Geert Mak's 'Blanken'

Wanneer Geert Mak over ‘blanken’ spreekt dan heeft hij het in feite niet over de huidskleur, maar over alle connotaties die met het begrip ‘blank’ verbonden zijn, met voorop het superioriteitsgevoel dat zich manifesteert in onder andere de mening zuiver en onbedorven te zijn, of in de woorden van mijn oude vriend ‘onze democratie, onze variatie in ideeën, onze tolerantie, onze openheid tegenover andere culturen.’ Geheel in lijn van zijn eigen vermeende voortreffelijkheid, negeert Mak de opvattingen van de gekleurde medemens over de zogenaamde ‘openheid’ van de witte man ‘tegenover andere culturen.’  Zo schreef de zwarte schrijfster Toni Morrison, die in 1993 de Nobelprijs Literatuur ontving voor haar hele oeuvre: onder de kop ‘Making America White Again’ in The New Yorker van 21 november 2016:

All immigrants to the United States know (and knew) that if they want to become real, authentic Americans they must reduce their fealty to their native country and regard it as secondary, subordinate, in order to emphasize their whiteness. 

Dabashi voegt hieraan toe:

But the question is not fealty to any ‘native country.’ The question is rather the systematic subordination of all immigrants, regardless of how they have been color-coded, to the myth of the ‘white people’ and the violent fantasies of their civilizing missions. No brown, black, or any other thus colored person can ever be completely ‘white.’ But their trying to pass as white is a mechanism of humiliation and denigration they willingly play to presume they are part of the power structure and a more ‘normal’ human being. This psychopathology came to the United States with European settler colonialists and informed their slaughter of Native Americans, and it was exacerbated in the course of transatlantic African slavery. With every new wave of immigrants, this racist European pedigree keeps repeating and consolidating itself. 

In How Jews Became White Folks and What That Says About Race in America (1998), Karen Brodkin has put forward one line of argument as to how American Jews began to pose and perform themselves as ‘white’ since World War II. The practice is not peculiar to American Jews, of course. Upon their arrivals and one generation into a successful economic status, other recent immigrants, Muslims and Hindus alike, Iranians and Indians in particular, have also sought to posit and pass themselves as (almost) white. Becoming white has always been the most potent way for racialized ‘minorities’ to overcome their violently alienated personhood in order to become something they could (and should) never be. Whiteness is the most solid European legacy left behind as the very idea of ‘America’ began to racialize its domination of the continent. Struggle for racial justice must therefore commence and continue with the full knowledge of how racial divides were socially manufactured and politically sustained before we can learn how to overcome them. The full acknowledgment of the murderous history of racism in the United States and Europe is the first step toward dismantling it. No postmodern or post-structuralist deconstruction of race can disregard the sustained history of racism as coterminous (samenvallen. svh) with capitalist modernity. It must acknowledge and sublate (assimileren. svh) to overcome it.

Buitengewoon onthullend in dit verband was de scherpzinnige beschouwing van de Amerikaanse intellectueel Shelby Steele, die, net als Obama een kind is van een zwarte vader en een witte moeder. In zijn boek A Bound Man. Why We Are Excited About Obama and Why He Can't Win, verschenen in januari 2008, dus tien maanden voordat Obama tot president werd gekozen, wierp Steele in het laatste hoofdstuk, getiteld 'The Visible Man,’ de volgende fundamentele vragen op:

Can a black ask for power at the level of the American presidency without wearing a mask, without reassuring whites that they will be given the benefit of the doubt without lessening the anxiety inherent in being white today? Is real power possible for blacks without some negotiation with white innocence?

Steele merkte op dat:

In order to be part of history, to participate in its relentless evolution, the black American has always had to don (opzetten. svh) the mask that would enable him to join the larger white world, where, presumably, history is being made. Thus, to a degree, inauthenticity has been the price blacks have paid to join history,

waardoor:

the price for acting in the interest of his own authenticity — for being mask-less — was to fall outside of history.

Zodra zwarten voor hun eigen ‘authenticiteit’ kiezen worden zij ogenblikkelijk door de witte 'orde' als een bedreiging gezien. Dan zijn zij 'loud, colorful, and completely self-invented out of the historical chaos of black life.' Zij zijn dan 'existential cowboys wearing no mask for the white world, and yet, for all their self-satisfaction, they were completely outside of history.' Shelby Steele besefte dan ook dat: 

Barack Obama entered history by wearing the bargainers mask. He was born to a fate that literally schooled him in bargaining. It was not a hard-earned and carefully evolved individuality that won him entrée into the national imagination... His supporters do not look to him to DO something; they look to him primarily to BE something, to REPRESENT something. He is a bound man because he cannot be two opposing worldviews at the same time — he cannot grant whites their racial innocence and simultaneously withhold it from them.

