The perils of swaying to the extremes.

A few days back one of my friends shared an article on Facebook. The article was one of the numerous cringe-inducing ones that appear on my timeline, more frequently now than before, proclaiming a lost dream that was the Soviet Union and how the world would have been destined to be a fair and benevolent speck in the galaxy had it survived. These articles are usually written by fringe groups in erstwhile USSR countries. And it is lapped up with alarming naivete by a large section of the youth around the world. Stalin, under whom an entire generation of Russians were reduced to penury and subjugated to inhuman executions as part of the periodic purges that he carried out to rid the society of any contrary sentiments, is being revered as an iconic savior who stood up for the rights of the downtrodden against the capitalist behemoth that was the USA.

The political landscape straddling across the globe is showing an increasing propensity to clash the left versus the right. The emergence of Bernie Sanders and Jeremy Corbyn are examples of the fact that the liberal representation in the West is moving to the left to an extent that was deemed unhealthy in the past. And this has only fueled the extreme right to merge into the mainstream. A Trump or a Duterte can get away having said anything in today’s toxic conversational environment. The right is shedding any pretense of assimilating contrary views, or for that matter entertaining liberals in dialogue. In this scenario we are being witnesses to the gradual encroachment of a leftist counter aggression that is threatening to polarize the world beyond repair.

In 2017, CNN anchor Fareed Zakaria made an extremely important observation when a majority of the students at the Notre Dame walked off on Vice-President Mike Pence during the commencement address for the Bethune-Cookman University. He said that the word ‘liberal’, that proponents of the left use so irresponsibly today to attain the moral high ground, actually implies the liberty to express one’s views and at the same time having the stomach to listen out to any and all views, especially when those views are in complete contrast to your long held belief system. But walking out on a public figure because he represents an uncomfortably Red perspective is exactly what one might define as an illiberal stance. In addition to this oxymoronic liberal exercise, when we add a dose of ignorance-tinted nostalgia about an era which was suppressive at best, we start gazing at a liberal movement that shares too many traits with the right to anybody’s liking.

The liberal movement that gained traction in the post World War era was one which encompassed a lot of aberrations, be that in Western Europe, USA, or for that matter in India. Nationalism or conservatism was not attacked although it was mildly frowned upon. It would not be grossly incorrect to notice that this acceptance of the ‘other’ orchestrated the massive economic strides that the world took in the next 60 odd years. Polarization was only going to create a chasm and eradicate the chances to find a middle ground which is a genuine prerequisite for peaceful progress for the human race. It goes without saying that today the people on the two sides of the aisle can hardly agree on any matter. They are so embedded in their respective ideologies that even a waft of compromise is construed as an ideological treason. In this climate of ideological stubbornness, its the liberals who should be ready to hear out their counterparts’ arguments and engage them in a dialogue. That is the liberalism that I and many more like me came to idolize and embrace. Digging out stale Soviet-era anecdotes and sharing communist memes on social media is taking us back to a leftist stance that none of us should be proud of.

The existing liberal structure is not without fault. One may even be able to hold on to the argument that the rise of the extreme right that we see in traditional liberal strongholds including but not limited to Western Europe owes a substantial debt to the complacency that crept into the liberals. Unabashed tolerance of irrational religious practices of minority religions, comical hesitance in calling out tyrannical monarchies to maintain political correctness, skewing the definition of liberty and equality when it suits them, and the list goes on. Without cherry-picking any particular instance of this often-time dichotomous attitude of the liberals, we get a lucid picture of what went wrong. The rot was spreading and today the extreme right feeds on it to bare the liberal movement, exposing its hypocricy.

What we need today is a bold liberal front that calls out the rot and start dealing with matters with scant regard for political correctness while at the same time holding on to its main principles of acceptance. This acceptance should not have any conditional requirements, it should be all-encompassing, but firm enough not to be bullied around. Listen to the religious fundamentalists, to the fanatic nationalists, to the ignorant separatists. And then act towards making this a more habitable planet. Walking away without a dialogue doesn’t characterize a liberal.

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