In their rush to portray liberal internationalism as the height of human achievement, too many historians have forgotten what Mazower regards as the real ideological impulse behind the U.N.’s creation: preservation of the British Empire and white rule over Europe’s colonial possessions.

From Hope Against History, a review of two books about the founding of the United Nations in The American Prospect.

This article reminds me of a piece I have been meaning to write about racism as an ideology. So often when we talk about race and racism, we want to play the equivalency game. When Harry Allen says, for example,Racism has a sole, functional expression: White supremacy., someone invariably trots Robert Mugabe as proof that non-white people can be racist too.

That’s a problematic game for a couple of reasons, the first being context. Harry Allen is speaking (I think) about racism as it functions in the U.S. Robert Mugabe encouraging the killing of white farmers is a Zimbabwean problem with a Zimbabwean context. And, I would argue, it is fundamentally different because the farmers’ whiteness isn’t the problem; that they are descended from brutal, murderous colonizers who happen to be white is. HisMugabe’s rhetoric (to my knowledge) is not arguing black superiority, but reclamation of resources (as a way to distract Zimbabweans from completely rebelling against his shitty governance).

The other reason is that the equivalency game assumes racism is an action. Racism is an ideology, one that hierarchically ranks people’s humanity based on phenotype. Racism’s historical origins are concomitant with — and was used as justification for — European imperialism, colonialism, and capitalism in the 19th century. To argue that racism and white supremacy aren’t the same thing is a demonstration of ignorance, naivety, or avoidance. Most cards played in the equivalency game are examples nationalism, ethnocentrism, or religion, not racism.

That’s not to say that religious bigotry, nationalism, and ethnocentrism don’t have the same practical effects — subjugation, death, discrimination — as racism. It’s to say that racism is different because it erases markers of ethnicity. Skin color — not culture, geography, language, or belief system — is considered a unifier and / or a measure of personhood.

Also see:

• On internalized racism
• On imperialism, blacks as The Other, and gays in Uganda
• Four statements on the race question from UNESCO [PDF file]

Latin America is extravagant and irrational, nothing can be done about it; its dictators are savages and inhumane, but we miss them as characters of a novel; and we find solace in its inhabitants’ ability to maintain their will to dream in the middle of poverty and injustice. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, it is very nice to be exotic, to brown under the sun and to be neighbors with criminals and torturers, to populate chaotic and bloody cities, to believe in voodoo or in the Virgin of Guadalupe, to belong to such gracious and unusual nations.

In his talk, Volpi criticizes the concept of a Latin American genre of fiction defined by a belief in or resignation to the supernatural. Volpi believes that such a thing ignores the rich literary diversity of Latin America. It’s a pernicious form of stereotyping that limits writers, readers, and regions.

This paragraph in particular caught my attention because I think it is the way most Southern nations and peoples are viewed and treated by the European-American establishment. Tan, brown and black people are almost universally deemed less modern, more regressive, and in need of either saving or punishment depending on your political leanings. This plays out in the fiction world when we expect that the work of Southern nations writers will be more tortured, more magical or just plain different somehow than that of their European or American counterparts. And if it isn’t, it is not authentic.

Perhaps this is part of a larger discussion about art, authenticity and representation. Is it ever possible for an ‘Othered’ artist to make art without being Positive and Uplifting^TM or An Authentic Representation of the Group Experience^TM?

Also see: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s 2009 TED talk Chimamanda Adichie: The danger of a single story, and Binyavanga Wainaina’s 2005 Granta essay How to Write About Africa.

[Via The Millions]

* Chil’ please. Yes I know Africa is a continent of 47 countries, give or take some disputed territory and excluding islands off the coasts. But how many times have you heard the place spoken of as though it was one big ass nation full of black people somewhere over there?

It was the most successful form of colonialism: the colonized mind identified completely with the colonizer. The Javanese had held out for centuries, but finally they had lost. Their idea of there being many paths to God, none better than the other, had broken under the weight of the orthodox Arab injunction about the one true faith. The Javanese now skulked like criminals where their president had meditated just twenty years earlier.

Indonesian native Sadanand Dhume on the rise of an Arab-looking — rather than a localized, Indonesian-looking form of Islam — that has taken root in the country in the last 30 or so years. From this month’s Guernica piece, The Colonized Mind.

On a slightly related note: is it useful to think about jihadism and Islamism and the rhetoric from them as a form of global, anti-neo-colonialist liberation theology rather than a literal call to arms?

Also: Check out Irshad Manji’s book The Trouble with Islam Today: A Muslim’s Call for Reform in Her Faith. Read a bit about the Islamic tradition of ijtihad, and check out Marc Lynch’s Foreign Policy blog post Ft. Hood and the Clash of Civilizations: Security vs political correctness revisited.