For years, Western nations have been cast as villains in the global morality play: the colonialist, the slaver, the immigration gatekeeper. “Systemic racism” has become both an accusation and a mantra. Yet when one compares how ordinary people treat differences—who they marry, live beside, or hire—the supposedly wicked West starts looking rather saintly.
The least racist societies on Earth are almost all in Europe, North America, and Australasia. The rest of the world is, to put it mildly, less exemplary. Take South America, which congratulates itself on being a “racial democracy.” The national myth of Brazil, Chile or Colombia is that centuries of mixing erased prejudice. In reality, it merely buried it. The social pyramid still tilts by skin tone; the paler one’s complexion, the higher one tends to climb. The poor are conspicuously darker; the police statistics even more so.
India’s case is in a class of its own. The country has exported software and social-media moguls, but not yet the idea of equality. Caste, colour and status still intertwine in the social code. A Dalit may share a classroom with a Brahmin, but seldom a dinner table. And China, whose leaders love to lecture the West on harmony, remains a society where foreigners, especially dark-skinned ones, are stared at, mocked or worse. Ask any African student in Guangzhou what “inclusion” feels like there.
Nor does the Arab or wider Muslim world fare any better. Across the Middle East and North Africa, anti-Black prejudice runs deep, often excused as cultural hierarchy rather than racism. In Libya and Mauritania, the remnants of slavery linger barely disguised. In Lebanon and Egypt, skin tone still dictates social standing, marriage prospects and television casting. Migrant workers from South Asia or sub-Saharan Africa—maids in Kuwait, labourers in Qatar—endure treatment that would provoke outrage in the West but barely raises an eyebrow in Riyadh or Cairo. Yet the same capitals are quick to denounce “Western Islamophobia” while turning a blind eye to their own prejudices. The moral outrage so freely exported to Europe rarely applies at home.
None of this is to whitewash Western history. Europe and America carry their own brutal baggage, and plenty of contemporary bigotry besides. But they are also the only civilisations that have tried, seriously and repeatedly, to legislate and educate it away. They make mistakes, sometimes ludicrous ones, yet the attempt itself is civilisation’s triumph. There are few equivalents of the civil-rights movement in South America, Asia or Africa; fewer still of an entire continent agonising over its moral failings.
The global conversation on race remains curiously provincial. Western guilt and self-flagellation dominate, while prejudice elsewhere is politely ignored. The world prefers the comforting script of Western sin and non-Western virtue, even when the evidence runs the other way. It is easier, after all, to scold Washington or London than to peer too closely at Lagos, Riyadh or Beijing.
Tolerance, like prosperity, has roots. It grows best in societies that are secure, educated and open. The richer, freer democracies of the West tend to score well not because they are morally superior, but because they have the stability and self-confidence to accommodate differences. Poverty breeds fear, and fear breeds hate. No culture is immune.
The paradox is that the West is most accused precisely because it has made intolerance taboo. A clumsy joke can end a career; a racist mob in another hemisphere barely rates a footnote. The loudest moral theatre plays where the stakes are lowest. If Denmark is now the world’s least racist nation, it may be because it has turned shame into a national discipline. And if that is the standard, the rest of the world has homework to do.
Racism is an uncomfortable topic. I agree with Thomas that racism is easiest to discuss in countries where open dialogue is fostered and there is no fear of reprisals. While the narrative of a racist West exists, a large portion of our salaries have been and are funded by Western donors. Racism should be discussed more broadly, especially where it is not allowed to be addressed. Fortunately, XUNICEF's members are all experts who have worked in many countries, often forged intercultural connections, and can contribute their perspectives.
ReplyDeleteThe countries that score highest on racial tolerance in the World Values Survey are the ones that rank among the most generous foreign aid donors.
