George Floyd and the predicament of the West
The death of George Floyd, an African-American man, in Minneapolis, Minnesota on May 25 was in fact a murder fueled by systemic racism, as well as arrogance among the police force about their indispensability. It is ignoble to refer to it as“death”. No form of arrest involves, or requires, kneeing down on a man’s neck for nine minutes. That is goddamn murder, and Mr Derek Chauvin likely knew it, but didn’t care, as he thought he could get away.
It was natural that protests against the murder would follow, and that some of these would be violent, as most protests eventually turn out to be. This does not make the protests illegitimate in themselves. It is also wrong to ignore the systemic racism that the incident reveals and to solely focus on the violence of some of the protesters.
But is it also wrong to demand that protests be peaceful in general? Is it wrong to demand that the protesters not destroy shops and establishments of innocent people, some of whom were not even white? It is wrong to argue that a reaction against white people in general is not just wrong but also ironic, given that the scourge being fought against is racism?
But none of this seems to make any impact on the protesters, their supporters and their political patrons. The rot runs deeper — the tolerance extended towards violent protests, destruction of statues and of shops, establishments and monuments is a product of the toxic mainstreaming of identity politics in modern global society. It is the product of a generation that no longer understands the difference between bad ideas and people, between opposing an abomination and attacking people who supposedly represent it merely by — the reality of the times they lived in, or worse, their skin colour, which they did not choose.
The basic principle — one that is non-negotiable and virtually uncontested in any logical analysis of the matter — is that you cannot punish an entire tribe because of the sins committed by past generations of that tribe, or by some members of the tribe in the present day. That is so obviously wrong that it is one of the few things that liberals and liberal movements have been fighting against in one form or another — since the Renaissance!
You also cannot live in a glass house and throw stones at others — so when the Western Left rightly points out that America does not hold the moral high ground on giving human rights advice to other countries, given its own record and its imperialistic ventures over the past 75 years or so — it implies that those protesting against white racism cannot themselves tag the entire white race as their enemies. That in itself, becomes racist and is counterproductive in the long run to finding a solution to the problem.
In other words, if an ethnic, racial or religious group you support cannot be expected to take collective responsibility for the actions of some of its members, past or present, the same must apply to the group whose members are guilty of the crimes and abominations you have been opposing. That is the very definition of justice.
Very few truly golden words are ever spoken. Some of them come from MLK Jr — who asks us to judge a person not by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character. This makes the notions of “white guilt” and collective white responsibility an abomination in itself. Incredibly, the anti-racism moments of today appear to reject MLK’s profound message.
But the same people who trumpet that white people must collectively take responsibility for anti-black racism are also the most outraged when any misguided soul suggests that all Muslims must take responsibility for Islamist terrorism. So outraged, in fact, that Islamophobia is now a dictionary term and idiotic Marxists in Indian universities think it is the most pressing problem the world faces, ahead of climate change, nuclear war, terrorism, poverty, illiteracy and famine.
There is also a shocking denial of anti-white racism — such as one you found in Zimbabwe under Robert Mugabe, or in incidents of violence against whites by blacks, or in my own country where whites are often called “gora” or “Angrez”, effectively either making individuals representative of an entire race, or referring to an entire race as being English.
Our young Leftists argue that these are in fact natural reactions to the conditions blacks, and Indians, have suffered under white majority rule, institutionalised white racism and colonialism. This preference for reactionaries betrays a defeatist attitude and brings into suspicion the motives of these Leftists. After all, are they not the first ones to tell us following an incident of anti-Muslim violence that it cannot be a legitimate reaction to Islamist terrorism (and rightly so)? Why condemn the one criminal and excuse the other? What then makes you morally superior to the exclusionist Right that you so despise?
Breaking statues shuts down conversations around racism and colonialism. Destroying evidence does not solve the problem but merely erases it from living history until it is rediscovered, appropriated and even deified by future generations. White police officers washing the feet of black pastors, as recently happened in North Carolina, is appalling because it is the fruit of the legitimisation of the idea that the historic blame for racism must be placed on an entire, living community — and that therefore this community must redeem itself en masse, apologising for the actions of not only some of its members in the present, but also those long dead. In fact, one can go so far as to say that this expectation itself is a form of racism.
One must also learn that the current reactionary trend is not a “deserving” instance of justice coming full circle for the white community, but a problem for the entire world to face, endure and combat.
It is appropriate, I believe, to look at the current moral crisis in the West from two viewpoints — as a struggle between old-school liberals and identity activists, and as a struggle between rationalism and irrationalism. For the irrationalism comes not only from the powerful and racist Right, but also from the Left, which no longer judges a person by the strength of their character.
How then, do we solve this problem? As a recent tweet read, first we were told they were a fringe minority, then they entered the universities, now they occupy the positions of power. This goes for both the Right and the Left. Perhaps there is only one moral dilemma — the battle between the rationalist liberals and the identity activists on either side of the political spectrum. There is no way to solve the problem on the Left except to wait it out — though the problem on the Right will, as usual, self-destruct. The institutional power of those claiming to be liberals is very strong, and we once enjoyed holding that power. It moves the world as conservatism cannot. Once upon a time, we exulted in the victory of young liberals over their older, more cautious counterparts, because we were the young liberals. We might have to accept that what passes for liberalism today will gain a short-term victory.
In its victory, the identitarian Left, masquerading as the liberal Left, will not only undermine liberalism, but also the only values the West can truly be proud of — its love for free speech and robust inquiry, its tolerance towards offence and its firm belief that only free dialogue can enable positive change. After all, the Left has already shown, quite rightly, that the West cannot be proud of its imperialism, its colonial past, and its empty advice to other countries on human rights, given its own record. Nor can it be said any longer that the West holds a monopoly on the best science and technology, or on the workforce that produces such technology. As for military power, it has become largely irrelevant in an era when even a skirmish between two countries is frowned upon as an intolerable war, and where a nuclear arms race like that during the Cold War is inconceivable.
However, the wheels of history will turn again at some point, as they must, and those who attempted to kill liberalism through identity politics will eventually find themselves on the wrong side of history, just like their racist, xenophobic and imperialistic forefathers did. You may call this optimistic, but I believe their is plenty of historical evidence to show that the forward march of liberalism and human progress is unstoppable, and that it keeps offering correctives to excesses from time to time.
