Hobsbawm sobre a "Política da identidade"

Com a devida vénia ao Esquerda Republicana e um abraço de agradecimento ao Ricardo Alves, aqui fica um excerto de uma conferência de E.J. Hobsbawm sobre "A Política da Identidade e a Esquerda", bem como o link para o texto completo da sua intervenção. Além das pistas de reflexão e debate que se esforça por abrir e propõe como urgentes num plano mais geral, a referência a esta tese de Hobsbawm é hoje especialmente oportuna no contexto do Vias,  se tivermos presentes as questões levantadas pelo post que o nosso camarada João Tunes aqui publicou ontem e cuja discussão continua na respectiva caixa de comentários.

So what does identity politics have to do with the Left? Let me state firmly what should not need restating. The political project of the Left is universalist: it is for all human beings. However we interpret the words, it isn’t liberty for shareholders or blacks, but for everybody. It isn’t equality for all members of the Garrick Club or the handicapped, but for everybody. It is not fraternity only for old Etonians or gays, but for everybody. And identity politics is essentially not for everybody but for the members of a specific group only. This is perfectly evident in the case of ethnic or nationalist movements. Zionist Jewish nationalism, whether we sympathize with it or not, is exclusively about Jews, and hang—or rather bomb—the rest. All nationalisms are. The nationalist claim that they are for everyone’s right to self-determination is bogus.
That is why the Left cannot base itself on identity politics. It has a wider agenda. For the Left, Ireland was, historically, one, but only one, out of the many exploited, oppressed and victimized sets of human beings for which it fought. For the ira kind of nationalism, the Left was, and is, only one possible ally in the fight for its objectives in certain situations. In others it was ready to bid for the support of Hitler as some of its leaders did during World War ii. And this applies to every group which makes identity politics its foundation, ethnic or otherwise.
Now the wider agenda of the Left does, of course, mean it supports many identity groups, at least some of the time, and they, in turn look to the Left. Indeed, some of these alliances are so old and so close that the Left is surprised when they come to an end, as people are surprised when marriages break up after a lifetime. In the usa it almost seems against nature that the ‘ethnics’—that is, the groups of poor mass immigrants and their descendants—no longer vote almost automatically for the Democratic Party. It seems almost incredible that a black American could even consider standing for the Presidency of the usa as a Republican (I am thinking of Colin Powell). And yet, the common interest of Irish, Italian, Jewish and black Americans in the Democratic Party did not derive from their particular ethnicities, even though realistic politicians paid their respects to these. What united them was the hunger for equality and social justice, and a programme believed capable of advancing both.