or a deal that can be sealed.

amin.attock@gmail.com
X: @aminattock

Published in Dawn, January 26th, 2025

SMOKERS’ CORNER: BIG TECH'S BIG RUSH

Accelerationism emerged in the 1990s from the fringes of British academia as a postmodernist take on Marxism.

Nadeem F. Paracha

February 9, 2025

EOS/DAWN

Illustration by Abro

Everyone seems to be in a hurry. This impatience is not about what was once called ‘the rat race.’ The rat race was towards a well-defined goal. Yet, it was cyclic for most. Round and round they went. The faster they ran, the stronger the system that they were a part of got. The race was organised by a well-oiled bureaucracy, and overseen by governments and corporations that provided incentives for people to stay in the race.

Increasingly, however, people are dropping out of the old rat race. It had turned them into nuts and bolts in a machine. Their goal was to survive and race up a mechanical hierarchy, even though most just kept going in circles. From the late 1920s till the early 1970s, the rat race remained to be a thing.

However, from the 1990s, when digital technology first began to expand, it introduced itself as the tool with the potential to dismantle the old machine and free the people trapped inside it. Instead of people going in circles to achieve ‘meaningless’ goals, the new technology was to ‘empower’ them to become individuals who could write their own destinies.

The creators of this technology promised that it would unleash “direct democracy”, increase “real communication” and usher in a system in which anyone willing to use their imagination, creativity and “dream big” would have the opportunity to prosper.

Technological advancements come with the notion that they are liberating people from the old, soulless forms of capitalism. But are people being duped and led towards societal collapse and an authoritarian techno-capitalist future?

But, eventually, the new technology ended up creating a whole new machine: “Techno-capitalism.” Being part of this machine is not as ‘soulless’ as it was in the old one. In fact, the new machine is addictive. It feeds illusions of freedom and power to what are still nuts and bolts. People flock inside it like sheep, but with each believing they are “different”, “unique”, and “special”.

The capitalism that was active from the 1930s till at least the early 1970s was constantly modified to co-opt various aspects from ideas that were actually opposed to capitalism. This was done to keep those in the rat race from causing any disruption.

The capitalism produced by the new machine glorifies everything digital. It glamorises artificial intelligence (AI) and popularises words such as “disruption”. It has made billionaires out of the ‘nerds’ who oversee its workings. The new machine’s nuts and bolts are unlike those of the old machine. These ones are made to believe that they are functioning of their own free will. They really aren’t.

The billionaires who oversee the workings of the new machine are not like old capitalists who were only interested in profit, but were also willing to modify their ambitions to mitigate the possibility of the nuts and bolts rebelling against the machine. Unlike the owners of the old machine, those running the new one are “incurable idealists.” Yes, you read that right. At least this is how they often portray themselves.

They position their businesses not as enterprises gunning for profit, but as conscientious projects which — through cutting-edge technology— will end environmental degradation, disease, poverty etc. This is often referred to as “techno-optimism.” To its critics, though, it’s a scam.

For example, techno-optimists have been touting electric vehicles as an effective means to mitigate greenhouse gases. But The Guardian reported in January 2023 that, in the US alone, transition to electric vehicles could require three times as much lithium as is currently produced for the entire global market.

Techno-optimists have also been hailing the potential of AI to resolve various long-standing problems. But, according to a July 2023 report in Scientific America, AI technology is likely to get worse, because the shoddy AI-generated content that is already on the internet is corrupting the training data for models to come.

The Greek economist Yanis Varoufakis refuses to call tech billionaires, ‘techno-capitalists.’ According to him, capitalism is being replaced by “feudalism in a digital guise” or “techno-feudalism.” Millions of people serve big tech overlords by handing over data to access their ‘cloud space.’ To Varoufakis, the consumers of tech giants are modern-day serfs.