DeleteNow pair the above with Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index. The cleanest countries — Denmark again, followed by Finland, New Zealand, and Norway — overlap almost perfectly with the least racist ones. The places most allergic to graft are also those most comfortable with difference. The pattern deepens when you add democracy into the mix. Freedom House and the Economist Intelligence Unit both rank the same familiar cast of Western democracies at the top. The “malign” West happens to be where corruption is low, elections are free, and minorities have legal recourse when they are mistreated. Meanwhile, many of the regimes most indignant about Western “racism” operate under one-party rule, jail journalists, and treat dissent as treason.
ReplyDeleteHow could we compare Racism in other parts of the World to Western Racism... Racism in the West is the underlying cause to Colonization in many
ReplyDeleteContinents of the World, Slavery, Apartheid, killing of Natives and Acts of
Genocide.....
Racism in the West has left a long shadow: colonialism, slavery, apartheid, and the destruction of native peoples. But none of these were Western inventions. Slavery, conquest, and genocide are as old as civilisation itself; every continent has practised them. In fact, more Africans were enslaved by the Arabs than by Europeans. The World Values Survey measures how people think now, and by that yardstick, many Western countries rank among the least racist. History condemns, but values can change.
DeleteHere is a link to the World Value Survey you may find useful: https://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/wvs.jsp
DeleteHistorical comparisons are often difficult and flawed. But a comparison with the Ottoman Islamic Empire may nevertheless be of some interest. It governed large parts of Southeast Europe, Western Asia, and North Africa for centuries and was responsible for some brutal military campaigns, forced conversions of Christians, and ill treatment of minorities like the Armenians and Greeks. The most infamous event is the Armenian Genocide during World War I, where an estimated 1.5 million Armenians were killed. Also, the Arab Occupation of Spain was not exactly benevolent. There were long periods of violent conflict and forced conversions of religious minorities.
DeleteIf one sets aside the evolutionary psychology explanation that feelings of racism are in part residual recidivist feelings of fear of the stranger - we are likely descended from people who survived and bred descendants whereas friendlier ancestors were more likely to perish - then much racist action is actually about exploitation. That land you want from me is fertile - you are more technologically advanced than me - bang bang - I’m gone or I’m sold in a slave market. Often discussions about racism when one scratches the surface are actually about exploitation. Denmark does well in many league orders because of its legal system and ability to enforce the law e.g. a decent minimum wage, decent education and health services, and as highlighted in the media last week, a well organised way of handling migration issues.
ReplyDeleteYes, Denmark’s success is less about virtue than good governance. In a country with a robust legal system, a living wage, good education, and healthcare, you do not need to fear or to exploit. In such conditions, racism becomes redundant.
ReplyDeleteOn the handling of migration, Denamk was denounced as xenophobic by the left in Europe, not long ago. Today, it is the model being copied by, for example, the UK.
I wish Roger Pearson had amplified further on "feelings of fear of the stranger" and how it can be overcome in the context of interdependency in a globalised world today. Thomas had touched upon "education" as a means to overcome that fear but much more could have been said. Moreover, the tendency to shrink back into out little cocoons that we are a witness of today, often riding on the back of xenophobia, led by misplaced jingoistic pride, does perhaps arise from an incapacity to embrace the "other". Are we losing out on liberal values that provided the foundation of our moral fibre in the West? We have talked about governance and the rule of law. Human rights are an integral part of it since they bring back dignity to humankind, especially the underprivileged and the unreached. Are we being honest about our commitment to them? There are entrenched structural issues,, be it in the West or the East, which need to be identified and addressed before positive peace and harmony can be achieved to work towards a just and equitable social order based on trust. That's the surest way forward. Feelings of fear of the 'other' can only be overcome through this process. Those who have succeeded (the Nordic countries you mention) need to preserve it as a model for others to emulate. It does not surprise me if the UK has chosen Denmark as a "model" to be "copied". I hope we take it through.
ReplyDeleteGautam, you may wish to read up on the Danish migration/refugee policy. You may get more than you bargained for. It is very restrictive. The Swedish extreme left denounces it, interestingly, as racist; even the more moderate left in Sweden considered it xenophobic until a few months ago.
