Link back to commentThanks Andrew for that thoughtful response, and for your consistent support for all the forum activities.
In reply, I would point out that the definition of identity politics I cited in the article is not from someone hostile to identity politics – Sonia Kruks is a well known feminist theorist. It is a useful definition in that it states succinctly the essential difference between how the ‘identarians’ (to use Kruk’s term) see the world and how their view contrasts with earlier forms of leftist/egalitarian politics that stressed that we are all members of a common humanity, each with freewill (or ‘agency’ in the current jargon) and certain inalienable rights.
On the matter of race, for example, the left used to wholeheartedly endorse the sentiment of Martin Luther King expressed in his great civil rights speech of 1963 where he looked forward to a day when his children would be judged by the ‘content of their character’ rather than the ‘colour of their skin’. Nowadays, we have the University of California issuing edicts to its staff designating statements like ‘when I look at you I don’t see colour’ and ‘there is only one race, the human race’ as ‘microaggressions’ to be avoided.
The definition you prefer refers to how ‘identity political formations typically aim to secure the political freedom of a specific constituency marginalized within its larger context’. The example of Sarah Haider I discuss in the article shows the problem with this. A young woman from a Pakistani Muslim background is condemned not just by Muslims but by Western ‘progressives’ for exercising her right to defect from Islam and supporting others making the same choice. Her action is viewed as a kind of treachery – she is an identity traitor. Not much freedom there. I find this appalling.