"Savages"

Savages. “Feral savages”. Those words have been used to characterise the rioters. Not just the rioters, but all the people who belong to the “class” that rioters are presumed to come from. And because there isn’t a social class called “rioters”, pundits have rushed in to fill the description by making unfounded assumptions: they are black and brown, they have single mothers, they are on benefits, they live in council housing, they don’t have fathers.

And every time someone has referred to the rioters as “savages”, this very song would pop up in my head.

Melanie Phillips is the picture of a friendly, progressive, liberal lady who goes to yoga classes and makes vegetarian soups. It came as a shock to learn that she’s a rightwing Daily Male pundit.

I don’t usually engage with the insanity that pesters in the Daily Male, so I’ll just use her words to make a wider point. In a recent piece of hers, Phillips wrote:

“(…) the most important thing that socialises children and turns them from feral savages into civilised citizens”

That most important thing turns out to be a “father”, in case you were wondering.

I want to go back to this song because it provides a neat context on which to judge this accusation of rioters as “feral savages”.

For those who haven’t heard of it, the song is from the movie “Pocahontas”, which tells the story of British Settlers arriving to the “New World” with the intention to pillage and plunder in good old British fashion.

The word “savages” is, as you may have guessed, used by the settlers to refer to the natives. The settlers were “civilised”, and the natives were not. This state of affairs was essential for the settlers to justify the carnage they inflicted upon several peoples in order to steal their land.

Some of the descendents of those peoples, referred today as Native Americans, are still around and there is no shortage of activists ready to condemn the carnage and the destruction that the settlers brought to their ancestors.

But that’s the thing, you see: they condemn the Americans for their actions. And Britain is left off the hook. To my knowledge, Native American activists have not laid the blame for the actions of the White Man at the feet of the “Mother Country”.

It was British settlers who first arrived to America. And the idea of natives as “savages”, and of Europeans as “civilised” grew, partly, on British soil. It clearly hasn’t been extirpated yet.

I find it fascinating that these ideas share the same root with the accusations of rioters as “feral savages” in need of “civilising”. The words are the same for a reason.

And the template for dealing with the rioters is the same as the template for colonization: there are “feral savages” in need of “civilising” by the White Man or Great Father.

I also wonder if Melanie Phillips would have been able to get away with using these words in a country like Australia.

It didn’t work in the case of Native Americans, and it won’t work with the rioters. That much is obvious. The mindset that considers “brown people” or “children” (notice how in the case of the rioters those two categories are blurry) as “feral savages” is not the mindset that will “civilise” them. If by “civilising” one means educating them, clothing them, feeding them; all the noble goals that colonizers adopted and which, as you might expect, amounted to nothing. Instead, the "savages" were exterminated or turned into "second class citizens" of a nation they didn't not choose.

The problem is Patriarchy. The problem is Civilisation. And we must end both.

Note: Yes, I do know that "Pocahontas" is problematic in a bazillion ways, but I'm making a very basic point here, which still stands.

What's It Gonna Be?

Following on the attacks in Norway, Jeremy Paxman got busy today interviewing English Defence League leader “Tommy Robinson” (real name Stephen Yaxley Lennon). The reason being that the man behind the attacks in Norway, Anders Breivik, is rumoured to have had connections with the EDL.

The standard liberal response to the interview, much like the time the BNP leader was interviewed on the BBC, is to call him a “thug” “tosser” and “racist”; to decry Newsnight for giving him a platform on which to spout hatred; and to demand that he just stops talking altogether. 

I belong to the more nuanced branch of the Left, which looks at groups like the BNP and the EDL and sees all the signs of fascism that you would expect when THINGS ARE SO CRAP FOR THE WORKING CLASS.

Fascism, contrary to popular belief, is not condemned by those in power: it’s condoned. 

Here’s why:

*In order to rule the world under a right-wing ideology (that’s what we have now, by the way), you need to convince people that the right-wing ideology is good and right.

*Unfortunately, right-wing ideology only serves the interest of those in power, the rich.

*Here’s the catch: most people are not rich. So in order to convince the poor that right-wing ideology is right you need to create scapegoats.