DeleteI must congratulate Thomas for his extremely well written article. It is a pleasure to read such high standard writings which it seems have somehow been forgotten in UNICEF of today. Am also pleased by the exchanges and opinions that the article has generated. This is definitely the substance of what we all exp3ct from our readers. On this , I who admire Denmark as one of my favourite countries in Europe, wonder how the 5 million Danes would feel if suddenly Nigeria occupied their country for decades and exploited all its natural resources.
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DeleteRacism or discrimination based upon colour, creed and caste etc. exhisted or exhist in all societies in different scale, but trying to mollify past wickedness through apertheid, slavery and colonialism is appeasement. While racism everywhere must be condemned, the extreme forms of historic domination of the poor by the rich and mighty must continue to be abhored everywhere. Bijaya Mallapaty
ReplyDeleteYou are absolutely right that racism and discrimination have existed in all societies. But that is precisely the point. It is not a uniquely Western invention. The slave trade, caste systems, and ethnic exterminations all flourished long before the first European ship set sail. The notion that only Western nations must atone in perpetuity, while others are allowed to portray themselves as eternal victims, is not justice; it is selective memory. The rich and mighty have oppressed the weak and poor since the dawn of civilisation. The real test is how consistently we hold everyone, everywhere, to the same moral standard.
DeleteThe West has committed terrible crimes; the transatlantic slave trade carried around 12 million Africans to the Americas. This fact demands remembrance. But cruelty is not unique to the West. The Arab slave trade lasted over a millennium and enslaved at least 17 million Africans. Why then should guilt be uniquely Western? The transatlantic slave trade was vast, but the Arab trade was larger and longer. Yet only Europe and the US are expected to carry the moral burden. The difference lies not in scale but in self‑criticism. The West abolished slavery, built civil rights movements, and institutionalised guilt as a civic duty. Other regions rarely confront their own pasts and remain largely silent about their own atrocities.
DeleteThis essay reads like the polished defence of Western moral superiority that MAGA conservatives adore. It pretends to offer a “global perspective,” but its objective is to minimise Western culpability for centuries of slavery, empire, and systemic racism by pointing fingers at everyone else.
DeleteThe author’s trick is to flatten history. Yes, racism exists everywhere — but to equate tribalism in Africa or caste in India with transatlantic slavery, genocidal colonialism, and the ongoing global power structures rooted in those systems is intellectually dishonest.
Praising Europe and America for “legislating and educating away” racism ignores the obvious. Those efforts were won by marginalised people against violent resistance from the very societies now claiming moral credit. The civil rights movement was not a gift from white Western enlightenment — it was a rebellion against it.
The text traffics in the oldest clichĂ©s: Africans as tribal, Arabs as hypocritical, Indians as bound by caste, and Chinese as xenophobic. This is not analysis; it is moral tourism — a safari through non-Western failings to reassure Western readers that they are the least bad option.
Citing “surveys” that rank Denmark as “least racist” is textbook cherry-picking. Of course, a homogeneous Nordic country reports high “tolerance” — they have few immigrants, and their racism tends to manifest in exclusion, not overt hostility.
The essay’s real objective is emotional: to soothe Western guilt. It says, “Yes, we have done bad things, but look how much worse everyone else is — and at least we are trying.” The point isn’t to compete in a global morality Olympics; it’s to dismantle the ongoing systems — economic, military, cultural — through which Western dominance still dictates who thrives and who suffers.
This article is a carefully worded exercise in moral relativism — an attempt to downgrade Western responsibility by universalising prejudice. It is the soft-spoken cousin of “Make America Great Again”: same sentiment, better vocabulary.
There is a certain irony in being accused of moral relativism by those who have spent the past decade practising it. The worldview behind this critique is a strain of Western self-denigration that has dominated academic and cultural discourse for some fifteen years. It insists that every ill in the modern world can be traced back to the Atlantic slave trade or European colonialism. It is an ideology, not an analysis, and it is ignorant of history.
