Absurd Reductionism

"We are Blacks and you are the whites", Ta-Nehisi Coates on Israelis and Palestinians, Exporting American Racial Narratives in Service of Empire

One shared location of agreement between mainstream western media and “alternative media” is found in the idea that US power is declining on the global stage. Whether it be an alt.site run by pro-Russian/pro-Palestinian bloggers, or elite-run outlets such as the Council on Foreign Relations official publication, Foreign Affairs, everyone seems to be in agreement that US power peaked some time in the 1990s.

As you are already well aware, I do not agree with this assessment. This is not THE ESSAY that lays out the reasons why I disagree, but it will serve as part of my overall argument. Suffice it to say that I do agree that the USA is suffering from significant and noticeable decline at home, but that this is not due entirely to neglect, as it instead indicates a transformation of America into something new. I first explored this idea in an essay from almost four years ago:

Americans will vehemently disagree with my stance to the point of getting angry with me…..something that I understand all too well. They will lay out examples of government incomptence, economic ruin, and the rise of the culture of no-accountability, etc. They make excellent points that I agree with. My shortest reply to them is that the average American does not matter to the powers-that-be, and the powers-that-be are not just post-national, but they are also doing better than they ever have. I concede that this is a very simplistic reply, but it serves as the basis of my larger argument (which we will continue to explore going ahead).

Earlier this year, I appeared on a podcast hosted by

Alex Kaschuta

:

Both of us live out in the far-flung provinces of US Empire, and we both agreed that US soft power has never been stronger than it is at present. The Americanization of Europe (especially the UK) continues unabated and is picking up pace. Even though music and film from the USA might be at a low ebb at present in terms of quality, the slack has been more than picked up by television, and especially the internet and social media.

Over the past decade or so, I have come to accept the permanence of the USA and how it is transforming into something new. I am definitely not one of those who seeks its destruction (as that would be disastrous), but my wariness of its intents and its influence should be plain for all to see. Like all humans, I view these things through the prism of self and family and local history. This is only natural, as comparison is the first step in making sense of such a massive, sprawling subject. To me, the USA is this big, lumbering beast with a sense of permanence about it. Its power is to be respected, it is never to be underestimated, it can sometimes be petitioned, it is best to minimize direct contact with it, and lastly, it is something to be endured.

I think back to my ancestors who were semi-nomadic pastoralists/occasional farmers in 18th century Highland Dalmatia. The Ottoman Empire offered free land (and amnesty to rebels) just over the border in Western Bosnia and Herzegovina in order to fill these empty zones and to be able to tax them as farming serfs. Highland Dalmatia’s soil was very, very poor and rocky, and there were too many people to feed. Lots of these dirt poor pastoralists/farmers took the risk and settled on the Ottoman side of the border, many returning after a generation or two after fleeing. For Christians to leave the nominally Christian Venetian Empire and cross over to the Islamic side seems weird in retrospect, but the spectre of mass starvation will make for desperation. As Michel Houellebecq said: “There is no Israel for me”. For my ancestors, there was no “America” option at the time.

But then again, what do I know? Yesterday, I was thinking about the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. It was up for a whole 28 years. Being very, very young while watching Germans take sledgehammers to the structure, 28 years seemed quite long to me. Now in middle age, 28 years is practically yesterday. Few in 1987 could have predicted that the Berlin Wall would be demolished two years later and that the Soviet Union would withdraw its forces from Central and Eastern Europe, only to collapse shortly thereafter. Maybe the USA will collapse “slowly at first, and then suddenly”?

One thing that I DO know is that the contagion of American racial narratives continues to seep into other countries, leading to ahistorical absurdities such as the following example:

On September 25th, UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy decided to grandstand at the United Nations in support of Ukraine by denunciating Russia for its “imperialism” in the most absurd way possible: by tying it to the historical enslavement of Black Africans, with the added bonus of Lammy beating his chest while informing everyone in attendance that he is “Black”, in a fit of performative outrage.

Here is what he said:

“But I say to the Russian representative, on his phone as we speak, that I stand here also as a Black man whose ancestors were taken in chains from Africa, at the barrel of a gun to be enslaved, whose ancestors rose up and fought in a great rebellion of the enslaved.

Imperialism.

I know it when I see it. And I will call it out for what it is.

In this week, when I’m here talking to other partners around the world about our shared futures, and the future of the UN, Russia is trying to return us to a world of the past. A world of imperialism. A world of redrawing borders by force. A world without the UN Charter. We cannot allow this to happen. Ukraine’s fight matters to all of us. The UK will remain Ukraine’s staunchest supporter.

I draw attention to this not because of the debate over the War in Ukraine, but because of Lammy’s cynical and opportunistic (and ahistorical) use and abuse of his race. He is the Foreign Secretary of the United Kingdom, not the Secretary of State for Blacks at the UN. Maybe Blacks should be given a permanent seat on the UN Security Council, with veto power? (inb4 “don’t give the Americans any ideas, Nic!”).

It’s easy to point out the hypocrisy of a representative of the UK using transatlantic slavery to try and score cheap points at the UN, but my focus is elsewhere. What Lammy’s performance shows us is how the US contagion known as Critical Race Theory is being exported abroad, digested, and, to use hated term, weaponized. The conflation of empire and slavery is bad enough, but to adopt American racial narratives to frame foreign conflicts that have absolutely nothing to do with those narratives either historically or culturally, goes to show just how far this contagion has already spread. Lammy is identifying himself as a “political Black”, separate from the non-Blacks in the UK, but of the same as Black descendants of slavery in the New World. Just who does he represent?