Le Regard Libre N° 83 - Claudio Recupero
A movement that originated in the United States has arrived in Europe and become very well known over the last two years: wokism. This ideological movement, literally «awake» to all forms of inequality and discrimination, makes the defense of «minorities» - ethnic, religious, sexual... - its absolute objective. In this article, Geneva historian and professor Claudio Recupero criticizes the means used by the woke to achieve their ends. In his view, they are counter-productive and end up imitating what they denounce.
The obsession with the radical defense of minorities perversely leads to the stigmatization of the «majority» - the «majority» or those designated as such by those in the know, those who don't have it easy. Holders of the truth, scissors in one hand and eraser in the other. As if being in the majority, or categorized as such, were now a... cardinal sin?
Outrance rhymes with counter-productivity
Today, as a white, European, male baby-boomer, I tick a lot of boxes in this curious game of the zeitgeist. These congenital defects make me, in the eyes of certain alert minds, an automatic disqualifier, a destroyer of the planet, a phallocrat with a guilty post-colonial spirit. Yes, guilty, because the prevailing wokism makes me a suspect from birth, even before I open my mouth to attempt a «but». And if I attempt that «but», then I sign my admission of guilt, my confession.
And yet, many of the causes defended are worthy of support, and have my unwavering backing (well, I still need convincing on the issue of equality between humans and phasms), but the pathetic, arrogant radicalism of certain self-proclaimed enlightened minds is detrimental to the causes they defend.
Read also | Woke ideology: favors for the «underprivileged»
Snakes biting their own tails
As well as being counter-productive, these are snakes biting their own tails: they replace historical inequalities and even injustices with deleterious and, to put it bluntly, dangerous indictments, which ironically repeat the mechanisms used in the historical discrimination phenomena they denounce. They replace the «normal, it's a black person, a woman, a young person, a babacool, etc.» with a «logical, it's a white person, a man, an old person, a Catholic, an omnivore, etc.».
The worst thing about all this is not the near-impossibility of debate that results from such intransigence, because that's unfortunately a sign of the times (vaccination, global warming, etc.) and we're getting used to it, even if it's unfortunate. No. The worst thing is that the prevailing wokism is opening up a boulevard for those who advocate a kind of restoration, a return to the world of yesteryear that smells of crinoline and collodion. Ridiculous and with no future ten years ago, today nobody laughs at them. And if nothing changes, they'll be in power in much less than ten years. So yes, in his heart of hearts, Zemmour has to thank the woke.
Read also | Zemmour as a candidate: good news for everyone
Let's be a little less passive
Dear readers, who may be choking on these few lines, wake up! Dewokize yourselves, for example by agreeing to debate without accusing me a priori of all the evils, but using as many words as you like! Because yes, my comments are open to criticism, and fortunately so.
As for those of you who didn't suffocate reading me and who see in my comments a reflection - albeit a very imperfect one - of what you think, let's be a little less passive and put up a show of resistance (i.e. debate) in the face of this wave paved sometimes with good intentions, even benevolence... sometimes, but not always!
My ideal: to fight together for a world that includes without excluding, that explains without erasing, that resolves without dividing, that saves without dividing, that debates without excommunicating. Our social cohesion depends on it.
Trained in general and contemporary history at the University of Geneva, Claudio Recupero is filmmaker and teaches history at Collège Sismondi in Geneva.
Photo credit: © Miguel Bueno
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