DeleteTo say that racism, slavery, and conquest have existed in all civilisations is not to “flatten history”. It is to remember it. The transatlantic slave trade was uniquely cruel, yes, but so was the Arab slave trade that predated it by centuries and outlasted it by many decades. European empires were exploitative, but they also exported the ideas and institutions, from the rule of law to accountable government, that later made decolonisation possible.
Since 1945, the West has not been a “moral tourist” but the engine of global development. It rebuilt Europe, underwrote the open trading system that lifted billions out of poverty, and has defended democracy, imperfectly, but far more often than not. The notion that all global inequalities today flow from “Western dominance” is a convenient dogma for those who do not understand the basics of economics.
It was precisely this unrelenting culture of self-flagellation, this insistence that Western societies are irredeemably guilty, that fuelled the populist backlash of the past decade. Donald Trump, Brexit, and the European far right did not arise from “racism denied” but from moral exhaustion. Western voters are tired of being told their civilisation was uniquely wicked. That fatigue has weakened Europe in particular, a vacuum that Vladimir Putin was quick to exploit.
The task now is not to deny Western faults but to recover perspective. The West’s greatest achievement is its capacity for self-criticism, but even that virtue can curdle. A world in which the only permissible narrative is Western sin is no less distorted than one that proclaims Western perfection. Both obscure a simple truth that the liberal democracies of the postwar West, for all their flaws, remain the freest, fairest, and most self-correcting societies in history. That may be the reason why so many former UNICEF staff have decided to retire there.
As you know, the Scandinavian countries were not always models of virtue. This is how the region where I was born went from being Danish to becoming Swedish — and it wasn’t all that long ago. My grandmother, born in the 1800s, still used many Danish words in her speech. Considering how well Denmark has done since, I can’t help but lament that the change ever took place.
ReplyDeleteThe Swedish takeover of Scania from Denmark in 1658 set off a long and brutal campaign of military occupation aimed at erasing Danish identity. The Swedish forces used scorched-earth tactics, burning farms, torturing inhabitants, and inflicting collective punishment. It was a deliberate attempt to destroy Danish cultural and political life — what we might now call ethnocide.
After military victory came systematic cultural repression. The Swedish Crown forced through the replacement of the Danish Church with the Church of Sweden, purged Danish laws and officials, and banned the Danish language in schools and public life. The population of Scania lived under relentless pressure to abandon their language and customs. It was, in every sense, a textbook case of forced assimilation.
Thanks Thomas for sharing the history. As you say slavery existed not only in the west. The west did take action to accept wrongs and attempt to make things right by civil wars and laws and yes by raising consciousness of the need to do better. However, racism continues whether it’s related to skin color, caste, religion, economic superiority etc.. what is important is to continue to be aware of it and take appropriate steps. Education, opportunities, inclusion and simple steps to get to know each other move in the right direction. Unfortunately, whilst the West progressed well, here in the US, we have taken a step back, framing DEI as an unacceptable concept and word. Those of us who have had the privilege of mingling with each other, white, black, brown, yellow and all types of humans and traveling worldwide, must continue to practice ‘anti’ racism and trust, that we can in some small way, make the world a better place.🤞🏽🤙🏻🤝🫶🏿
ReplyDeleteThanks, Rohini. I wonder if those in favour of reparations for colonialism and other abuses also think the people in Scania have a case?
DeleteCruelty and exploitation are not phenomena confined to any single region; rather, they are woven into the very fabric of global history. While historical injustices manifest in various forms across the world, it is crucial to recognize the specific role that the so-called "West" has played in perpetuating these wrongs. As we reflect on the past, the need for reparations becomes increasingly evident, particularly towards developing countries that have borne the brunt of exploitation.