Barack Obama emerged into a political culture that needed him more as an icon than as a man. He has gone 'far because the need is great. But this easy appeal has also been his downfall. It is a seduction away from character and conviction. In the Brotherhood, Tod Clifton (Afro-Amerikaanse hoofdrolspeler in de roman 'De Onzichtbare Man,' even onzichtbaar als de mens Obama. svh) thought he never had to discover what he truly believed. He never considered his true self to be relevant. When he finally lurches away from this falseness, there is no self to guide him toward a meaningful life. Probably the greatest debilitation in black American life is that our history of masking — once so necessary to our survival — has caused us to overvalue the manipulation of white people and to undervalue the evolution of our individual selves. 

The challenge for Barack Obama is the same as it is for all free people: to achieve visibility as an individual, to in fact become an individual rather than a racial cipher. Today, he is in the same peril of falling 'out of history' as the fictional Tod Clifton was sixty years ago. Unless we get to know who he is — what beliefs he would risk his life for — he could become a cautionary tale in his own right, an iconic figure who neglected to become himself! 

Inderdaad had Steele gelijk dat Obama met zijn 'Change we can believe in' niet kon winnen. Waar het hier om draait is datgene wat Baldwin betitelde als ‘to achieve visibility as an individual’ in een al eeuwenlang racistische klassenmaatschappij, een ‘orde’ die nog steeds wordt beheerst door een rijke, racistische en antisemitische ‘white Anglo-Saxon Protestant’ elite. Na de Tweede Wereldoorlog zag de Amerikaanse upper-class zich geconfronteerd met de snelle opkomst van de nieuwe rijken, vooral uit kringen van tribaal georganiseerde joodse-Amerikanen. Aangezien ‘power corrupts,’ corrumpeerde ook de laatst genoemde groep, met als gevolg dat de joods-Amerikaanse Amy Goodman — samen met mede-oprichter van Democracy Now! Denis Moynihan — op 21 februari 2019 de joodse Pro-Israel Lobby als volgt bekritiseerde:

‘Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere,’ Martin Luther King Jr. wrote in his Letter From Birmingham Jail on April 16, 1963. King was arrested there for his role in organizing nonviolent protests against segregation, which were being led by the Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth. ‘Birmingham is probably the most thoroughly segregated city in the United States,’ King also wrote in that famous letter. Civil-rights campaigners were so frequently targeted with bombs by the Ku Klux Klan that the city was often called ‘Bombingham.’ Five months after King’s letter, one of those bombs went off at Birmingham’s 16th Street Baptist Church, killing four little girls. Today, across the street from that church sits the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute (BCRI), which for more than a quarter century has educated and inspired millions of visitors.

Last October, the BCRI announced it would bestow its 2018 Rev. Fred L. Shuttlesworth Human Rights Award on Angela Y. Davis, the legendary civil-rights activist, prison abolition advocate and scholar. Angela Davis is a Birmingham native, and grew up amidst segregation. Her neighborhood suffered so many Klan bombings that it was nicknamed ‘Dynamite Hill.' The daughter of civil-rights activists, she went on to become a prominent member of the Communist Party USA and a leader in the Black Panther Party. As a result, like so many activists in that era (MLK included), she was targeted by the FBI. She was charged as a conspirator in the shooting death of a judge. She faced three death sentences in a trial that became an international cause célèbre. She was ultimately acquitted of all the charges.

The BCRI’s decision to honor Angela Davis made perfect sense. She has gained renown for her tireless work on behalf of prisoners and to abolish the U.S. prison-industrial complex. Integral to her life’s work, she has long expressed unflinching support for the rights of Palestinian people. In a recently published collection of essays and speeches titled ‘Freedom Is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement,’ she writes, reflecting on the life of Nelson Mandela and the successful campaign to eliminate South African apartheid, ‘We are now confronted with the task of assisting our sisters and brothers in Palestine as they battle against Israeli apartheid.’

Two months after the BCRI board members announced that she had been granted the Shuttlesworth award, they received a letter from the Birmingham Holocaust Education Center asking them to reconsider the award in part because of Davis’ ‘outspoken support of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel.’ The BCRI board, in a 9-2 vote, rescinded (herriep. svh) the award. It canceled the award gala that had been scheduled for Feb. 16.   

https://www.truthdig.com/articles/the-triumphant-homecoming-of-angela-davis/ 

Duidelijk is dat drie jaar na het einde van 8 jaar Obama als president er in de VS niets wezenlijks was veranderd met betrekking tot de noodzaak te strijden tegen het onrecht. Sterker nog: onder Obama zag de gekleurde gemeenschap zich genoodzaakt Black Lives Matter op te richten om zich tegen het geweld van de politie te beschermen. Inmiddels is de joodse pro-Israel lobby in de VS niets anders dan een reactionaire, racistische organisatie, en verschilt in dit opzicht niet wezenlijk van de Ku Klux Klan. Aangezien de zionistische lobby ook zijn vertakkingen heeft in de ‘corporate media’ vormt zij een bedreiging van de serieuze journalistiek, en daarmee van de al zo ernstig uitgeholde democratie, wat ondermeer te merken is aan de dagelijkse verbale burgeroorlog in de Amerikaanse massamedia en op straat. Vast onderdeel van deze strijd zijn ook de liberalen op The World’s Opinion Page met hun simplistische  beweringen zoals deze van Ian Buruma:

It is hard to know whether violence will abate once the likes of Trump, Johnson, Modi, and Bolsonaro are gone. It will obviously depend on who comes next. But once people feel licensed to violate all norms of civilized behavior, because the highest political leaders have already done so, it will be difficult to reverse. The ghastly irony of our times has been that the very people who promised to make their countries great again have done the most to destroy what made them great in the first place. 

https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/damage-caused-by-violent-political-rhetoric-not-easily-fixed-by-ian-buruma-2019-09 

Laat één ding meteen duidelijk zijn: na het vertrek van deze politieke ‘hooligans’ zal het ‘geweld’ geenszins ‘verminderen, afnemen, verzwakken,’ al was het maar omdat er altijd wel ergens een intrigant als Ian Buruma, namens de hooligans van de elite, zal schrijven dat ‘wij’ Europeanen een deel van ‘het smerige werk’ van de VS moeten overnemen. Wat er ook mogen gebeuren ‘het smerige werk’ zal wel moeten doorgaan, wil het neoliberalisme kunnen overleven. Buruma’s ‘ijzingwekkende ironie’ is dat hij ‘in onze tijd’ met al zijn massavernietingswapens blijft pleiten voor grootschalig terrorisme, en daarvoor ook nog eens gelauwerd wordt door zijn  ‘urban elites,’ gelieerd aan de gevestigde orde. Buruma’s ‘wij’ en zijn elite hebben niets geleerd van de geschiedenis. Vandaar dat hij gedachteloos zowel China als Rusland kan criminaliseren als ‘mafia maatschappijen.’ Dit natuurlijk in tegenstelling tot de VS. Sterker nog: met het oog op het naderende einde van wat hij zonder enige ironie de ‘Pax Americana’ noemt, zullen ‘wij ons moeten voorbereiden op een tijd waarin we met weemoed terugkijken op het betrekkelijk goedaardige imperialisme uit Washington.’ Hoe 'goedaardig' was dit imperialisme in de praktijk? Afgaande op de meest reële schattingen is de VS sinds 1945 betrokken geweest bij 19 oorlogen. Wanneer we ons beperken tot de ‘death toll from three of the bloodiest conflicts: The Korean War, The Vietnam War and wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan,’ dan is de:  

total death toll of people killed by American troops in all these wars put together over 12 million.

Each of these three conflicts have something in common: they were wars fought in the name of making the world ‘safe for democracy.’

A particular horror was the largest use of chemical weapons against civilians since World War II, the massive use of Agent Orange against Indochina where it continues to poison people today. It may take Vietnam and Laos thousands of years to recover. In the case of Iraq, American spy satellites helped Saddam Hussein use poison gas against the troops of Iran.

http://www.worldfuturefund.org/Reports/Imperialism/usmurder.html

Twaalf miljoen doden en toch houdt Ian Buruma vol dat er sprake is van een 'betrekkelijk goedaardig imperialisme uit Washington,’ het politieke- en militaire bolwerk, dat nog steeds gedomineerd wordt door witte neoliberale- en neoconservatieve mannen en vrouwen. Dabashi:

The invention of ‘white people’ was a blatant mechanism of European and Europeanized power and domination. Dismantling that murderous myth will break down the backbone of a racist ideology that has kept a settler colonial consciousness in power for too long — from the earliest European settler colonies in the ‘New World’ to Israel.

Tegen het eind van zijn boek concludeert de Iraans-Amerikaanse geleerde:

The idea of Europe is imploding because it has now hit its most central paradox — it was built by robbing the world and building its own confidence — and now the world is coming back to rob it of its delusions of power. Europe colonized the world territorially and its own disjointed history temporally. It narrated itself backward to Plato and Aristotle and Alexander and Rome as it conquered for itself a planet to rob of its own multiple worlds. Europe was an illusion that soon made itself forget what it was, and now the refugees are bringing back its own repressed memories. Those refugees are the liberating forces of Europe, bringing it back to the bosom of humanity, hard as they resist and despise them… 

In this postcolonial assemblage, the world sees Europe for having impregnated the non-Europe in the course of its violent colonial intercourses. The children of non-Europe, bastards born out of wedlock, are making it through those stormy seas, coming back to haunt their parental officers. Their European siblings have nowhere to go, nowhere to hide, no way to deny their half sisters and brothers, 

aldus professor Dabashi die daarmee aantoont hoe dwaas de opvattingen zijn van Geert Mak wanneer deze witte mainstream-opiniemaker, afkomstig uit een christelijk koloniaal milieu, stelt dat het aanvragen van asiel moet gebeuren in het land van herkomst. ‘Daar selecteren wie mag komen en wie niet. Anders wordt immigratie een golf die over je spoelt. Je kunt best genereus zijn en denken in quota.’ Voor Mak en zijn publiek blijft wit nog steeds blank. Ook daarom zou hij voortaan moeten zwijgen. De jeugd kan niets van hem leren, en dus is het feit dat hij over zijn graf heen wil regeren niets anders dan egotripperij.