Gingrich Influenced by Racist, Pro-Colonialist Worldview

Today's big uproar stems from Dinesh D'Souza and Newt Gingrich claiming Obama's unsuited to lead American foreign policy because of his "Kenyan anti-colonial" worldview. Even if this is true, and it is based upon the idea that because his father was foreign, obviously Obama believes everything his father believed, would that be a bad thing? Of course not.

But then again, Newt Gingrich is openly pro-colonialist. An embarrassment to my profession, Gingrich has a Ph.D. in history. His dissertation was a notorious screed defending Belgian conduct in the Congo.

So for Gingrich, being anti-colonialist is an actively bad thing. Such remarks are too embarrassing for even leading Republicans to endorse, though they probably agree with him behind closed doors.

Digital Colonialism

Sylvia/m has a great post up on digital colonialism--not of the recent femisphere explosion type, but of a more insidious type.

See, I was annoyed this morning by this Columbia Journalism Review piece about the joys of "pro-am" journalism. Karthika's the resident expert on crowdsourcing and the like, but I think (as I wrote before) that there are a lot of problems with this model. One of them is what Sylvia focuses on in her piece--the slant of the blogosphere and new media in general toward middle-class, white US or Western interests. This is a question of access, but also of which voices are privileged.

Then in comments on Trend's wonderful breakdown of the coup in Chile and the overthrow of Allende, boz noted that the notion that many Americans on the left have that we (meaning the US government and the CIA, specifically) are responsible for the overthrow of so many governments in the world is a bit narrow and colonialist, itself.

And then Sylvia's piece about the blogosphere--feminists in particular, but the lessons apply to the left blogosphere in general--kind of summed up a lot of what I was thinking about.

It is not simply an international problem; it happens here in America as well. There are countless people without access to the internet, and who find themselves at the mercy of those who do have access to speak their truths to power. How often do the voices of feminism or the voices of Main Street, for example, reach the ears of the people behind the keyboards? Do people who write and use this medium for contributing to transformative change have an obligation to work for broader internet access and broader outreach?

There is also a broader presence of cyber-discovery, as seen in the recent hoaxes of finding new “tribes” or tracking “dead’ or “dying” languages using digital tools. There’s a distinct Western, anthropological gaze at work that reminds me personally of something out of the 19th century. How is the internet changing how we relate to each other geographically and politically, beyond the idea of having more people to date? How do we address these ways of relating?

I would say that we absolutely have an obligation to work for broader access and outreach. I want to see broadband as a right--and from what I can tell, Obama's FCC team agrees--but more than that, there needs to be a change in thought.

I've got so many thoughts rushing around in my head on this subject, so many tangentially related bits. That the U.S. left needs to get off its savior complex and start working in solidarity with local groups rather than trying to sweep in and fix things. That we here on the Internets need to open up far more than we already have to other voices in other places.

That the problem with journalism these days cannot be fixed by crowds of people spreading useless stories like "bittergate," and that no amount of crowdsourcing will replace having actual foreign bureaus with full-time staff who speak the language, know the country and the people, and can actually provide context to stories rather than parachuting into conflict zones.

I don't have answers, only questions here. But I think you should read Sylvia's piece.

One of Gabon's Natural Preserves Under Threat (with Bonus Racist Colonialist Terminology from the New York Times)

There's a lot that's disturbing about this article: the threat to Gabon's (allegedly) nationally-protected forests and the damming of one of its more impressive waterfalls; the ways in which reliance upon oil for the nation's income are threatening the environment as president Omar Bongo promotes iron ore mining; the fact that Bongo has been president since 1967 (forty years!); the expectation that ecotourism will be your economic salvation without any of the extremely complex and involved infrastructural development and planning the ecotourism industry requires; the extremely understaffed park rangers, who in no way could protect much of the park when they are only 15 people. All of these are very serious issues, and I have very little hope for Gabon on this issue, especially given the economic straits it is facing and the general disregard the Chinese seem to be showing for the environment in this case (which, unfortunately, has been all too common a theme among development projects).

