Alex/Thom/Willis,
The "micropolitics" of colonial violence? Is the implication here that colonialism is only immoral on the spot where the blood falls?
Also, thanks for the heads-up that the left, people of color, sexual and religious minorities are responsible for fascists being fascists. It's everybody's fault but the fascists, of course.* If only these other people would shut the hell up about the things they don't get or that are taken from them, well, then we'd have a better, non-identity politics, the kind where white men, hey presto, just seem to do so darn well -- and it's for everybody else's good, don't you see?
This whole message reads as if it were workshopped on Reddit. White male innocence. White male fragility. Concern trolling. Victim blaming. Superfecta.
-R.
* Along similar lines, Rebecca Solnit has a killer take on the Weinstein fallout and the tendency to blame women (including victims) for men's crimes:
http://lithub.com/things-that-are-hillary-clintons-fault-starting-with-harvey-weinstein/
On Thu, Oct 12, 2017 at 03:27:52PM +0100, Alex Macleod wrote:
> Serene,
>
> Criticising is good, yes. I criticise the paragraph in Gilley's work where he justifies the reasons why outsiders travelled to colonial areas - for me, that was disturbing and would have been removed if properly peer reviewed. I also dislike the idea of encouraging states to become colonial.
>
> I wouldn't say he is uncritical, he is perhaps immoral in ignoring the micropolitics of colonial violence. But other papers have covered that issue, I think his perspective is more focused around a critique of anticolonial theory and the macro-scales of statehood, institutions and infrastructure.
>
> I think his point about 'colonialism for hire' is particularly interesting, reflecting IMF bailouts when central banks go into debt.
>
> The last section, arguably most controversial, the way I see it, basically just says that neoimperialism is colonialism and we should embrace, not discriminate against, this term to help certain countries to develop after their immediate anticolonial period eg through western funding/economic assistance.
>
> Controversial yes, clickbait, no - the man is a scholar of international relations and colonial governance. His arguments act as a critique of anticolonial theory and are valid in their own right, if slightly immoral. Why should peers dismiss it just because they disagree? It's naive to believe that it was mere 'academic' factors responsible for how this piece of work eventually got treated, given the way that academia and academic funding are all centred on the value of left-wing approaches. And to reduce this work to a blog piece suggests that academia should treat with a wide berth all contrarian, non-left-leaning, even controversial arguments. It is accurately cited after all.
>
> I have to say, reading it again, his critique of anticolonialism is valuable, despite his angle for doing so (and very critical, as someone who has their own problems with the 'holy trinity' of Said, Spivak and Bhabha). The last section, arguably most controversial, the way I see it, basically just says that neoimperialism is colonialism and we should embrace, not discriminate against, this concept in order to help certain countries to develop after their immediate anticolonial period e.g. through western funding/economic assistance.
>
> My point about 'othering' is not completely separate/irrelevant, it explains why even in our attempts to value and highlight subaltern voices, we should not do this at the expense of overbalance i.e. discrimination against those whose views veer even slightly 'right' of centre, or even 'centre' of 'left', or those who are white, male and feel they are forced to apologise for this. Identity politics is on a slippery path in my opinion, responsible for the rise of Trump and the 'pepe'-supporting alt-right army. It feels increasingly distanced from reality, hence my warning.
>
> Peace,
>
> AM x
|