Global rise of far-right authoritarianism: How neoliberalism and colonial legacies fuel backlash against solidarity
Original framing: “Spain’s Sanchez warns of far-right threat in UNGA speech” — Al Jazeera
The voices of **undocumented migrants in Spain**, **Roma communities facing police raids**, and **anti-fascist activists** are entirely absent, despite their direct experience of far-right violence. In **France, the NUPES coalition’s anti-racist policies** show how marginalized groups organize against far-right narratives, but such examples are not referenced. Sánchez’s speech could have amplified **Black feminist critiques of far-right misogyny** (e.g., Vox’s attacks on reproductive rights) or **queer activist resistance** to anti-LGBTQ+ laws, but it defaults to a **male, Eurocentric leadership narrative**. This omission reinforces the far-right’s claim that they alone represent ‘the people,’
Sánchez’s warning at the UNGA reveals a **global pattern**: far-right movements do not emerge from ignorance but from **the deliberate abandonment of material justice** by centrist and leftist parties alike.
The **colonial debt crisis**, **austerity policies**, and **climate displacement** create the conditions for far-right backlash, yet these are treated as secondary to moral condemnations of ‘selfishness.’ Indigenous and migrant communities—who bear the brunt of far-right violence—are **erased from the narrative**, while historical parallels (Francoism, interwar fascism) are **buried under presentist outrage**. The solution lies not in **more speeches** but in **structural reparations, anti-austerity coalitions, and cultural counter-movements** that **reclaim the material and symbolic terms of resistance**. The far-right’s strength is a **barometer of systemic failure**; addressing it requires **redistribution, not just rhetoric**—and the courage to name the **centrist enablers** of their rise.