File spoon-archives/aut-op-sy.archive/aut-op-sy_2001/aut-op-sy.0102, message 40


Date: 7 Feb 2001 16:01:43 +0200
From: "Tahir Wood" <twood-AT-uwc.ac.za>
Subject: Re: AUT: Linebaugh and Rediker, _The Many-Headed Hydra_


Rowan, a few points in reply to yours below:

>>> wilson_rowan-AT-hotmail.com 02/07 2:58 PM >>>
 when you mention 
extermination and exclusions, these are not regarded as racist but as a 
primitive conquering consciousness. But we have had massacres in the 
twentieth century (of Armenians, Jews, Tutsis, etc), undeniably racist acts 
with no desire to incorporate the other race into the workforce.

Tahir: Well, you skate on thin ice here. Are all forms of prejudice and chauvinism now to be termed 'racism'. European racism, which is what people usually have in mind when this term comes up, would hardly discriminate between Hutus and Tutsis, for example, on the grounds of race. Was the struggle between the British and the Boers also a conflict between 'races' then? You see, either we have to reserve the term 'racism' for certain phenomena or else we have to distinghuish between very different kinds of racism. The relationship between black and white in say South Africa is hardly the same as that between Hutu and Tutsi in Rwanda. Otherwise we get to a situtation where the conflict in Yugoslavia, that in Northern Ireland, or even disputes between French and English speaking Canadians all become racial questions. Maybe what we need is a detailed typology of chauvinisms to discuss this thing with any clarity!

I think your definition buries the question of racism into one of the forms 
in which it is expressed, i.e. it doesnt address why or how it is possible 
for notions of race to be a) developed as a subject of discourse and b) for 
one or other to become recognised as inferior.

Tahir: But at least I did suggest that there is some very primitive or archaic 'otherness' which gets transformed into something quite different and much more sophisticated under capitalism, to the point where it results in a whole range of juridical and ideological forms. This is quite absent in primitive societies (which might nevertheless discriminate between who you can eat and who you can't), whereas in ancient Greece it came down to the question of citizen and non-citizen. This provided a model for apartheid, where black people were regarded as as non-citizens of SA, but as 'foreigners'.

This for me is the key question: that an other is generated, identified by 
skin colour or genetic heritage, that is regarded as inferior in some way. 
This cuts across time frames

Tahir: No sorry, do some homework here. I would like to see some evidence that the same level of prejudice against darker people existed say in ancient Rome (or even in the middle ages) to the extent that it did in Europe or the USA in the twentieth century.

 although the different forms in which the 
hegemonic race (whichever it is at a particular moment) expresses its 
superiority vary with history.

So the main question in the racism qua capitalism/pre-capitalism is WHY 
should a different race be subject to either extermination or subordination?
Because its in the way of land enclosure? Because cheap labour is required? 
Yes, but why are these antagonisms expressed through race?

Tahir: But there is abundant evidence that they often aren't. They are very, very often expressed through language, religion and custom. The conjuncture that I cited earlier, namely the Union of South Africa in 1910 is fascinating in this regard. From just a few years earlier when the British had regarded the Boers as hardly better than Blacks, they signed a very generous peace treaty with the Boers and then brought into being a nation based on white unity. Clearly, British imperialism had faced a dual threat. The Boers were initially more threatening, but once they were defeated the foundation was laid for white unity AGAINST black aspirations. And from there a whole new ideological discourse begins to unfold, based much more solidly on 'whiteness' than previously. Yes racism 'as we know it' starts right there.

 I dont think 
its enough to say that the ruling class find it convenient, or that playing 
on otherness is a simple strategy  WHY is this a simple strategy? Why are 
proletarians so susceptible to being divided by skin colour? Why is the 
notion 'race' able to become a tool of the ruling class?

Tahir: Again, note that it is only one amongst many. But I would guard against a crudely instrumental view. You are right insofar as a lot of this happens below the level of explicit consciousness, and yes it does often build on deep and archaic prejudice. But also sometimes not. Take the example of xenophobia as an interesting case. Today in South Africa there is huge prejudice against Africans from other parts of the continent which often leads to violence. These are black people discriminating against other black people, who are identified easily due to the fact that they don't speak a local African language. Clearly this is the effect of nationalism, and here, my friend, it must be said that nationalism is deeply enmeshed with capitalism.

I dont think that Marxist categories can answer this question. The 
discussion of value does not explain why a race can be oppressed.

