Populist in an Age of Anxiety

Around a decade ago, in its Editorial, “Age of Anxiety” , The Times of London first adverted to how “[u]nchecked immigration from Syria, the wider Middle East and sub-Saharan Africa has changed the terms of politics in Europe” with the result that “f[ears about the migrant surge has nudged the far right into governing coalitions in Norway and Finland; it sways the politics of the Netherlands and Denmark, feeds Ukip support in Britain.” For those who see “the trend as the Trumpisation of the continent” the target is “angry white males confused by the modern world and concerned that their once cherished rights are being rapidly devalued and diluted”, such that “i]mmigration for these voters is the most visible form of globalization.” It observed how in Austria, “Norbert Hofer, of the Freedom party, is the harbinger of a new brand of identity politics” and he even “uses a word that figures in the Third Reich vocabulary, Volksgemeinschaft” where the “appeal is to those terrified of Islam; the sense of Muslims being an alien presence” and that, “[t]hese are Europe’s new rulers, the product of the age of anxiety.”[1] Of course, “no one, ever, anywhere , wants to be a refugee, but for many there is no alternative.”[2] Yet, what most commentators overlook is the distinction, which the late Robert Fisk made, between ‘Muslim’ refugees and non-Muslim refugees, which populist politicians now draw upon. After all, the new wave of migrants originates mostly from Syria (21%), Afghanistan (12%) and Iraq (6%), as well as Albania (8%) and Kosovo (5%). This has meant, as Jeremy Harding observed in the London Review of Books, that wealthy States “have learned to think of generosity as a vice.”[3] The result is, as Anne-Marie Slaughter & William Burke-White suggest, “Our claim ‘that the future of international law is domestic’ refers not simply to domestic law but to domestic politics.”[4] The Paper argues that without a political will to do the right thing, it is not clear to what extent the law can help here. [1] Editorial, “Age of Anxiety” The Times, Monday 23rd May 2016 at p. 27. [2] ibid at p. 40 [3] Jeremy Harding, “The Uninvited” The London Review of Books, (vol. 22, No. 3, 3 February 2000, at pp. 3-25) Available at http://www.lrb.co.uk/v22/n03/jeremy-harding/the-uninvited [4] Anne-Marie Slaughter & William Burke-White, “The Future of International Law is Domestic” (or, The European Way of Law), Harvard International Law Journal (Vol. 47, No.2 , Summer 2006, pp. 328-352) at p. 350