ReplyDeleteThe capitalist system, which has significantly shaped the modern world, is rooted in exploitation. The legacy of colonialism has left deep scars on societies in Africa, Asia, and the Americas. The extraction of resources, the subjugation of populations, and the imposition of foreign governance structures created an imbalance that continues to affect these regions today. The West must confront its historical excesses—not only in terms of economic exploitation but also in the moral implications of its actions.
The call for reparations is not merely a financial transaction; it is a recognition of past wrongs and an acknowledgment of the enduring impact on present generations. Countries like Denmark have taken commendable steps towards addressing historical injustices, yet these efforts often fall short of what is necessary. Reparations must encompass a broader spectrum, addressing the legacies of the slave trade and the ongoing inequalities faced by countries that were exploited.
It is essential to include the historical narratives of Arab states and other nations in discussions about reparations. The legacy of the slave trade is not confined to one region; it is a shared history that demands collective acknowledgment and response. Addressing these injustices requires a multifaceted approach that considers the complexities of historical relationships and their modern implications.
The exploitation inherent in colonialism and neo-colonialism should not be glossed over or minimized. These systems of oppression have created environments of poverty, instability, and social strife that continue to hinder development. The historical development of these systems must be critically examined, and their consequences must be addressed through meaningful reparative measures.
In conclusion, acknowledging the global legacy of cruelty and exploitation is the first step towards healing and justice. Reparations are not simply about addressing past injustices; they are about building a more equitable future. As we move forward, it is imperative that the West, alongside other nations, confronts its history and takes tangible steps towards rectifying the wrongs of the past. Bijaya Mallapaty
Calls for reparations are economically and politically impractical. History’s injustices like slavery, colonialism, and exploitation were indeed grievous, but their complexity defies any tidy financial or political reckoning. To try to unpick every thread of historical wrongdoing would unmake the global economy itself.
DeleteThe notion that capitalism is inherently exploitative is mistaken. Capitalism, for all its imperfections, has been the single most powerful engine of poverty reduction in human history. The spread of markets, institutions, and investment led by the West has lifted billions from destitution and enabled developing economies to thrive on their own terms.
Since 1945, the West has been less an imperial power than a stabilising one. The postwar order, which built open trade, rules-based governance, and collective security, has underpinned an unprecedented era of global prosperity. Missteps in Vietnam and the Middle East do not erase Western engagement marked more by reconstruction and partnership than by plunder.
Reparations, noble in intention, cannot substitute for the hard work of sound governance, education, and enterprise that drives real progress. Far more effective would be to strengthen trade, technology transfer, and democratic institutions, the mechanisms that allow former colonies to compete on equal terms. Acknowledging history’s cruelties is necessary, but reliving them through perpetual moral bookkeeping is not.
Your piece on the failure of development aid in Tanzania is well argued Thomas. However, using GDP as the measure of success or failure distorts the picture. If one uses Life Expectancy as a measure of development, one gets quite a different perspective. According to World Bank data, life expectancy in Tanzania increased by 53.6% between 1960 and 2021 (41 years to 63 years). In Sweden, by comparison, the increase was only 13.7% in the same 60 year period (73 years to 83 years). The gap between the 2 countries was 32 years in 1960; 60 years later, it was down to 20 years. Slow but steady progress in closing the gap, as opposed to the widening GDP measure of progress. Many would argue that Life Expectancy as a proxy for development is a more cogent one than GDP per capita. The impact of aid on health and education is hard to quantify, and no doubt varies from country to country, but overall it's been a positive in contributing to prolonging life expectancy and closing the development gap with the rich countries. All is not as gloomy as presented in your article Thomas.
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ReplyDeleteIt is heartening when defenders of foreign aid reach for new metrics to justify an old faith. Life expectancy, I am told, is proof that Tanzania has “developed” under six decades of aid. True, Tanzanians today live longer than they did in 1960. A rise in life expectancy in a poor country is welcome, but hardly unique to aid-intensive Tanzania. It has risen almost everywhere. Correlation is not causation, though aid professionals tend to blur that line.