Tahir: Well Marx presented a critique of capitalism, not a science of everything.. This has shed a lot of light on how racism has developed in modern times. But no-one is saying that prejudice itself, whether 'racial' or linguistic or religious comes into being with capitalism. It is even likely that Marx himself was not entirely free of some of these prejudices.

 So to 
answer Chriss question as to how capitalism is formed by racism and sexism, 

Tahir: I'm sorry but this formulation is rubbish. Capitalism cannot so simply be regarded as formed by racism or sexism. You would have to add so much theory to make this claim plausible that in the end you would have explained away this banal formulation into oblivion.

then we certainly need to go beyond the categories of Marx  but Ive really 
not read enough on this to give any decent answer.

Tahir: Again, what Marx did was mainly present a critique of capitalism, so it's not very fair to charge him with failing to do something that he didn't set out to do. But, crucially, Marx gave us a very useful way of thinking about these things - call it historical materialism - and you should check out Engels' The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State to see how this same approach can be applied to a the question of sexism, for example.

Hope all this makes sense. Perhaps I'm trying to trace my origins too far 
back (historically and metaphysically?), but I think it's issues like these 
that bother those who are very concerned with issues of race and don't 
necessarily put themselves in the nationalist camp.

Cheers
Rowan



>From: Tahir Wood <twood-AT-uwc.ac.za>
>Reply-To: aut-op-sy-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu 
>To: aut-op-sy-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu 
>Subject: Re: AUT: Linebaugh and Rediker, _The Many-Headed Hydra_
>Date: 5 Feb 2001 16:37:42 +0200
>
> >>> wilson_rowan-AT-hotmail.com 02/05 3:59 PM >>>
>I would like to be fussy and add that it is also
>vital to see capitalism in the context of racism and patricarchy - that is
>to say capitalism wasn't born outside of these 'isms'. Capitalism didn't
>just draw on versions of racism then present, it is also a product of these
>'isms' itself.
>
>I think one needs to be very careful here. Yes, capitalism depended on 
>black slaves to get started, just as it depended on merchant capital, the 
>absolutist state, scientific revolutions, etc. But your formulation 
>suggests that there was this pre-existing racism, pretty much as we know it 
>today, which capitalism could just piggyback onto. This would be quite 
>ahistorical I think.
>
>Consider the differences between these various cases: 1. The extinction of 
>aboriginal peoples to 'clear the land' of its original inhabitants. 2. The 
>transportation of slaves from one place to another. 3. The incorporation of 
>certain 'inferior races' into the state and workforce in subordinate 
>positions.
>
>Each one of these is different and constitutes a different moment in the 
>historical development of capitalism. Take South Africa. At the Cape you 
>first had the beginning of the extermination of the Khoi-San peoples. 
>Together with this you then had slaves being imported from other parts of 
>Africa, from the East Indies and from India. Finally you had the various 
>conquered peoples incorporated into the settler society as exploited 
>workers.
>
>This pattern is remarkably similar to that in different parts of the world, 
>such as the US. Aboriginals do not make good slaves - they know the terrain 
>and they have their people that they can run away to. Foreign slaves may 
>well be more afraid of what lies outside the settlement than what they 
>experience inside it. So the pattern of bringing in exotic populations as 
>slaves makes sense.
>
>The domination of exploited workers is always a later stage than these 
>first two, since it depends on a whole range of social arrangements and 
>ideological apparatuses (e.g. apartheid) in order to be managed 
>effectively. This moment in South Africa corresponds to the defeat of the 
>last 'native uprisings' of 1908 and the formation of the Union of South 
>Africa in 1910. The first land dispossessions follow soon after (1913) and, 
>significantly, the formation of the African National Congress in 1912. The 
>pattern of racism and resistance to it really starts there.
>
>It seems to me that only this last mentioned phase is racism proper (i.e. 
>racism as we know it). The earlier stages correspond firstly to some kind 
>of primitive conquering consciousness leading to pure extermination, and 
>secondly to forced labour, often of a different population group to the 
>first. So three clear moments: driving out and exterminating; forced 
>labour; iincorporation as inferior citizen and exploited worker.
>
>One of the reasons why nationalists like to blur these moments in 
>explaining the development of capitalism is that it makes it easy to argue 
>that European racism is eternal and unchanging and therefore a main CAUSE 
>of capitalism. I am implying that this ahistorical and implausible notion 
>is foreign to marxist thinking and should be resisted. Racism 'as we know 
>it' is part of the internal logic of capitalist development.
>
>Regards
>Tahir
>
>
>
>      --- from list aut-op-sy-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---

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