Taimur Rahman's Class Analysis of Identity Politics

Video via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPdpHCYID3Q

Very clear exposition and critique of identity politics from a historical and marxist perspective, hailing from Pakistan.

Description

"Since the 1980s, the traditional views of the left (dominated by Marxist parties) was challenged by the New Left and Post-Modernism. This lead to the emergence of issue-based identity-politics that was supported by civil-society, NGOs, and also scores of young people educated in the West in the last three decades. This new politics has had a huge influence not in fracturing and destroying the left in the West but also impacting struggles in Pakistan.

In this video I examine three core themes of identity politics - axis of privilege, authenticity, and anti-essentialism - and show how these ideas result in a mass of interminable self-contradictions and self-defeating strategies."