In January this year, at Donald Trump’s presidential inauguration ceremony, heads of major American tech companies were seen posing for a photograph. This is the same event in which the billionaire Elon Musk was accused of making the Nazi salute. He is a declared Trump supporter, but the alleged Nazi salute saw some of his critics claim that he was an “accelerationist”.

‘Accelerationism’ is a philosophy that seeks to speed up the intensification of societal collapse, to create a new order. Accelerationists look to use digital technology and its social, economic and political impact to bring forward a collapse that they say is inevitable.

Accelerationism emerged in the 1990s from the fringes of British academia as a postmodernist take on Marxism. Whereas the 19th century philosopher Karl Marx’s prediction of capitalism collapsing under its own weight, followed by a communist utopia, failed to materialise, the expansion of digital technology in the 1990s excited a group of young British academics who saw the end of capitalism caused by the “liberating” potentials of digital technology.

One of the leading thinkers of accelerationism was Nick Land. Convinced that the new technology would puncture capitalism, he advocated its acceleration through various means, so that a new, “more equitable order” that he and his colleagues were anticipating would arrive much earlier.

Land eventually ended up living in China, which he claimed was “the most accelerationist state.” Interestingly, though, on his return to England, Land’s accelerationism wasn’t seeking a more equitable order anymore. It was now seeking authoritarian city-states, with each being ruled by CEOs.

Land then went on to become a guru of sorts for far-right groups. He also became popular among big tech heads. He urged his followers to bring populists such as Trump to power.

To accelerationists, right-wing populists became important because they (the populists) seek to do away with “limitations” such as economic regulations and “worn out” government and state institutions.

Apparently, this, coupled with tech giants and their technology, will bring forward a future controlled by authoritarian CEO types in charge of technologically advanced city-states. The presence of big tech folk at Trump’s presidential inauguration has sparked fears that this dystopian version of accelerationism has seeped into big tech companies.

It won’t be far-fetched to assume that people’s impatience today is being triggered by accelerated digital technology, on its way to land the world in an authoritarian techno-capitalist future. So do stop and smell the flowers every now and then. Slow down.

Published in Dawn, EOS, February 9th, 2025

SMOKERS’ CORNER: WESTERN BLIND SPOTS

Temelkuran fears that Western societies may once again be slipping into fascism.

A fascism with enough clout and energy to come to power again, as it did in Germany, Italy, Portugal and Spain in the 1920s and 1930s.

Nadeem F. Paracha

EOS/DAWN

Illustration by Abro

In early 2024, an American academic sent me a collection of studies and essays on the global decline/ backsliding/ degradation of democracy. After spending months going through them, I noticed that most Western political scholars were continuing to somewhat undermine the dilemma that democracy was facing in their own countries.

Indeed, in the last decade or so, much has been said and written in the so-called ‘Global North’ about the creeping rise of far-right politics in the US and in Europe. Yet, the gaze of most Western political scholars is still largely fixed on countries in Asia, Africa and Central/ South America. It is only now that some Western political scientists are realising that, when most of them were focused on studying ‘fragile democracies’ elsewhere, democracy in their own countries was mutating in a most corrosive manner.

It wasn’t until Donald Trump’s election as president in 2016, the success of the ‘leave vote’ during the same year’s ‘Brexit’ referendum in the UK, and the manifold increase in the electoral popularity of far-right groups in Europe, that those preoccupied with the problematic nature of democracy in countries outside Europe and North America, suddenly realised that not all was well with their own democracies, which — especially after the Second World War — had been touted as the ‘best’ that the world had ever seen.

Trump’s dramatic rebound victory in November 2024’s presidential election, and the continuing upsurge in the popularity of far-right groups in multiple European countries, just might alter the rather apologetic manner in which the contemporary state of democracy in the ‘Global North’ is being studied. I use the word ‘apologetic’ because more effort is being put on explaining the rise of far-right politics in the West as a temporary problem which democracy itself will resolve through a self-correcting mechanism.

