A
Celebration of Western Hypocrisy
The Charlie Hebdo White Power Rally in Paris
“The
“civilized” have created the wretched, quite coldly and
deliberately, and do not intend to change the status quo; are
responsible for their slaughter and enslavement; rain down bombs on
defenseless children whenever and wherever they decide that their
“vital interests” are menaced, and think nothing of torturing a
man to death; these people are not to be taken seriously when they
speak of the “sanctity” of human life, or the conscience of
civilized world. (James Baldwin)
We
have witnessed the spectacle of Eurocentric arrogance many times over
my long years of struggle and resistance to colonial/capitalist
domination and dehumanization. The grotesque, 21st Century version of
the “white man’s burden,” which asserts that the international
community (meaning the West) has a moral and legal “responsibility
to protect,” is one current example; the generalized acceptance by
many in the West that their governments have a right to wage
permanent war against the global “others” to maintain
international order is another.
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| If Europe want to be the slave of the Zionist.....what the diff?? |
Yet,
when we think we have seen it all, along comes the response to the
attack at the racist, Islamophobic publication Charlie Hebdo. Even
though I shouldn’t be surprised, we are still left in complete
wonderment at the West’s unmitigated self-centeredness and
self-righteous arrogance.
The
millions who turned out on Sunday claimed to be marching in
solidarity with the victims at Charlie Hebdo and against terrorism.
They were joined by political leaders from across Europe, Israel and
other parts of the world – on the same weekend reports were
emerging that 2,000 Nigerians may have lost their lives at the hands
of Boko Haram so to remember thousand of Palestinian murdered by the
zioinist regime.
Surely
there would be expressions of solidarity with the survivors in
Nigeria at a gathering ostensibly to oppose terrorism and uphold the
sanctity of life. But the expressions of solidarity never came. In
fact, based on the attention the massacre received from the Western
press, it was if the massacre had never happened.
It
is clear that there was a different agenda for the march and a
different set of concerns for Europe. The people of France mobilized
themselves to defend what they saw as an attack against Western
civilization. However, the events in Paris did not have to be framed
as an existential attack on the imagined values of the liberal white
West. Providing some context and making some political links may have
been beneficial for attempting to understand what happened in the
country and a political way forward beyond the appeal to racial
jingoism.
The
attack could have sparked an honest conversation about how many
Muslims experience life in contemporary France and viewed French
policies in various Muslim and Arab nations. It could have examined
the relationship between the rise of radical Islam and the connection
of that rise to the activities of various branches of the French
intelligence services. An open discussion might have framed it as a
classic blowback operation resulting from the weaponization of
radical Wababanism as a tool of Western power from the late 1970s to
its current assignment in Syria. But those ideas were not allowed a
forum on that massive stage.
Je
Suis Charlie: European lives have always mattered more than others
The
Je Suis Charlie slogan like one of those mindless advertising themes
meant to appeal to the unconscious and the irrational, nevertheless,
has to have cultural reference points, culturally embedded meanings
that evoke the desire to want to buy a product, or in this case to
identify with an imagined civilization. It does not matter that the
supposed superiority of Western civilization and its values is based
on constructed lies and myths, it is still the basis of a
cross-class, transnational white identity.
The
white identity is so powerfully inculcated while simultaneously
invisibalized that identification is not seen as the essentialized
identity politics that people of color supposedly engage in, instead
it is just being “human.” And as we witnessed this weekend and
throughout the colonial world, identification with whiteness is not
limited by one’s racial or national assignment.
However,
for those folks who believe the simple assertion that black lives
matter and that “racial progress” will be realized through
progressive legislative reform derived from a better understanding of
the harmful impact of racially discriminatory practices, the
unfiltered expressions of white solidarity and the privileging of
white life should be a wake-up call.
The
humanity and cultures of Arabs and Muslims have been denigrated in
France for decades. Full recognition of the humanity of Arabs and
Muslims has always come at a cost – Arabs and Muslims are required
to “assimilate,” to mimic French lifestyles, embrace the
language, adopt the values and worldview of their cosmopolitan
patrons. Older generations of fully colonized individuals subjected
themselves to that degrading ritual, but later generations see this
requirement as the colonial assault on their being that it is and
have resisted.
It
is the arrogant lack of respect for the ideas and culture of
non-European peoples that drove the French ban on the wearing of the
niqab and other traditional veiling clothing for Muslim women, just
one example of the generalized discriminatory treatment of Arabs and
Muslims in France. In this lager context, Charlie Hebdo’s blatant
disregard and disrespect for another religion, shielded by an
absolute commitment to freedom of speech that gives them blanket
immunity, is now compounded by the “Je Suis Charlie campaign,”
orchestrated in the name of upholding the values of liberal, Western
civilization.
What it means for many of us in the colored community is that Je Suis Charlie has become a sound bite to justify the erasure of non-Europeans, and for ignoring the sentiments, values and views of the racialized “other.” In short, Je Suis Charlie has become an arrogant rallying cry for white supremacy that was echoed at the white power march on Sunday in Paris and in the popularity of the new issue of Charlie Hebdo.
What
it means for many of us in the colored community is that Je Suis
Charlie has become a sound bite to justify the erasure of
non-Europeans, and for ignoring the sentiments, values and views of
the racialized “other.” In short, Je Suis Charlie has become an
arrogant rallying cry for white supremacy that was echoed at the
white power march on Sunday in Paris and in the popularity of the new
issue of Charlie Hebdo.
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