Cultural rights and the “fight” against the far right

How the discourse of “fighting against the far right” stigmatizes voters, compromises democratic dialogue and becomes hate speech. It would be better to “fight for democracy” while respecting everyone’s dignity.

Warlike representations

People from both the left and right who see themselves as democrats, which is an umbrella term covering extremely diverse political thoughts in reality, call relatively unanimously to “fight” against the far right. They perceive the far right, its history, its traditions, its attitudes, as incompatible with democracy. And yet, these same people can fully support the actions of the current Israeli government, which is officially a far-right government, whose terrible actions indeed prove that a far-right policy can quickly lead to actions opposed to human rights, particularly actions consisting of mass murders of innocents to defend, they say, democracy.

One might object that the context of war changes the judgment one should have on the actions and crimes committed. Indeed, there can be exceptional regimes in the context of war. And it is precisely for this reason that certain so-called democrats mobilize warlike logic, even when there is no war. For example, at the beginning of the Covid crisis in March 2020, to justify the first lockdown of populations, Emmanuel Macron, President of the French Republic, said, affirmed, repeated, “we are at war,” which authorized the opportunism of unprecedented control over populations, an unprecedented restriction of freedoms as well, of an administratively and legally legitimized management, because it was a state of exception. This was manifested in particular with the management of the crisis via a defense council, subject to defense secrecy, therefore decisions taken in a non-democratic regime, justified by the state of exception, even though it was in no way a war, that it had none of its characteristics. It was a highly contagious virus, and the objective of public authorities should have been, a priori, only to limit its dangerousness.

But the immediate association between this urgency, which was real, and the way of operating it, a warlike manner that authorizes all exceptions, is a drift from democracy, because, and this has been very well documented by Eugénie Mérieau in her book Geopolitics of the state of exception, the globalizations of the state of emergency (Le Cavalier Bleu, 2024), on the transformation of political space into successive spaces of exception that allow for the pretense of a democratic regime, but in actions not to decide democratically. This is covered by law due to the exceptional regime of war. In this case in France, the window of opportunity for this confinement of populations in early 2020 was seized in this way by the French government, while other countries managed this crisis differently; there was no lockdown in Finland, for example, and there were not more deaths, they simply managed this epidemic differently. There was not, contrary to what was said, only one way to manage it. The way to manage it was a matter of authoritarian political choices, and not “health” choices, as it was said, under the regime of defense secrecy.

The extreme center

Thus, the opportunity that was seized by the government in France was to irremediably break (until now) the rising power of the revolt of the “yellow vests,” which was also repressed with the greatest violence before Covid, worthy of a banana republic dictatorship. The lockdown, by playing additionally on discourses of fear and guilt, “you are dangerous for your neighbors, for your family,” etc., at a time when the modalities of transmission of this virus were completely unknown, with not a responsibilization of citizens, but a potential criminalization of everyone on their daily actions, going out, being in social relationships, and besides, the expression that was chosen, “social distancing,” is quite significant, we should have said “physical distancing” because it was the case for, a priori, less transmission of the virus through airborne routes.

So, who chose it? How does language evolve? Of course, the government is not all-powerful, obviously. There are sociological effects that make words change, there is no “conspiracy,” but there are intentions, some of which can be fomented in secret, just like the management of this crisis, once again, defense secret. We will not know the real reasons for the choices until much later, as the archives will only be opened in 65 years.
I made this preamble to indicate that the so-called democrats who engage in the fight against the far right can be in certain contradictions, quite simply. And it is important to say it, to thicken the reflection that I now propose.

Yes, I agree with the fact that the attitudes that can be observed in municipalities run by the National Rally often have relatively little to do with the ideals of democracy, inclusion, and respect for others. And indeed, we can also see this with Donald Trump’s policy and his very strong censorship choices. So, we can fully see
that the way far-right officials decide the political space is very disrespectful of human rights.

I believe it is very important to fight well, that is to say, to fight not against the far right, but to fight for equality, for democracy, for respect, for freedom, to be careful in how to present it. Because indeed far-right governments show their lack of respect for the values I just mentioned. But, and this is why I made the previous preamble, we can find almost similar attitudes in governments that are not far-right, such as the current government in France for example, in repression policies, in the manufacturing of lies, in hypocrisy, in the absolute dissociation between words and actions, in post-truth proposals, almost as much as the post-truth proposals of the far right. The historian of the French Revolution Pierre Serna took up and developed in 2019 the concept of “extreme center,” in his book The Extreme Center or the French poison: 1789-2019 (Champ Vallon, 2019):

French political life, despite what a whole historiographical tradition says, is not blocked by a handicapping struggle between right and left, but by a poison: that of an extreme center, flexible, claiming to be moderate but implacable, which empties the Republic of its democratic substance by making it irremediably tilt towards the authoritarian republic. Macronism is not a Revolution: it’s an old story.

True-false democrats

Besides, in the speeches of far-right politicians, the emphasis is on the biases and very important contradictions of so-called democratic policies. They are not wrong at the site of this criticism. Thus, they will convince people who are for democracy and who have the impression, certainly false, that far-right political leaders will better defend freedoms than hypocritical democrats, because they are too connected to capitalist interests.

