The basis of my remarks on racism in France and England is two-fold: one is
the far, far greater political power in France of the racist right, as
measured by its electoral vote; the other is the witness of the many black
friends of my children's who have lived and worked all over Europe. None of
them, as far as I know, has the privilege of working for ngos or of speaking
to you--but there we are back at the problem of how to treat witness, which
I mentioned, to your disdain, some days back.
I did not say the French are invariably welcome; I said that in general
they were more welcome than the British are in their ex-colonies. As
measured by trade, for example, that is demonstrably true. I have read
Fanon, thank you.
The EU does use English; it also produces all its documents in French and
German, and many in the other languages of the EU. English is in no sense
the EU language: documents are often obviously translated either from
French or German, and read rather oddly as a result. The loss of national
currency--I assume you refer to the launch of the euro?--has begun in some
countries, but has not in others. In Britain, for example, the government
has so far refused to be part of it, and the Conservative Party is tearing
itself to bits over the prospect. But it is not a mandatory part of being a
member.
I certainly do not regard the EU as a beacon of hope for the Third World.
My point was that it is simplistic to regard it as an undifferentiated
'Europe'. Coincidentally, I read a brilliant article this morning by Slavoj
Zizek (in the London Review of Books, 18 March, 1999: see
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v21/n06/zize2106.htm for the whole thing). He writes
(amongst much other fascinating analysis of Western culture):
"Even racism is now reflexive. Consider the Balkans. They are portrayed in
the liberal Western media as a vortex of ethnic passion - a multiculturalist
dream turned into a nightmare. The standard reaction of a Slovene (I am one
myself) is to say: 'yes, this is how it is in the Balkans, but Slovenia is
not part of the Balkans; it is part of Mitteleuropa; the Balkans begin in
Croatia or in Bosnia; we Slovenes are the last bulwark of European
civilisation against the Balkan madness.' If you ask, 'Where do the Balkans
begin?' you will always be told that they begin down there, towards the
south-east. For Serbs, they begin in Kosovo or in Bosnia where Serbia is
trying to defend civilised Christian Europe against the encroachments of
this Other. For the Croats, the Balkans begin in Orthodox, despotic and
Byzantine Serbia, against which Croatia safeguards Western democratic
values. For many Italians and Austrians, they begin in Slovenia, the Western
outpost of the Slavic hordes. For many Germans, Austria is tainted with
Balkan corruption and inefficiency; for many Northern Germans, Catholic
Bavaria is not free of Balkan contamination. Many arrogant Frenchmen
associate Germany with Eastern Balkan brutality - it lacks French finesse.
Finally, to some British opponents of the European Union, Continental Europe
is a new version of the Turkish Empire with Brussels as the new Istanbul - a
voracious despotism threatening British freedom and sovereignty."
And what I thought I read in Nicole's account of Europe (although that was
before I read this article) was of a further line, the one behind which
stand some north Americans, for whom the whole of Europe is some regrettably
depraved single entity.
I base my remarks about the absence of the concept of race in the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries on work which traces the late development of the
idea of race as a biological or "natural kind" such as Anthony Appiah's--for
example his "Race, Culture, Identity: Misunderstood Connections," in Appiah
and Gutmann, Color Conscious: the Political Morality of Race. (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1996). My Sri Lankan friend, even though she is
even older than I am, wasn't alive at that time, and she is not an
historian, so I am not unduly concerned when she does not launch into
discussions about pre-Enlightenment attitudes to the Other.
Selling people into slavery is not in itself evidence of racism. The
Portuguese and Spanish sold whites into slavery too. The capital of Sri
Lanka is still Colombo. One of the reasons I know this is because the
President is a friend of mine (I just couldn't resist putting in a
Nicole-like bit of evidence--but by the way, she is not the friend of whom I
wrote in my last email on this topic).
You say: "When the portuguese arrived in Sri Lanka in the 16th century,
this was the
beginning of 400 years of european domination. I don't understand how that
reflects that they were "the least racist of all"?" I didn't say that the
first fact reflected the second remark, so I can't help you understand it.
I don't understand it myself. You say: "kind of strange how people who are
"the least racist" fight so hard for control over a land that isn't theirs?
" I didn't say they weren't racist; but racism doesn't *necessarily* have
anything at all to do with fighting to keep land that isn't yours.
I could go on, but I haven't time. And why bother? There's nothing Nicole
doesn't already know. You can't be right because you haven't read the
Koran. OK, you have, but you haven't read it in the original Arabic. OK,
you have, but you haven't read the right chapter. OK, you have, but you
haven't read the right commentary. OK, you have, but Nicole knows an
unnamed woman in an unnamed vilage in Somalia who agrees with her, and y o u
a r e w r o n g.
love and kisses
Susan