GDP and life expectancy tend to move together. When they do not, something is amiss. In Tanzania, incomes have stagnated while lives have lengthened; this is not much progress, but prolonged subsistence. A population living longer but still dependent, underemployed, and politically voiceless is not quite development.
The aid bureaucracies are remarkably inventive at finding statistics that show success. Infant mortality, literacy, vaccination rates, and “empowerment indices” can all be massaged into proving impact. The game has gone on so long that many seem genuinely unaware that the primary beneficiaries of the aid business are those administering it.
Tanzania deserves better than to be a perpetual case study in development workshops. After sixty years and $60 billion, it has become neither prosperous nor free. That its citizens now live two decades longer than they did under colonial rule is, of course, a good thing. But it is not evidence that aid works.
I worked in Tanzania for 2 long bouts - and things definitely stagnated or worsened over a 2 decade period. There were ains in lower IM and U5mortality - but little else. Family size grew HUGE - meaning per kid they were more pore than ever. School enrollment and literacy flattened or dropped./ Teacher to student ratio was skyrocket - I would go to schools and some teacher with very few skills and no support - would have a room with 100 kids - all sitting in the dirt, not toilets, no books and learning nothing. The rate of adding new teachers WAS SO FAR behind the rate of increase of children - we calculated the MoE would need catch up in maybe 300 years at the rate they were going. Many gains were made - but many things they should have happened next DID NOT HAPPEN- family size did not decrease, nor did literacy increase - things were on a big slide. was that shitty development - pretty much - both by UNICEF, other donors and the poor vision of the government.
DeleteThis is an assessment by a UNICEF staff member who worked in Tanzania for many years. While it is very sad, it confirms findings highlighted in my article.
DeleteTo state, as was done in an earlier comment, that "All is not as gloomy as presented in your article" is rather odd, considering that recently, perhaps hundreds were killed by security forces for protesting against a rigged election.
Indeed I was there - 2001 to 2005 and again 2012 to 2019. It was sobering, even the legendary work of Urban Johnson - that formed the nutrition model that is the bedrock of UNICEF - all that work took place in the Southern Highlands. People still talked about it alot. it was indeed groundbreaking stuff in the early 1980s - but you know what? Indicators of children were abysmal in the southern highlands - stunting was through the ROOF and not levelling off, family size was HUGE, schools were overcrowded and those kids performed poorly vs their peers elsewhere. All those water points, weighing scales, community mobilisers -- all the legendary work was GONE. Not a trace of it - other than the staff compound that was built for UNICEF and WHO teams. People were poor, they lived and toiled in the break basket of the country - but they sold even their most basic food items just to survive - often doing without adequate food at home. How could any aspect of this be considered a success?
DeleteThis is not my anecdotal view - I was the head of emergency in early 2000s and then in mid 2000s i was head of field offices and head of planning, monitoring and evaluation - i had that data at my fingertips. It was a sad tale.
DeleteDebate around this banner article has been phenomenal. We hope it sets the trend for engagement on this Blog. It was the first time we experimented with a thought provoking article for the pride of place as the lead feature for the week. Special thanks to Thomas for his contribution and for keeping alive the debate. The responses are no less worthy of commendation. There is no final word on the issue of racism. The responses however have taken us into depths of structural causes that still remain entrenched. Addressing them remains the challenge. The solution lies in a collective will to make it happen. We as development proefessionals do carry that responsibility even in retirement. Let us give a thought to it.
DeleteThank you, Gautam. Yes, the debate has been good. But one cannot help but observe the silence of those who were drafting rights-based nutritional frameworks in New York. These conceptual blueprints were being written when malnutrition registered alarming spikes in regions like the Southern Highlands of Tanzania, where UNICEF had a strong presence. This chasm between theoretical sophistication and on-the-ground reality merits scrutiny. The question, therefore, is not if this observation lacks understanding of African development’s complexities, but rather the reverse. Does the intellectual framework itself possess the necessary humility to address it? The failure of high-level policy to translate into tangible results on the ground suggests a profound disconnect.
