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Nostalgia- a seemingly straightforward concept has become multifaceted and rather threatening with its penetration into the political domain. It is now increasingly deployed as a political weapon to produce desired effects among the citizenry to ultimately achieve streamlined objectives.
Illustration by The Geostrata
It projects the idea that the nation was at its zenith at a point in the past, by simultaneously accentuating the dread of the current times. It magnifies the binary between ‘what is and what could be’.
Leaders exploit nostalgia to make people long back for episodes of their shared collective past. The general foreboding sense of societal decline is what is prompting a shift towards the politicisation of nostalgia; making it a basis for election campaigns and policy formulations. This article shall explore how the concept of nostalgia fuels extremism and could be consequential for modern society.
THE DANGER OF NOSTALGIA
Populist leaders across nations resort to nostalgic rhetoric to refer to the greatness of their country at a select point in the past. As a case in point, Trump ascended to the presidential throne both times on promises to ‘Make America Great Again’. This became fundamental for Republican campaigns as it pushed Americans into re-envisioning or imagining a past society where the nation’s prudence remained unchallenged and the citizens lived in prosperity.
A Pew Research Centre study highlighted that the United States is starkly divided between ‘those who think life was better in the 1960s, and those who think it is untrue’. This division ensured that the nostalgia game the Republicans played hit all the right chords.
It is largely the Conservative parties which initially advanced the use of this weapon by incorporating it into their political ideology and theories.
Conservatism took shape as a response to the popular dissemination of the Liberal ideology. However, it has now taken a universal charge by spreading its branches into all zones of the political spectrum.
At the left, communitarian movements assert a U-turn back into more localised and sustainable growth, like was the norm in the past. Similarly, the surge of ‘trad’ movements advocates a return to traditional economic dynamics, racial and gender plays, familial systems etc.
These movements have become particularly popular in the West, with many considering them a predicament in the way of sustained progress. In fact, they essentially want to defend their very own existence by portraying the past. However, one must realise that many historical periods and events that are amplified are largely themselves cradles of injustices.
ANEMOIA: THE NOSTALGIA FOR A TIME YOU HAVE NEVER KNOWN
Nostalgia is only a rose-tinted rear view. In most cases, it's not an exact replication of actual events, but a two-dimensional representation of it. This can be a byproduct of ‘retrospection biases’, which makes one think of the past through a positive prism. And even if the nostalgic projection is authentic, it is virtually impossible to revert the society into that desired context, as the eventual changes manifested in all domains become an irreversible truth, which cannot be tampered with.
The past that most political figures refer to is from a period when AI, climate change, the internet and globalisation were virtually non-existent. This aspect makes nostalgia in politics rather deceptive.
Furthermore, materialising the past into the contemporary times is all the more a less likely occurrence with the burgeoning of global regulations, international organizations and alliances which govern developments in nations to ensure a balance of power. The constant politicisation of nostalgia could threaten this balance, potentially throwing the international system into disarray.
NOSTALGIA FUELS TODAY'S POLITICAL FIRES
Nostalgia is harmful because it's regressive. In recent years, France and Germany have been spewing hate speech against cultural minorities, simultaneously emphasizing on reversing multi-culture ‘friendly’ state policies.
This too is based on the notion that the nation and its citizenry were better off before the mass movement of people across borders in the late 20th century; which has challenged conventional cultural dominance and altered the texture of employment industries. Marine Le Pen and the Front National in France have played a particularly noteworthy role in popularising nostalgic politics.
The emergence of neo-Nazi tendencies in Germany sabotages the peaceful continuity of the modern Germany state.
In addition, the Reichsbürger movement metes out a historical revisionist message with a strongly charged antisemitic rhetoric. Some of its supporters have outlined the stance that the true German state existed only between 1871 and 1918 when the German Reich was constituted following the unification and before the First World War.
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The most prevalent belief among the group’s members is that the current German government lacks sovereignty. The underlying sentiment motivating such radical tendencies is nostalgia itself. The longing for yesteryear which is branded to be ‘golden’.
Similarly, in the post-Brexit United Kingdom, similar tendencies are on the rise. The UK voted between ‘maintaining the then status quo, or pivoting to the pre-European Community Britain’.
This rather unconventional referendum lens gave voters the manufactured scope to look back to the nation’s past rather than its future. One section of voters–the ‘imperialist nostalgists’ dearly cling to the colonial past of the British empire, taking the view that the nation had unprecedented influence in the international system before it began complying with broader frameworks which hindered its innate growth tendencies. The anti-immigrant sentiments and racist attacks simmering within the UK finds its genesis in nostalgic awakening. The most striking catch phrase used during protests is– make UK white “again”, with ‘again’ signalling the ‘glorious’ past. Nostalgia is also feared to be a fuel to the cult of personality of leaders. Theorists like Karl Marx considered nostalgia to be a ‘political crime’. In 1852, he famously said; “Let the dead, bury their dead’. He imbued the idea that, in order to transform the society into a just one, we need to do away with unnecessary clinging to the past.
What seems to be an immediate threat is the ongoing harnessing of the ‘China Dream’, which has nostalgic underpinnings. Xi Jinping’s grand strategy has heavy nostalgic borrowings from the ancient silk road politics. He asserts that the PRC is the heir to an ancient civilisation that thrived for a millennium, leading the way in science, technology, trade and administration; and is increasingly determined to initiate a ‘great rejuvenation’.
For CCP, the only formalised strategy to pivot towards a Sino-centric global system is the expansion and consolidation of the Belt and Road Initiative, which has already made inroads in more than 150 countries. In fact, the most alarming instance comes from the Kremlin, where Putin and his supporters still mourn the disintegration of the Soviet Union.
Moscow's hyper-aggressiveness in contemporary times is a concerted attempt to traverse back in time.
Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine and the numerous attempts at sabotaging electoral processes in post-Soviet states such as Georgia and Moldova reveals its inclinations. Russia’s neo-liberal hegemony and dominant subjectiveness have its roots in the ideological exploitation of the past.
Instances from India highlight that old hawks still get to define political texture due to the advantage they have to tap into public nostalgia. Lalu Prasad Yadav, Sharad Pawar, Sonia Gandhi and many other politicians are still stationed at the forefronts because of the nostalgic value attached to their parties’ politics and its past activities. They might not necessarily have been instrumental in bringing forth sustained transformations in recent times, making their activities sporadic and less significant.
Nostalgia can many a time aid the creation of a shared national identity, but it can prove to be disastrous if routed carelessly.
The view that the past was better than the present and the only way forward is backward, is dangerous enough to cause national decay. Politicising nostalgia plants seeds of fantasy in the citizenry, which may never reach the desired flourishment.
BY NAKSHATRA H M
TEAM GEOSTRATA