In light of the increasing challenges to Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) initiatives worldwide, we are dedicating this month’s Global Social Challenges focus to the critical developments in this field. In our latest article, author Peter Beresford offers valuable insights into the current debates surrounding EDI.
A key political question of our day must be: How is it possible to make a minority out of a majority? The populist hard right seems to have found an answer. Put simply: fuel division and hatred. Encourage people to dislike and distrust each other. Frighten them with a relentless stream of extreme lies so overwhelming that they end up only believing authoritarian leaders and their manufactured truths.
The simple truth is that the bill of goods peddled under the heading of neoliberalism – the deregulation of the market, protectionism for the powerful, blocking movement of the powerless, cutting back collective support in the name of the ‘small state’ while extending punitive state control – all serve narrow, privileged interests. The very rich get richer, and most of us get poorer, sicker, less secure and more fearful and uncertain. More and more statistics emerge to highlight the concentration of power and resources in fewer and fewer hands. No wonder that Occupy’s slogan contrasting the powerlessness of the 99 per cent with the concentration of wealth in the hands of 1 per cent continues to resonate globally.
We aren’t just damaged by such impoverishment. We are also more and more set at each other’s throats. The quest for equality and the demand to value diversity are dismissed as ‘woke’ – a term now weaponised by the right to silence dissent and delegitimise calls for justice. The pressure is on, either to attack those deliberately devalued on the basis of ethnicity, gender, sexuality, disability or non-citizen status, or to despise those who have fallen for these lies and been manipulated into a frenzy of hate, violence and disorder. This strategy is neither new nor accidental. Historically, authoritarian regimes have used it to justify exclusion, repression and violence – from McCarthyism in the US to apartheid in South Africa and fascism in 1930s Europe. The last time this trick was tried, it took a world war to end it. The problem this time around is that such a world war, now fought with nuclear weapons and AI-driven disinformation, may well end us all!
The global assault on rights and inclusion
In the US, we are currently seeing the systematic rollback of rights – from reproductive autonomy to voting rights – alongside the defunding and erasure of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) initiatives. LGBTQIA+ communities, racial minorities and even veterans are under attack. At the same time, the citizenship, rights and security of millions are called into question. Censorship of science and data is now routine, alongside the deliberate cultivation of division, deception and disbelief.
From Florida’s Stop WOKE Act to UK university cuts threatening EDI programmes in the UK, a global pattern is emerging. Recently, EDI initiatives across Canada and Australia also came under attack, with critics falsely framing diversity efforts as ‘reverse discrimination’.
Where imperialist Amerika leads, its ideological allies – from the UK to Brazil to India – are quick to adopt similar tactics stoking both domestic divisions and international instability. It’s a terrifying, disempowering prospect.
Why EDI is under attack
That, however, is clearly the aim – to disempower opposition and challenge. The attack on the EDI initiatives is only a high-profile expression of a much bigger assault on groups, individuals, families and communities.
In the UK, government cuts to EDI jobs in civil service and the general funding issues in higher education continue to threaten the advancement of EDI programmes. In the US, Musk’s DOGE team openly threatened state education departments that they could face funding cuts if they fail to terminate EDI initiatives.
We have to recognise that this is an attack on the rights and representation of the many by the powerful few and play to our strength – the strength of being the diverse many.
Building the majority: From fragmentation to solidarity
As I argue in my forthcoming Policy Press book, The Antidote, we must move from being a collection of competing, sometimes conflicting minorities, to the united majority that we actually are, by building genuine, equal alliances. Too often the new social movements (NSMs) capable of fostering true inclusivity become fragmented into a hierarchy of competing difference.
Of course, this is easier said than done, but two things make it possible.
First is the fact that what unites us is the shared discrimination and oppression that has given rise to our movements in the first place. We may not share each other’s exact oppression, but our own lived experience offers us experiential insights that provide foundations for empathy and shared understanding.
Second is our collective appreciation of intersectionality – the recognition that we all have complex rather than isolated identities – which encourages a sensitivity to the struggle of others and provides the basis for alliance and equity.
One for all and all for one
Unless we challenge hierarchies of oppression, we will always be minoritised. And that is exactly what those in power are counting on. But if we dismantle those divisions, we can reclaim our true majority status. The slogans of old economic movements and class struggle were built on the idea of unity – but perhaps today, the rallying cry of the Three Musketeers is even more fitting: One for all and all for one. This way lies hope and progress.
Peter Beresford OBE is Visiting Professor at the University of East Anglia, Co-Chair of Shaping Our Lives, the national disabled people’s organisation and has long term lived experience of welfare benefits and mental health services. He is also an Emeritus Professor at Brunel University London the University of Essex and an Honorary Professor at Edge Hill University.
The Antidote by Peter Beresford is available to pre-order on Bristol University Press for £19.99 here.
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