Scapegoats are those groups who are intrinsically oppressed by the system, who will not cause (much) trouble because they are so powerless or so small in number.

What we have here is a whole lot of people getting incredibly angry because their lives are getting progressively worse. And because they can’t find a reason, they turn against the very people that the rich and powerful tell them to turn against. Which, according to the rules of the system, are always the people below them in the social hierarchy. (read Derrick Jensen’s "Endgame" premises for more on this) The very people on which the system acts out violently, one form or another, all the time. Muslims, single mothers, immigrants, asylum seekers, benefit recipients, etc. Because violence is only allowed to flow in one direction, EDL members are merely asking for a more extreme version of that same violence. And it’s in the interest of those in power to keep the poor and angry trapped in kicking those below them to vent their rage and frustration.

In time, however, this situation is unsustainable. Because when poor people don’t turn against the rich and powerful, things tend to get much worse for them. That is exactly what is happening now.

Poor people get angrier because things are getting worse and because their kicking doesn’t seem to be working. This is where Britain is at the moment. And it’s at this juncture that only two things can happen.

* One, people descend into fascism. The leader of the EDL is right in one thing: if things carry on the way they are going, “something like this (the attacks in Norway) could happen in 5 or 10 years time”. Fascism means the most vulnerable in society get some serious kicking. And… nothing much changes for the poor.

* The other thing that could happen is a revolution of some sort. The poor and dispossessed rise against those in power and force them to “make concessions”, that is, distribute the pie more fairly (which comes under the banner of “liberalism”). Or they succeed in taking over power altogether. That would be socialism.

What really chips my hide is that liberals act all surprised at the words of Lennon. Has nobody read the history of fascism? I haven’t, ‘cuz I don’t like history, but even I know the basic ideas behind it. How did Hitler rise to power? Easy. Germans were very poor and very angry. It was either communism/socialism or fascism. And because fascism always works in favour of those in power, it was fascism. (Indeed, Hitler had to disguise his rhetoric under the banner of “socialism”, because the latter was so popular). When he got into power he brought nothing but fascism, and the proof is in the way poor working class people were treated.

There is nothing surprising about what’s going on with the EDL or the BNP. The poor are angry. You only have to listen to Lennon to realise he’s not your average “Newsnight” interviewee. I can’t remember the last time someone on the BBC used the word “them” to mean “those”, a characteristic, I believe, of regional English. How about the words “working class”? This man is not yet another privately educated rich boy with Oxfordian English, which are pretty much the only people you see on the BBC. He represents the poor and angry who have no idea what is causing their misery and lash against those whom the system tells them to lash against.

I get angry and I shouldn’t. The answer is not anger but compassion. Can we at least try to put ourselves in the shoes of those people who are suffering right now, who are poor and working or poorer and unemployed, who have to struggle every day just to get by and watch how the “establishment”, meaning those in power, sneer at the very thought of them?

Can we begin to imagine what it must feel like for those who have only heard one tune their whole lives, one of hatred against those more vulnerable than them, who have never actually known what the left stands for because the “tune” has made sure the left is not an ally to their interests but the cause of their grief, and who have nowhere to turn but towards an ideology that promises some sort of relief by kicking those below them real hard?

Where is the left, I want to know. Sleeping peacefully and soundly among the well-meaning hearts of middle class liberals? Amongst people who find the word “chav” to be offensive but who recoil in horror at the people who carry that label?

I come from a poor country and let me tell you: I have never seen so much hatred against the poor. Yes, they are entirely misguided in their politics. Yes, they are islamophobic, racist, misogynist, homophobic, classist, etc. That’s-the-point. If they weren’t, we would have had a revolution by now.  

We must be very careful not to fall for the trick of hating on the poor ourselves. Islamophobia, racism, misogyny, homophobia, classism, etc. are not all that surprising: we deal with them on an every day basis. But it's always much easier to hate on the poor when they start spouting these... "ideas". It's much easier because, amongst other things, we get to side with Jeremy Paxman. 

The alternative, as always, is compassion. And dialogue. Lots of it. Yes, even if it is painful and we feel like hating on the haters. Feminists should know; we put up with it everyday.