There is not less hypocrisy on the far right than elsewhere, obviously, because we know that the far right is also very linked to capitalist interests. It should be known that there are also camps among the great capitalists, it is not a univocal political space, and they are in no way absent from this type of conflict of interest. Far-right political personalities convince people that they are fighting for a freer society. Yes, the far right feeds a lot on xenophobia, but significantly less today than before, with Marine Le Pen’s enterprise which was to clean up a number of referents that blocked her from a whole part of a potential electorate.

Cultural rights and democracy

If now I take the “glasses” of cultural rights, let’s take the case of a person from civil life or a political personality who says “we are going to fight against the far right,” or “we are going to resist, enter into resistance against the development of the far right because the far right is a danger to democracies.” This is a very classic discourse of right-wing as well as left-wing policies. Regularly, for right-wing policies, and this almost makes one smile, this type of discourse is preliminary to alliances with the far right. So, if we look from the point of view of the dignity of the people who hear this discourse, these people, who vote on the left or right, are reassured by this discourse which reassures them about their conviction. But people who voted for the far right, for possible good reasons, as I was saying earlier, in any case, from their point of view (I don’t mean to say that I think the far-right vote is a good vote, I don’t think so, but some voters did it for good reasons, not necessarily violent and xenophobic reasons, which in my opinion are not good reasons), what do they hear from this discourse: “fight against the far right to defend democracy”? This discourse essentializes them, puts them, voters without doubt for some of them, for freedoms precisely, in the camp of the “bad guys.” There is the camp of the “good guys,” who fight against the far right and the camp of the “bad guys.” They voted for the far right, so they receive the qualifier of “bad guys.” So we must be well aware that when we say “fight against the far right,” it concerns first and foremost the voters of the far right, not just the political leaders.

We cannot ignore this. My proposal here is to look at things at this point, at the point of cultural rights, at the point of the dignity of each person. And we know well, in the history of humanity, that taking away dignity from human beings allows putting them in another regime of humanity and therefore allows justifying all possible violence against them. This is why the declaration of human rights of 1948 is so precious. It rests on respect for the dignity of persons, and it has been specified, over the years, up to cultural rights that focus on the cultural rights of the person.

Respect for dignity

Let’s not forget that people who voted for the far right are people just as worthy as others. It is extremely important to say this, because their far-right vote did not suddenly change their regime of humanity and transform them into monsters. There were, by the way, at the end of the 20^th century, in the deconstruction of the Communist Party, we know, many people who historically voted for the Communist Party and who transferred their votes to the National Front at the time, so to the far right. They remained the same people, with the same values, the same history, the same daily life, the same dignity.

A person who thinks that a vote can take away a person’s dignity, well, that person does not in any way defend democracy, which is the coexistence of diversities of opinions. What I want to alert here is that when, with all the best intentions in the world, I don’t deny it, we say “we must fight against the far right,” without wanting to, without doubt, without being well aware of it, and that’s why I allow myself to take up the pen on this subject, people will find themselves stigmatized, essentialized, despised, saddled with a terrible social role, even though without doubt they seek by this vote to defend precisely democratic values.

Hate speeches that ignore themselves

And what does this create in terms of respect for others, democratic respect? Well, they receive, these people, this discourse “fight against the far right” as a hate speech against them, addressed to them, thrown in their face. It’s hate speech. “Fighting for democracy,” on the other hand, is not hate speech, it’s democratic discourse. But “fighting against the far right” is hate speech.

So what does this create among the voters of the far right, more and more numerous? Well obviously, it creates no desire to go listen, to go consider the ideas and proposals of these political leaders or people from civil life who despise them, who consider them as the dregs of humanity, as people who have lost their dignity. So, they will affirm even more deeply within themselves, it seems to me, this feeling of disconnection from the reality of others. They themselves are not great villains, they know it well, they are people with their values, and they find themselves trampled underfoot by the so-called tolerant democrats, who manifest towards them the greatest intolerance. Well, unfortunately, that will convince them even more strongly to vote for the far right, which is not more tolerant in reality, obviously.

And let’s be clear, personally, I even vote for these people who say they are fighting against the far right. I believe in their intentions. And for me, it is a clumsiness of expression. I do not qualify this as malicious intent. And that is why the tool of cultural rights and the view from the dignity of persons seems to me to reveal this clumsiness and that it seems important to me for democracy.

Words have immense power. The choice of words can have very important impacts. We invent new words. Words change meaning. Words are our representations of the world. Words build social relations, build political systems, build this common vision of the world that transforms the world.

How to refound democracy in our own spaces?

In my profession, I reflect, I try to work, and it is far from simple, on welcoming people in cultural places and especially young people from the far right. How, precisely these people, who are just as worthy as anyone, let us never forget that, how do they feel respected, welcomed in a democratic context, where we are not going to immediately tell them that they would be monstrous? How do we create tolerance in our way of speaking, of expressing ourselves, in our way of welcoming? If we don’t do it, we exclude them from the democratic space, we produce the opposite of the values we defend.

I am not talking here at all about self-censorship, because the expression and freedom of expression of each must be full and complete. I speak on the contrary of democracy, where we can debate while being in completely opposite political thoughts, and where we can consider that the other enriches us. And the other can also consider being enriched by us, as long as we are in a democratic system, of organization of speech, of rules of the game, which allow this system to function.

For me, the expression “fight against the far right” does not pose a democratic rule of the game, but a warlike discourse, centered on the destruction of people. Because the far right is not an entity, they are people. And it is for me an anti-democratic, exclusive, stigmatizing discourse, as I said above, in reality, basically, a hate speech, unconscious of being so, of course.