I am not a liberal anymore. I have said goodbye to liberalism

 am not a liberal anymore. I have said goodbye to liberalism. By Sawal Hameed Rathore

I am not a liberal anymore. I have said goodbye to liberalism and its associated contemporary political, economic, political ideologies and identity politics i.e.

Liberal Nationalism

Liberal Feminism

Liberal Democracy

Free-Market Capitalism

This does not mean I do not value Liberalism's core values of freedom, individual liberty, equality before law, rule of the law as well as struggle against tyranny and conceptions of universal human rights and human dignity.

At the same time, I do not reject the valuable role of Liberalism in human history in removing the absolutist hereditary monarchs and thereby providing concepts like rule of the consent of the governed as well as limitations to power, checks and balances, freedom, prosperity, equality and fraternity.

I accept the role of European liberals in the late 18th and 19 centuries who were revolutionaries of their times, however, these European liberals after acquiring power were not that sympathetic of the miseries of the lower working classes of both urban areas and rural peripheries as well as the Indigenous peoples of their colonies worldwide. 

I bid farewell to Liberalism only because I do not believe that it does not adequately offers solutions to the challenges which are posed to its core tenets.

For so many years now, I have been a materialist and I truly believe that material forces shape all other structures of society i.e. political, cultural, social, psychological, religious, etc.

Since my early childhood, I have been subconsciously aware of the role of class status in the determination of everything that exists and this has been continously reinforced during my upbringing years by my family, friends, relatives and every other tools of socialization.

I am now moving to the leftist spectrum of political and economic ideologies. I truly believe that a scientific study of the societal basis is essential to comprehend the root causes of all ills of socio-politico-economic order at local, regional, national and global levels.

Neo-liberalism and free market capitalism and its tools of globalization and supra-national organizations e.g. IMF, WTO, WB, as well as the undemocratic UNO have failed us many a times in a miserable manner. The current so-called rules based international order is only a tool for USA and its Western allies to maintain hegemonic world order to suppress the peoples of their former colonies for the purposes resource extraction, exploitation of cheap labour where the latter pay the price through poverty, pandemics, climate change and famines.

Liberalism associated ideologies are also philosophical poor as it does not value the role of class based identities in their works. Nationalism is one of many instruments to overwhelm the underlying class struggles and calls for national unity to veil the sufferings of economically suppressed people. Liberal Feminism also does not consider the class divisions within gender-based identities. It does not accept the existence of alternative and Indigenous feminist movements all over the world. Liberal democracy loves to manifest itself as the rule of the people, though it fails to understand that materialist comprehension of society is essential to address the economic inequalities in society. Economic inequalities are the basis of concentration of political power in a few hands which gives rise to tyranny and the end of true democracy.

Finally, Neo-liberalism has been the breeding ground of rising populism and fascism and alt-right and far-right movements worldwide. These are aptly described as "counter-revolutionary" movements exploiting the anger and frustration of the oppressed and suppressed peoples of the lower classes worldwide to dismantle the status quo.

We can clearly see such leaders and parties rising in the previous decade especially after the 2008 global financial crisis, Imran Khan in Pakistan, Narendra Modi in India, Donald J. Trump in the USA, Boris Johnson in the UK, Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in Turkiye and so many others all over the world.

Neoliberalism is responsible for the deterioration of democracy. It is responsible for rise in fascist tendencies worldwide. It is responsible for rise in religious extremism and terrorism. It is responsible for climate change. It is responsible for Gender-based oppression. It is responsible for rise in ethno-based violence. Identity politics is one of the many response which can be attributed to the failures of Neoliberalism.

The solution lies in Political Mobilization of the peoples of the world against the Oppressors who are exploiting not only billions of humans worldwide but also exploiting limited and valuable planetary resources as well as the extinction of other species.

We need to adopt new political and economic models at every level and this is only possible by a scientific and materialistic comprehension of the society.