29/06/2016,
Tlaxcala http://www.tlaxcala-int.org (Mexico)
Tlaxcala, the international
network of translators for linguistic diversity
Gideon Levy جدعون ليفي גדעון
לוי*
The self-evident is self-evident: The result of
the referendum in Britain was a victory for ultranationalism, xenophobia and
isolation, and it could augur disaster. Its significance cannot be overstated.
But after everyone said it, and since no one knows what tomorrow will bring, we
can also applaud Britain’s revolutionary voters. They expressed a new and
upsetting global trend. “A new zeitgeist in politics,” history professor Ilan
Pappe calls it. This new spirit of the times holds not only clear dangers, but
also great promise.
The referendum, the outcome of which no one
prepared for seriously, must be examined in the wider context: as part of the
growing revulsion to political institutions and the individuals who lead them.
The electoral successes of Jeremy Corbyn (and of the winner of the referendum,
Boris Johnson) in Britain, Alexis Tsipras in Greece and both Bernie Sanders and
Donald Trump in the United States foreshadowed this trend. Above all, they
expressed the repulsion felt for the existing order, a global cry of