I also realize it's probably one of the least important aspects of the article, but the New York Times' editors most certainly should have done a better job editing Polgreen's report. Gabon is coming off bad enough as it is; there's no need to use words like "wily" to describe president Bongo, and passages like "In neighboring countries, impoverished hordes have razed and burned their forests to plant crops and make charcoal. They have slaughtered the gorillas, elephants, chimpanzees and hippos in jungles for meat. But the Gabonese flocked to cities, living in comparative splendor," while perhaps factually correct, also rely on some of the poorest choices of words to describe residents of Africa (or anywhere else) in sweeping generalities. Unfortunately, talking to people who are quite familiar with the Times' reports on Africa, this is about par for the course.

My own take on the Slumdog win (and backlash)!

Slumdog Millionaire was the best movie I saw all year until I got to The Wrestler, which was far better (and Mickey Rourke was robbed, but that's another post).

Anyway, I've read lots of criticisms of the film, and a lot of the backlash seems to me to miss some of the point. I certainly find it problematic that it's a movie written and directed by white men telling an Indian story, but more than that, I disagree with a lot of the critiques.

M. Leblanc at Bitch, Ph.D. had a good post up about it yesterday.

On the one hand, the film is so clearly a fantasy story, that I don't know that it's trying to convey a "message," about social justice or anything else. It's unrealistic. It does not attempt authenticity. It employs flashbacks and shifts in time to create a wonderland-effect which is at odds with the gritty realism of some of the images (not, mind you, the cinematography, which is very polished and cinematic). I think people make the mistake of assuming it's trying to present something "real" because movies don't usually feature or address poverty, especially third-world poverty, unless they're trying to convey something "real" and convey a "message."

I totally agree. She also references Samhita's post at Feministing.

I guess I have more questions than I have answers. And the questions I ask were certainly not the ones considered by the Academy in choosing this film. To be clear, I loved this movie and I saw it twice. The second time I brought my family, and my father a staunch Indian nationalist, hated it. He didn't like the way it portrayed India. I do not hold the same politics as my father and I felt that it actually held more truth about poverty and corruption in India than we would like to admit. But once you sift through the amazing imagery, adorable kids and soundtrack you are left with a coming of age story, only the story is not really for Indian audiences.

But the question that occurred to me when reading all of this was:

Is it colonialist of us to expect Slumdog Millionaire to be a social commentary because it's set in a slum?

I watched it and wrote a review of it in which I pretty much gushed all over it. I haven't watched it again, and I'm fully aware that I'm watching it through white American eyes.

Although I did take a certain message from the film, I don't think it was the one that people expected. I read it as a parable about how random success is. Jamal is not a “Christ-figure” as much as he is the Holy Fool, someone who screws up again and again and haplessly stumbles through the world by being good. It's still a Western character archetype placed in India, which is probably colonialist in itself. And Leblanc and Samhita point out the problems with the Latika character so I'm not going to here.

But the story is NOT a 'pulling-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps' fable. In fact, the character who does pull himself up, Salim, pulls himself up by falling into crime. Jamal, on the other hand, stumbles into things and manages to get rich. Perhaps it shows my own bias, but I read this as a comment on the nature of modern capitalist society, that those who are on top often did not get there through their own work or the fairy tale of pulling oneself up by those damned bootstraps.

Also, the story was told through Jamal's eyes and so is tinged with his own views. The riot from which Jamal, Salim and Latika flee as children? It isn't presented with context because that's how it would look to the kids running away. They weren't running for their lives thinking, “Gee, the Hindus are really taking out this geopolitical strife on us!” They just ran.

And so I come to the question that I always run smack into: does everything have to be social commentary? Does one film set in India have to portray the whole of Indian experience, because it's the rare Western film set in India, or should we instead be arguing that we should see more films set in India (insert other commonly Othered country here)?

Sylvia critiqued it as well, here, and I can see her point, as I can see many of these points. I just don't know if I agree.

This, however, does indeed bother me. Even though stories came out later that noted it wasn't as bad as that story made it sound.

