Gary Younge (Guardian Utd): Bring back the lash

From the Guardian Unlimited
Dated Monday January 10

Bring back the lash
The right has turned the backlash into an art form - while the liberal left has forgotten what it stands for
By Gary Younge

Whatever happened to the lash? It once was the case that before there could be a backlash, there first had to be a lash. Before Margaret Thatcher's anti-trade union legislation in the 1980s, for example, there was first a period of trade union militancy in the 1970s. Before the Ku Klux Klan was formed in 1866, there was first the emancipation of the slaves following the end of the American civil war in 1865.
This did not necessarily make the backlash more palatable or justifiable. The backlash is something rightwing people do. Like "kempt hair" and "couth behaviour", references to a "leftwing backlash" are rare indeed.

But the notion that a backlash from the right should first be provoked by a lash from the left certainly made the backlash more logical. It was a function of the ebb and flow of the political tide. In order for reactionaries to react, radicals first had to act. So the lash did not only precede the backlash, it was the premise for it: not just a matter of sequence but consequence.

And while no one on the left necessarily liked it, everyone expected it and understood it for it what it was. For, like the call and response at a good Baptist service, the backlash had symmetry, if nothing else, on its side.

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Great article! :)