(no subject)
Click to viewDaniel Kahn, my new favourite musician, on nationalism and stuff.
I believe in diasporism, in some ways. I think it’s important to recognize the different historical strings that are interwoven in the physical world. It’s also like this doyterkeit idea, the diaspora is much more bound up, connected now. All diasporas are. To be spread out is normal. We’re all living in the diaspora, because we spend half our time talking to someone who’s on the other side of the planet, or the other side of the country. Our whole way of living and way of interacting in terms of space has been completely shattered. So if we want to find our bearings in this, it’s not about constructing fluid nationalisms, it’s about using that to deconstruct nationalism...
I’m reading Billy Bragg’s book now, The Progressive Patriot. What he’s pretty much saying is why should we let the right wing be the only one that addresses what are real concerns of people who are maybe on the working class, ethnic majority people? They have real concerns and the left has abandoned these concerns because they’ve abandoned the discourse of belonging. We need to address this, or the right will continue to exploit these insecurities for their nefarious purposes.