“These populist movements reconceptualize real fears about deteriorating social and economic conditions as an imaginary loss of an “original” commonality at the center of society that must be renewed at the expense of those living at the circumference. Xenophobia, racism, nationalism, and homophobia fill the void left by the loss of lives and livelihoods ungrounded by the downturn. Government austerity measures meant to contain the economic fallout further erode the interconnections between classes, races, and ethnicities that make up contemporary life, adding to the growing sense of social isolation, which in turn reinforces the desire to forge a common country by punishing what is considered most foreign from within.”
From Idiot Wind: An Introduction by Paul Chan and Sven Lütticken, who have gathered a series of reports on the rise of right-wing, populist movements worldwide for the (online, entirely PDF download-able) January/February 2011 issue of e-flux, Idiot Wind: On the Rise of Right-Wing Populism in the US and Europe, and What It Means for Contemporary Art. Its arrival is more timely than anyone had anticipated it would be, I am sure.
