By: Gurnoor Jhajj, Collective Representative At SFU’s Harbour Centre, British human rights activist and lawyer Pragna Patel delivered the annual Chinmoy Banerjee Memorial Lecture on identity and far-right politics, reflecting on four decades of activism. “We are, in effect, witnessing the rise of right-wing identity politics,” she said, explaining that authoritarian politics are no longer behind political fringes, but have spread into institutions. She linked this rise in far-right politics to the weakening of feminist and anti-racist solidarity, adding that this division threatens democracy. Patel co-founded the Southall Black Sisters and Project Resist, both of which advocate for women’s rights and fight discrimination against marginalized women. Political Blackness emerged in the 1970s in the UK as an umbrella term to refer to all racialized individuals. It...