Postcolonial nationalism and the global right

Abstract

How can postcolonial critique address the use and abuse of the anti-colonial in contemporary reactionary and ultranationalist projects in the Global Easts and South? Building on the literature on amalgams of authoritarianism, social conservatism, and racial nationalism beyond the Western core, especially the emergent scholarship on the rise of the digital far right, I reflect on the ways in which postcolonial critique can help us think about the multifaceted relationships between postcolonial identity and the global right. First, postcolonial nationalism is a prevalent strategy employed by authoritarian and conservative actors who mobilize subaltern identity in a US/Western dominated world to legitimate reactionary politics. Secondly, while illiberal movements that appropriate the anti-colonial rhetoric purport to challenge the moral geography underpinning the liberal international order, they reproduce its essentializing, hierarchical, and racialized logics in reversing its value judgement. Thirdly, the rise of the digital far right in the Global Easts and South provides a particularly productive lens through which to explore the transnationality of contemporary formulations of racism, anti-feminism, Islamophobia, and the “culture war” discourses. I conclude by suggesting that attending to the role of postcolonial nationalism in global reactionary movements has wider implications for both postcolonial critique and the study of right-wing politics in general, including in the Western core.