As the far-right gains momentum across the West, Western academics long fixated on ‘fragile democracies’ in the Global South are now grappling with the cracks emerging within their own democracies

But I believe that Western academics in this regard have been in denial. They couldn’t see the electoral rise of the far-right in the Global North until it began breaching mainstream politics from the early/ mid-2010s onwards.

This strand of politics did not drop in from some alien realm. It emerged from within Western societies. It then organised itself around loud, charismatic figures, and eventually saw its followers enter parliaments and, in some cases, come to power.

According to the Turkish journalist and author Ece Temelkuran, intellectuals and politicians who were convinced that far-right sentiments (in the West) had been exorcised after the defeat of fascist regimes in the Second World War, were being over-optimistic.

In her 2019 book How To Lose A Country, Temelkuran wrote that fascism never went away. It was just sidelined and then buried underneath the weight of a narrative that explained the victory of the ‘anti-fascist’ forces in the war as the victory of democracy over fascism. Temelkuran wrote that, after the war, the word ‘fascism’ was expunged from political discourse because, apparently, it had been eliminated in the West.

The original title of Temelkuran’s book was How To Lose A Country: 7 Steps— From Democracy To Fascism. But her publishers in Europe requested her to replace the word ‘fascism’ with ‘dictatorship’ in the title. According to Temelkuran, Western academics refused to even contemplate the possibility that fascism may still be quite alive in their societies and that the electoral rise of the far-right there cannot simply be seen as a case of ‘populism’ or a temporary bump.

Temelkuran sees this bump as a warning. She fears that Western societies may once again be slipping into fascism. A fascism with enough clout and energy to come to power again, as it did in Germany, Italy, Portugal and Spain in the 1920s and 1930s.

Nevertheless, with the far-right refusing to recede and, in fact, gaining even more electoral momentum, some Western academics are now willing to at least explore the notion that Western democracy is in serious trouble. Even though the far-right is entering mainstream politics through legitimate electoral means, it is attacking the very foundations on which Western democracy is built.

No wonder then, in 2024, when Temelkuran set out to publish an updated version of her book, she was able to use the word ‘fascism’ in the title. This time no one requested her to replace it. In an interview, she summed up the reaction of those who are now more open to explore what she was suggesting: “How can it happen here? It’s supposed to be happening in crazy countries.”

The ‘crazy countries’ are the ones that are situated outside Europe and North America. Countries that are studied to understand authoritarianism. Yet, there is no denying the fact that, now more than ever, those studying these ‘crazy’ places have started to worry about the possibility of the same happening in their own countries.

After the Second World War, democracy was romanticised and peddled as an ideal political system compared to authoritarianism, especially left-wing authoritarianism. However, when communism collapsed in 1991, democracy’s warts and all became a lot more visible. What the world has been witnessing, for well over a decade now, is the withering away of the idealistic perception of democracy. It is democracy’s less pleasant sides that have become more prominent.

According to the Dutch political scientist Cas Mudde, authoritarian or illiberal forces that come to power through a democratic process are the result of a contradiction in democracy. Indeed, liberal democracy celebrates the protection of various rights, but it also encourages the rule of the majority. The problem arises when this majority consents to undo the rights that democracy provides. This is when democracy starts to devour its own tail.

Pakistan is one of the many ‘crazy countries’ that Western academics study. Yet, it is also a country where the ‘democracy-loving’ intellectuals, journalists and activists still view democracy in the overtly idealistic and romanticised manner that it began to be painted by the West after 1945.

But that painting is now smudged. In the Global North, as well as in the Global South, times are now demanding a less idealistic analysis of democracy. Democracy needs to be regulated in ways that may raise eyebrows among the purists and the idealists, but this has to be done if democracy is to be protected — protected from its own idealised image, its contradictions and, of course, from authoritarian forces who are trying to use these contradictions to come to power and actually dismantle democratic institutions.

It is naive to continue idealising democracy without critiquing it from some awkward angles.

Published in Dawn, EOS, January 26th, 2025

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment

Sunday, February 09, 2025

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