Stupid, Despicable Tourists

When I first traveled to Brazil, I spent a month living in a hostel in Rio, and this past December, we also had a Finnish friend of my wife stay with us for several days in Rio, so I'm not just makign this up when I say the following: European tourists are not nearly as "enlightened" and innocent as they think they are. From my own experience, they still have a very strong colonialist mentality in which the world is their playground for them to romp on the beaches and stare at the poor people some in order to be more "enlightened" before going to hang out with other tourists at the tourism-based nightclubs, living it up and complaining about the lack of amenities in whatever locality you are in. They are there to gain status in their home countries, buy some stuff as proof they were there, and that's it. (And lest I be charged with being unfair, this isn't random opinionating - I lived in a hostel for over a month the first time I was in Rio, and you constantly had to deal with tourists, generally European, there).

Every time I think maybe I'm too critical, stuff like this happens:

The angry mayor of Easter Island says he wishes the Finnish tourist accused of chipping an earlobe off an ancient statue could have his own ear clipped off as "justice." The 26-year-old Finnish tourist [Marko Kulju] has issued a public apology through a Chilean newspaper. He says he regrets the incident that has caused an uproar on the South Pacific island, a Chilean territory.

What the hell is this idiot thinking? No, wait, I know: "Hey, how cool would it be if I cut a piece of this historical statue off and took it home to show my friends? History shmistory; culture can go to hell. It's the ultimate tourist gift!!!" Honestly - tourism by its very nature is exploitative, but this is just sickening. Cutting off the guy's ear isn't enough - Chile should strip him of his passport and send him home. Words don't describe what a loser this guy is. Honestly...

European Colonialism in the 21st Century

Late in 2006, it was announced that, given the current fishing practices, eating fish would become an impossibility by 2050. I don't like fish (I'm weird that way), but the environmental effects of these practices and their tragic consequences are undeniable.

However, this article shows that the practice of mass-fishing has more than just environmental effects. Many coastal Africans are no longer able to make their living as fishers, as the fishing populations have plummeted due to European companies over-fishing the areas. In response, they seek to immigrate to Europe, where they are not welcomed, even as the Europeans eat the Africans' livelihood.

As the article points out, having fished-out their own waters, the Europeans are now turning towards Africa, leading not just to an acceleration in the environmental degradation of the area in terms of fish populations, but to what can be called no less than a continuation of the colonialist practices Europe employed for centuries in Africa. Having none of their own "material resources" (in this case, fish, instead of diamonds, ivory, slave labor, minerals, etc.), they turn to Africa, violating UN agreements without repercussions to their own industries and practices. Meanwhile, the Africans are driven to desperation, yet cannot gain access to the continent that is stealing from them.

Obviously, the environmental implications of these practices are distressing, to put it mildly. But the fact that they affect everyday Africans so severely and so immediately should not and cannot be overlooked. I really don't know how to stop the Europeans and their companies in this way. Suggesting they stop eating fish, while ideal, is about as realistic as telling the Japanese to cool it with the sushi. The UN treaties obviously have no effect, as there is no way to punish the Europeans for violating them. The African nations have neither the unified political strength nor the geopolitical presence of the EU. Unless some unforeseeable miracle happens, the Africans will continue to be exploited and screwed in their home countries and shut out from all attempts to make a better life in Europe, and there will still be no fish by 2050. Colonialism didn't die after the end of WWII. It just took on a strictly economic face in the guise of "globalization". And the fish will continue to disappear.

Whiteness Concerns, circa 1578

In 1578, George Best, who had accompanied Martin Frobisher on his attempt to find the Northwest Passage, wrote True Discourse of the Late Voyages of Discoverie. In there, he assures the English that America will not destroy their whiteness, as they desperately feared:

"Thus you see, that the cause of the Ethiopians blacknesse is the curse and natural infections of bloud, and not the distemperature of the clymate. We may therefore very well be assured, that under the Equinoxiall [Equator] is the most pleasant and delectable place of the world to dwell in."

I love that as early as 1578, the English are already using tortured logic to justify racism and colonialism while freaking out over their own whiteness.

You just can't make these things up.

From Susan Scott Parrish, American Curiosity: Cultures of Natural History in the Colonial British Atlantic World, 85.

Historical Image of the Day

1898 editorial cartoon on what William McKinley should do with the Philippines. Notice the lovely depiction of the Filipino people

Historical Image of the Day

William Henry Jackson photograph of English children in sedan chair, India, 1890s.

Thanks to my friend Bill for sending me this. Suggestions for these pictures are always appreciated.