The victories that followed the American civil war and the 1960s civil rights era are once again under attack, echoing earlier efforts to roll back equality and redefine democracy, says JOE SIMS
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Considering the history and modern usage of ‘identity politics’
Allied to class, identity is a powerful force – but liberalism is a killer, writes the MARX MEMORIAL LIBRARY
From left to right: Gay rights activist Mark Ashton in 1985, Max Levitas holding copies of the Morning Star, and prominent communist and anti-racist Claudia Jones
In 2010, faced with the closure of their local library, a Buckinghamshire town’s locals turned to an unconventional tactic – borrowing every single book – to defend a cherished community space. MAT COWARD tells the story
The indictment of Nicolas Maduro after a deadly US assault is just the latest phase in a long campaign against the Bolivarian government, warns FRANCISCO DOMINGUEZ
Journalist STEVE SWEENEY talks to Roger McKenzie about narrowly surviving an Israeli air strike last week while documenting the mass displacement of civilians – and explains why the real story goes far beyond the attack on him
After 27 years in Holyrood, the former first minister urged unity and respect — but, says NEIL FINDLAY, her time in power told a very different story
The Employment Rights Act 2025’s focus on individual rights forces workers into slow and costly litigation to assert rights, rather than empowering unions. A Campaign for Trade Union Freedom-Strike Map rally at the weekend called for a more radical sequel, reports BEN CHACKO
THERE’S a sense in which all politics are identity politics. Politics are about group interests. And groups are made up of people who share common characteristics, interests or identities.
We all have multiple “identities,” some of them in tension. Some — our sex, ethnicity, family background — we’re born with. Others – job, hobbies, parenthood, age — we acquire in life. Many of us suffer disability of some sort. For each of us, such identities intersect to create a whole which is richer and more complex than each of its component parts (some theorists have called this “intersectionality” – something we’ll discuss in a later answer).
The phrase “identity politics” was first used in the 1970s to characterise campaigns against discrimination mounted by disadvantaged or oppressed groups. Some formed their own dedicated organisations; others pressed their demands through established political parties, trade unions or other bodies. Such single issue campaigns have had considerable success in mobilising activists, challenging prejudice and discrimination, winning extensions of civil rights and protections, with benefits extending well beyond the groups directly affected. Some have spawned liberation movements.
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