Published by Jonathan Ball

One of the more worrying features of the shaky era we are living in has been a rising tide of authoritarianism, accompanied, in some instances, by a resurrection of many old white supremacist tropes, which date back to Charles Darwin’s time. It was Darwin’s cousin, Francis Galton, who came up with the concept of eugenics, which popularised the view that races were real entities and that different races were unequal. His ideas gained widespread currency and were supported by many prominent figures, including Teddy Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and Winston Churchill. On a more sinister note, they would also be latched onto by Hitler and the Nazis with their endless preoccupation with “the Jewish question”- how to rid Europe of the Jews – that led, ultimately, to the gas chambers.

The horrors of the Holocaust forced white supremacist ideas into retreat, but they didn’t disappear altogether. South Africa, for one, instituted its policy of apartheid that centred on its notions of separate racial cultures and separate racial frameworks. Behind all this was the belief that whites were inherently superior to blacks and should effectively control the reins of power. This line of reasoning led to the Group Areas Act, under which 3,5 million African and ‘Çoloured’ people were forcibly removed from their homes to make way for whites.

As usual, however, it is to America that we must turn for the big story about race and politics. Nowadays, geneticists say there is little scientific evidence to support theories of race difference. This hasn’t stopped them from finding a new protagonist in Donald Trump and his MAGA movement, whose obsession with refugees, immigrants and declining birth rates has seen the normalisation of what were once regarded as fringe views. Their fears about America being swamped by violent, criminal gangs and getting engulfed in ethnic conflict are, in turn, directly linked to populist Great Replacement thinking – the conspiracy narrative, first espoused by the French author Renaud Camus, that there is a secret plot, masterminded by some mysterious elite, to replace white populations in white-majority countries.

The growing influence of social media has led to a proliferation of alt-right sites and the widespread dissemination of their views, as well as the spreading of doomsday scenarios of a looming white genocide. (with some – including Donald Trump himself – pointing to what is allegedly happening in South Africa, even though these claims are not backed up by any solid evidence). Underlying a lot of it is a profound nastiness which has led, at the extreme end, to the emergence of lone white-male killers who hope that their violent actions will provoke civil war.

South African-born author, Gavin Evans, who grew up under the old National Party regime, with its policy of “separate development”, has made an in-depth study of this subject. In his eloquent, compelling and, at times, alarming book, he succeeds superbly in teasing out the links between the old ideas about eugenics and today’s Great Replacement theories. His conclusions are, by no means, all doom and gloom, however. Despite the growth of the alt-right, the frequency of race-motivated murders, the revival of race science and the election of right-wing politicians, research has shown that racial prejudice is, in fact, declining, especially where communities have become more integrated and people are exposed to other cultures, ideas and ways of life. There are still, however, powerful forces pushing the idea of “race realism”.

Topical, relevant and full of insights, White Supremacy deserves to be read by a wide audience.

published by Bloomsbury.

We live in an age of economic anxiety and instability. The cost of living continues to rise, real wages are in decline, and jobs are becoming increasingly scarce. Many people feel gloomy and fearful about the future. Trust is in deficit.

In this shrewd, thoughtful and hard-hitting polemic, author Ash Sarkar tackles the obvious question: how did we get here? Her essential conclusion is that we have allowed ourselves to become victims in a classic case of misdirection. Instead of confronting the big issue of our day – the unprecedented transfer of wealth from ordinary citizens and consumers to the very rich, the huge corporations and the oligarchs we have allowed ourselves to become sucked into a phony game of grievance politics. The whole concept of “culture wars” has been deliberately stoked to redirect attention away from the structural causes of our current economic hardships towards more nebulous feelings of cultural resentment. In this scenario, various minority groups are blamed for all the world’s ills.

An obvious example is the transgender issue, where the sexual leanings of a tiny minority of society are blown out of all proportion and presented as a form of contagion which will undermine the moral welfare of the majority. In a similar vein, we have the promotion of conspiracy theories, like the Great Replacement narrative – so popular amongst alt-right groups – which postulates that there is some sort of sinister plot to replace slow-breeding whites with immigrants from other racial groups.

Politicians like Donald Trump and Nigel Farage have become experts at whipping up fear and speculation and turning these once-fringe issues into mainstream ones. Other politicians have displayed a similar cynicism and hypocrisy. While professing concern for the poor, they are willing partners in a system that continues to enrich the extremely wealthy.

To an extent, the left has made it easier for them. Rather than looking at the larger issues facing society, they have become obsessed with policing what people say and whether it can be construed as an assault on someone’s personhood. Society has become divided into narrow subcultures, each defending its own turf. We have become mired in niche controversies.

At the other end of the spectrum, right-wing culture warriors seized on this to promote the vision of a ‘forgotten’ majority who have been socially gagged and culturally marginalised because of this focus on minority rights. As the author notes, the most trifling of conflicts get framed within much weightier battles of values, ideologies or identity positions with hundreds of talking heads pontificating about them”(she cites the case of Will Smith slapping the comedian Chris Rock)

Sarkar is a spry, pithy and impressively agile critic, and her well-argued book is very much a call to arms. While not suggesting that we ignore the injustices of racism, sexism, homophobia and transphobia, her main point is that we need to be aware of the tectonic economic and geopolitical shifts that are taking place all around us. At a time when ordinary citizens struggle with financial, health and housing insecurity, a huge wealth grab is taking place right under our noses, which erodes our rights and threatens to impoverish us still further…