For at least the last two-decades, British politics has gone through a malaise. Notable exceptions, such as the million-strong demonstration against the Iraq War aside, the period has been something of a political dark age; far removed from the turbulent battles of the 1980s or the explosion of free expression in the 1960s. Public appetite for all things political has dried up; treated with indifference at best and unmasked contempt at worst. And this is by no means an exclusively British phenomenon. It seems to be an inherent feature of so called ‘Western Democracy’ that politics is treated with abject apathy by the vast majority of the population.
Ruminations on the causes of this widespread lethargy have been the life works of many a political thinker, but few explained the phenomenon with greater clarity and insight than Antonio Gramsci, an Italian philosopher imprisoned by Mussolini’s Fascist State. It was his belief that the continued success of late capitalism and the concurrent inertia of working class movements could be explained by a process he termed hegemony. The hegemony of the ruling classes means that subordinate groups actually consent to their own exploitation. The reason for this consent lies in the effectiveness of bourgeois culture and ideology which is built upon the premises of insatiable consumerism, profit over people and the illusion of democratic choice.
These tenets of consumer capitalism saturate all aspects of everyday life, oozing from the pores of mainstream art, literature and film and reinforced constantly by the mass media. This is a fluid process which absorbs dissident elements, commodifies and nullifies them before amalgamating them into the status quo. This hegemony is so effective that the majority in these societies internalise elite interests as their own and they become ‘common sense’ unquestionable truths. The few who can see through the malaise rightly treat the political process with suspicion or apathy: for all major political parties are but puppets to the invisible hand of the market and indistinct from each other in all but name, colour and logo.
It is wrong for those on the true left to bemoan the apathy of the masses towards ‘big P Politics’ because given the circumstances it is a perfectly rational and intelligent choice. To engage the masses with politics we need to reconfigure what is meant by politics, make it relevant to the masses and demonstrate that it can produce real life benefits in local communities. What follow are three steps that must be taken to reinvigorate the general populace in their thirst for politics:
A) A) Focus on politics in local communities, by local communities:
Politicians are out of touch with normal people and few believe the official political processes really represent them. Progressive forces must shed the cloistered confines of Party Politics and take democracy back to the grass-roots level. For too long the left has abandoned working class communities to extreme right wing groups such as the British National Party (UK), Tea Party (USA) and The Front National (France) who are willing to get their hands dirty and engage with these communities. Local groups that are independent of the state are a great way of opening up lines of dialogue within communities.
Social centres and squatted spaces can be used to host events which will aid integration and rather than being overtly political, work more effectively when gently promoting a shared responsibility for the local area, a sense of mutual benefit and community spirit. The wider the appeal the better, family friendly events can be interspersed with workshops or performances that would interest young adults and so on. Decisions should always be taken democratically and it is important community members have a sense of ownership in whatever the group may be. A shared sense of purpose and realistic goals are useful but community groups must remain versatile and able to adapt to changing needs and membership. Whilst the focus should be local, thanks to the internet such groups and centres can share ideas with similar groups in communities both nationally and internationally, creating a loose, decentralised network of progressive forces, free from hierarchical power structures.
Putting the community at the centre of our understanding of politics should be an effective gateway to wider debate and discussion about the bigger political questions globally, even amongst sections of the community who have been apathetic towards such concerns in the past. Whilst this idea is all about the community providing services for itself outside of the state apparatus, it should not be confused with the top-down, back-door privatisation of David Cameron’s “Big Society”.
B) B) Make political protests have a wider appeal
Whilst work in local communities must be the bread and butter of any progressive movement, it cannot truly succeed without demonstrations of the power and unity of such movements in the form of protests, marches, occupations and strikes. Such events are essential both for demonstrating the will of the people and galvanising the members of the movement. With the mass demonstrations across the Middle-East and North-Africa these are certainly exciting times for bottom-up peoples’ movements. In Britain, the student protests seem to have awoken much of the youth’s dormant political consciousness.
The success of the student protests lies in the appeal they have had to the younger generation, not just University students but school kids as well. What self-respecting teenager wouldn’t want to skip class to take to the streets, chanting and listening to music with their classmates and thousands of others? The group UKUncut are becoming well known for their creative and engaging protest actions which vary from comedy bail-ins in high-street banks to hospitals set up in chemists and story-telling outside tax-dodging retailers. Capturing the imagination of the wider public and making protests accessible and entertaining is vital to broadening the movement.
Organisers of protests, especially in the ‘Western’ world need to be acutely aware that the protest-goers of today have multiple identities and protests must be varied and dynamic to reflect this. Gone are the days of card-carrying socialists and virulent feminists; I for one am an Anarchist-Communist-Feminist who is also very concerned about the environment and much more in-between. A healthy combination of marching, chanting and music along with less traditional forms of protest such as occupation, direct action and artistic expression can all come together to create a protest movement as diverse as its participants.
C) C) Make Your Own Media and Contribute to the Counter-Culture
If Gramsci was right and the continued prosperity of capitalism and concurrent political apathy of the masses is due to the success of the hegemonic culture then we need to fight fire with fire. It is essential that we use our creative outlets to propagate a counter-culture to the mass-produced, glossily packaged and pro-capitalist mainstream. If you are an artist question accepted aesthetics; a film-maker tell a story of resistance; a writer use humour to poke fun at the establishment; a journalist give a voice to the voiceless; a musician make music for the revolution! The richer and more diverse the counter-culture becomes, the alternative it presents will seem more tenable.
The mass media is owned by the state and big businesses and as such it is of little surprise that it reinforces their interests, not only in the stories it does tell but also in what is left out. Thanks to technological advances more average people now have the means to record and disseminate their own media and it is essential we make the most of the tools available to us. Writing a blog on current affairs or uploading a video taken on a mobile phone of police brutality may not be seen by millions like the circulation of the top media outlets but the more widespread alternative media becomes the better. Websites such as Indymedia provide a platform for ordinary people to give their own eye-witness accounts on what really happens at events and allows the people to decide what is newsworthy. When these accounts are corroborated it is frightening, if unsurprising, to see the amount of distortion and lies that are disseminated by ‘respected’ outlets such as the BBC and CNN. Even if you do not have the will or the means to be a content producer, you can contribute by posting links to good articles (like this one!) or footage on social networking sites and helping to spread the message.
Whilst capitalist hegemony is at times an overwhelmingly daunting enemy in the battle for the hearts and minds of ‘the masses’ there is certainly good reason for cautious optimism. The sea of mass movements sweeping across the Middle-East and North Africa, along with the torrent of civil unrest at austerity in ‘the West’ certainly seems to suggest the tides are changing. Whilst we face a different challenge in ‘the West’, if we employ a combination of the three suggestions I have posited I am confident we can begin to make progress. Noam Chomsky says: “You are responsible for the predictable consequences of your actions”, so use this as a starting point. Think of ways that you can implement the ideas suggested on a personal level and spread the message: local solutions, global solidarity!
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