Delete@Thomas. The nutrition frameworks were drafted, so I believe, in the Southern Highlands of Tanzania. Those who wrote them are no longer with us, or are not reading this blog. There is a value in analytical models that help explain a situation (for instance the immediate causes of a nutritional condition), or more generally help to organize thoughts and causalities. Although the conceptual frameworks pointed to the most fundamental structural, societal and essential causes of underdevelopment, development organizations such as UNICEF, including its donors, preferred to focus – rather amateurishly – on treating the symptoms.
Delete@ Detlef. You claim that UNICEF and the donors focused amateurishly on treating the symptoms of malnutrition. If that is so, they did a poor job of it in the Southern Highlands in Tanzania, according to "unknown", who worked there. Nevertheless, a focus on growing the economy would likely have had a better impact on the nutritional status of children than either nutritional frameworks or feeding programmes, if history is anything to go by.
DeleteI lives in Denmark for more than 23 years and I would not say that Denmark is not a racist country! You are always considered as a foreigner and as back as 1980 becoming a Dane is very difficult not only marrying a foreigner or getting a job because of your name or your photo ! Yes it is not a skin problem like in RsA for example but a true Dane will get the preference.
ReplyDeleteThat is interesting. Perhaps the World Value Survey is not accurate, and Denmark is as bad as the rest.
DeleteThe World Value Survey determined if some is racist based on one question: "Would you mind living next door to someone from a race different to your own"? In politically correct northern Europe, few would answer that question in the affirmative.
DeleteInterestingly, CNN's Fareed Zakaria today had a section on development aid not working in his weekly Global Public Square program. It is an hour-long program dealing primarily with key political issues of the day. He used similar statistics and arguments as in the above article.
ReplyDeleteIt is fair to trace contemporary social injustices back to historical wrongs such as transatlantic slavery and colonialism. These legacies established enduring hierarchies of power that continue to shape the modern world. In this framework, the world is divided into oppressors and the oppressed. White people and white culture, embedded in Western capitalism and militarism, are positioned as the dominant group, exercising power in ways that primarily benefit themselves. This exercise of power sustains the system of white supremacy.
ReplyDeleteFrom this perspective, racism is not simply hatred but a systemic relationship of unequal power. Because white people hold global privilege rooted in centuries of dominance, only they can be racist in the systemic sense. Non‑white groups, even when expressing race‑based hostility, begin from a position of oppression and powerlessness. Racism is therefore understood as the manifestation of power, not merely prejudice. Within this logic, white individuals occupy only two possible positions: racist or anti‑racist. To remain passive is to perpetuate racism; to resist actively is to oppose it. In this view, whiteness itself is inseparable from structures of oppression.
Sorting out historical reparations is like trying to untangle a ball of yarn after a litter of determined cats has been at it. In theory, the goal is noble; in practice, it is a diplomatic, economic, and ethical booby trap with no safe route through.
DeleteTake slavery. If African Americans are owed compensation for the horrors of the Atlantic slave trade, do we exclude the descendants of those shipped eastward into Arabia or further east? What about the vastly larger numbers driven to Brazil and the Caribbean—do they join the queue, or form one of their own? The arithmetic alone would demand several new departments of government and the full capacity of large supercomputers.
Colonialism offers no cleaner lines. If Kenya is to be compensated by Britain, should Greece submit an invoice to Turkey? And who possesses the authority to adjudicate the precise value? Even contemporary claims are a swamp. What would fair compensation for Tibet even look like—back pay for a stolen country, or a voucher scheme for cultural obliteration?
The problem isn't that history is tragic, but that tragedy is universal. Almost every nation has been both victim and villain at different points in the timeline. The idea that one could construct a neat global spreadsheet of grievances and balance the accounts is a profound fiction. Remembering the past is essential. Trying to price it, however, is a task best left unattempted.