Antiglobalism: the risk of repeating the trap of antifascism and anticommunism

@ElentirENG ES 9·14·2022 · 7:00 0

As readers of Counting Stars may have already noticed, in these pages I almost never use a word that is very common today: "globalism".

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What is globalism?

If I don't use it, it's for a simple reason: I like to be very precise when writing, and I think the term "globalism" suffers from a certain imprecision. In fact, some use it to alert against the accumulation of power in international organizations and against attempts to dissolve national sovereignty in favor of supranational organizations such as the European Union. So far I agree with the review. The problem comes when the term "globalism" is used for other things, such as rejecting the mere existence of international organizations (which is not a bad thing in itself) or economic globalization that allows us to trade with countries of all the world.

Antiglobalism and its instrumentalization by Eurasianism

But I do not intend to turn this post into a thesis on what globalism is, but rather to reflect on the so-called "antiglobalism" . With this opposite term we find the same inaccuracy as with the original. That word is used, many times, to describe those political options -not only right-wing- that oppose globalism. In that "anti" there is room for conservatives, classic liberals, communists and fascists, depending on how you define each antiglobalism.

The risk is that they want to use this "anti" for far from innocent causes. A few weeks ago we saw an example here, when I warned that the late Daria Dugina justified the invasion of Ukraine as a "clash" of civilizations between "globalism" and "eurasianism", as Aleksandr Dugin's eclectic anti-liberal and anti-Catholic ideology, which mixes ingredients of esotericism, Russian nationalism, communism and fascism.

Too often I find Dugin and Putin supporters branding you a "globalist" if you reject the Russian invasion of Ukraine and refuse to applaud the invaders' atrocities. It is not the first time that attempts have been made to manipulate people with "antis". That happened many years ago, and sadly, many people are falling into that trap again.

The precedent of the instrumentalization of antifascism and anticommunism

Four years ago I reviewed here the origin of the term "antifascism" and how it was used by Soviet communism as a disguise, even to criminalize social democrats (qualifying them as "social fascists") for not going through the Stalin's ring. That disguise was intended to hide the common denominator of communism and fascism: their status as totalitarian ideologies. The disguise did not last long: a few years after starting to use "anti-fascism" as a claim , Stalin allied himself with Hitler to invade Poland, a democratic and largely Catholic country.

Only two years later the trick was repeated: Nazi Germany used "anticommunism" as a hooking flag after its invasion of the USSR in June 1941. And it was as effective a flag as the "anti-fascism" for the communists. Germany managed to mobilize many volunteers from various countries (including Spain) to fight against communist Russia, while in the rear the Germans committed all kinds of atrocities.

It must be said that if today anticommunism does not have the connotations of antifascism, it is because of the division into blocks of the Cold War, which divided Europe between democratic countries and communist dictatorships until 1989. Let us remember Also, that communism had the impudence to call the Berlin Wall the "Anti-Fascist Protection Wall", created to turn an entire country into a prison in which many were killed for trying to flee.

Antiglobalism and Putinism

It's because of things like that that I always take the "antis" with a grain of salt. That someone calls himself antiglobalist, anticommunist or antifascist means nothing to me, if he doesn't explain to me what he intends to oppose globalism, communism or fascism. Because if their alternative is just as bad, that "anti" is nothing more than a trap. This trap is very evident when, as in some cases, those who seek to divide us into "globalists" and "antiglobalists" are supporters of Putin's Russia. And of course, if we define globalism as the dissolution of national sovereignty, then Putinism is its most violent version: just look at what it is doing to Ukraine's national sovereignty.

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Phooto: Fabian Bimmer / Reuters. A pro-Russian demonstration in Hannover, Germany.