A state-assigned label can misfire and become a political rallying slogan

Evidence

Neither term was neutral but delivered propagandistic messages: ‘expellees’ put emphasis on the violent and unjust nature of migration, alluding to their violent expulsion. After 1947, expellees in West Germany started to call themselves Vertriebene. Contrary to the original intention of the US Military Government, ‘expellees’ did not clearly rule out the designated people’s ‘right to the homeland’, a slogan invented by the ‘Federation of Expellees’ in 1950 and embraced by all major political parties and governments in the FRG throughout the 1950s. The more technical and apparently neutral term ‘repatriation’, used in France, suggested an administrative and intentional process of ‘home-coming’ from territories no longer considered part of the nation or empire. This inverted a colonialist discourse that had declared Algeria an integral part of France for more than a century. — Manuel Borutta and Jan C. Jansen, Vertriebene and Pieds-Noirs in Postwar…, 55

Categorization

• SEED: The state labeling a group to manage it can hand that group its unifying grievance vocabulary — a nice angle for a piece on how administrative words backfire.
• XREF: The term Vertriebene with ‘right to the homeland’ connects to the manufactured-enemy/grievance dynamic I am researching across volumes. — connects to: Political labels can be claimed by opposing factions simultaneously; Generic slogans like unity can mask diverging political content under one hegemony; Vague ideological slogans can mask rather than resolve real political contradictions — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 2766 (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• Political labels can be claimed by opposing factions simultaneously #qualifies (0.80)
• Ideological labels influence political behavior even among people who misunderstand their concepts. #expands (0.78) — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 1985
• Generic slogans like unity can mask diverging political content under one hegemony #expands (0.75)
• Vague ideological slogans can mask rather than resolve real political contradictions #expands (0.75) — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 2766
• The label activist is often claimed before it is earned #exemplifies (0.75)
• Words do not label pre-existing political objects but must be made real through interpretation #expands (0.74) — Timothy Mitchell, Colonising Egypt, 430
• Generic nationalist slogans can mask a bloc’s concrete class interests #expands (0.72)