Fires burning in the mind today compete with the fire that Israel has lit over Gaza’s land and in its inhabitants' lives. That began years before this war, but it found its feast in this war, as disasters always feed on disasters.
“The white man" is a theme of the fire we are referring to.
Defining groups and nations by the color of their skin implies a sort of fusion with nature that was not overcome by society nor tamed by modernization. It brings to mind the world of Tarzan, and it tempts us to think up a children's game: "the white man" eradicated "the red man", oppressed "the black man", and besieged "the yellow man"... and so on.
In this, we find something similar to the way in which some Lebanese media outlets speak of "the Syrian", "the Palestinian", "the American", "the French", and "the Iranian," lumping millions into a single person, the ruler or leader of the country.
The individual does not exist. There is no individual person, personal endeavor, or personal opinion, which bows humbly to the color of his skin or some other definitive marker of a supposed identity.
As for the "white man’s" portrayal as a villain incapable of anything but evil, it presents him as having known nothing but spoils and privilege acquired by force of arms and amassed through plunder and coercion.
According to this narrative, he never endured the pains of the industrial revolution or those of totalitarianism and its wars, gulags, and gas chambers. With the exception of theft and tyranny, he has not produced anything: no schools, universities, hospitals, bridges, or water canals. He did not develop medicine, invent cinema, build an airplane or a ship, or created any technologies that have benefited humanity.
It is true that the "white man" has sided with Israel in its war on Gaza, contradicting his values and betraying his principles. But this very assertion refers to values and principles that it would be difficult to accuse countries like Russia or China of betraying, as the question of values and principles is not posed in the first place. More importantly, history and reality in their totality can’t be reduced to an abhorrent Western position on the war in Gaza, or any other abhorrent political position, however horrendous it may be.
No matter how hard some may try to attribute this color discourse to some sort of left, it is very identitarian and right-wing. The decline of the left and the ensuing decline of its internationalist message are one of the reasons behind this resurgence of identity, which has rejected the left’s customary approach of ascribing color and gender contradictions to social factors that go beyond color and gender in themselves. In turn, the fact that some left-wing parties were taken by the storm of identities contributed to the surge in support for right-wing parties among segments of the white working-class in Europe.
We now find the cry of war against the "white man" continuing where the cries for building a bloc of "Arabs" or "Muslims" or "Africans" or "Latinos" had left off. The driving philosophy has remained the same: the state of the world does not change; its history, from start to finish, is that of a perpetual war between whites and non-whites. This war cannot be stopped or channeled into something else, especially since colors are by definition impervious to change.
However, if we were to use this racist terminology for the sake of argument, we could ask: What about the "brown man"? He oppresses women in Afghanistan, but also in many other countries, and has instigated and is instigating civil wars, has displaced and is displacing peoples, has tyrannized and is tyrannizing ethnic and religious minorities, and has built regimes that are unworthy even of slaves, whose hallmarks are prisons and torture, to say nothing about how he has emptied notions of independence and national liberation of all their positive connotations...
The fact is that these condemnations of the "white man" would have been taken more seriously if they had been accompanied by some self-criticism, such as highlighting, for example, the history of our ancestors, who invaded and conquered other nations and traded in slaves on a massive scale. As for the color discourse’s disregard for all of this, it seems to suggest the circuitous affirmation of a dangerous narrative, that the "white man" is the only subject of history, while everyone else, including ourselves, are mere puppets and objects. The fervent critics of "Eurocentrism" thereby present European history as being the only history of any significance and influence.
There is nothing innovative about the claim that racism, be it white, black, or yellow, is extremely cruel and unjust, that its history is extremely gruesome, and that it still exists and continues to influence the thinking and actions of broad segments of populations. As for the privileges afforded by the color of one’s skin, it continues to fuel class disparities, as well as segregation and discrimination, to say nothing about personal biases that are not difficult to demonstrate. The United States specifically, from before the emergence of the Ku Klux Klan to after the heinous murder of George Floyd, has been home to racism based on color. Nonetheless, racism is debated only in the countries of the "white man,” and only there are laws passed to push back against it, large numbers of immigrants and asylum seekers taken in, and projects for culturally and ethnically pluralistic societies put forward. It is only there that history moves up and down, and transformative shifts unfold, like those brought about by the American civil rights movement in the sixties, which was followed by the birth of the black middle class and the rise of non-white figures to the top of the social and political hierarchy.
More progressive policy and progress on social justice could accelerate the shift in this direction and reduce and decrease setbacks. However, such tasks cannot be undertaken in a period of short time, nor can this path be as smooth and straight as a freeway without twists and turns.
In any case, reverse racism is also racism. Assuming that racist remarks are no longer racist when uttered by a victim is as flawed as assuming that the victim cleanses and purifies racist rhetoric by the mere fact that it comes out of his mouth.
