This man has more freedom than me.
I was working on a longer second commentary on Ahmari’s universalism in his review of Malik’s book when friend of the susbtack Always Adblock left a thoughtful comment, complete with memo headings, that inspired me to add an intervening section.
Always Adblock writes:
I've tried to think of a snappy phrasing for the book's claim, and the best I can come up with is "European-originated racialist essentialism" (EORE. If I could somehow have made it EURO I'd have done so.) As you argue, it fails as a claim, but I'd like to add two other ways in that it fails:
1) Just Because We Don't Know For Sure Other Groups Didn't View Different Groups As Racially Essentially Different, We Know They Defined Them By Their Differences.
Unless we're to believe somehow that the Bantu word 'mzungu' and the Chinese word 'gwailo' are European innovations, obviously other groups can notice differences and ascribe characteristics to them, one of which will be appearance-based. But just because there's an absence of evidence of this happening in every case of first contact doesn't mean we don't have evidence of differences being understood immediately. The tale of the Mayan prophecy of a God coming from the sea, coinciding with Cortes' arrival in a 'mountain from the horizon', points not so much to some pristine Mesoamerican universalism, but perhaps the most pronounced example of perceived group differences ever to take place. The extremely primitive Sentinelese of the Indian Ocean, meanwhile, may or may not have words or concepts for race or ethnicity, but judging from the way they pelt spears at missionaries but not at each other, they're quite apt to have an in-group preference. That these two examples aren't bound up with a written declaration of how dreadfully racist they are is simultaneously important and trivial: it's important because it shows there is no need for Eurocentrism to point out that belief in differences between groups is pretty widespread, if not universal. And it's trivial because, well, duh, obviously that's the case.
2) Virtually Every Ethnicity Or Racial Group Or Culture With Any Lasting Presence Has Defined Itself Positively In Contrast To Its Enemies Real Or Perceived
Again, so trivial as to be a truism, but in the absence of a universal human universalism, and in a world either of warring tribes or fiefdoms or nation-states, what exactly is the alternative here? Quick: what and where is/was Bophuthatswana? Yeah, exactly. Virile societies and ethnic groups are proud of their differences. This needn't necessarily teeter into chauvinism (though of course it often does) but "we're all, like, the same, man" is a trait that's likely to see a society conquered or bred out or, in the best possible scenario, intermarried into another society less shy about asserting its difference. In other words, the exact scenario decried by Ahmari's writer is the only one that is possible to succeed. If Whitey turned out - temporarily, and to its eventual cost - to be better at it, well, them's the breaks. It doesn't mean it either originated with them nor that it lived uniquely with them. But, a final point on that: "(since groups are responsible for the actions of members)" In polite society, this only applies to White people. Hence the claim of Ahmari's interlocutor, which will be the dominant one in short order.
These are excellent points, and we’ll turn to why Ahmari’s article suggests that whitey is in big trouble in the next post.
But another point to be added here is that ethnoracial groups that are arranged in a status hierarchy less severe than what obtained under modern European racialism can feature the subordinate group being independently proud or chauvinistic about their differences without understanding that they’re in a subordinate, hierarchical position. This means, in other words, that we can have racial caste stratification without a “false consciousness” or ideology of racial inferiority imposed upon a subordinate group.
In The Ethnic Phenomenon, the Marxist/evolutionary psychologist Pierre van den Berghe describes just such a situation when he analyzes the relationship between advanced Bantu horticulturalists and Bambuti (pygmy) hunter-gatherers, the latter of which are on average 20 cm shorter than the former despite their superior PALEO DIET.
What modus vivendi have these two groups established between them? Depending on whether one looks at it from a Bantu or a Bambuti perspective, the picture is somewhat different. (Turnbull, by the way. distinctly looks at ethnic relations from a Bambuti point of view, perhaps more than the reality of the situation warrants.) The Bantu look at the Bambuti (whom they regard almost as a different and inferior species of doubtful humanity) with a kind of amused condescension, tinged with some fear because of their association with the forest. To the Bantu, the forest and all creatures associated with it, Bambuti included, represent danger, nature and savagery, and are safely avoided. At the same time, the Bantu find the Bambuti entertaining dwarfs and establish with them patron-client relationships.
Indeed, the Bantu refer to particular Bambuti individuals and bands as "theirs," in a proprietary sense. Whole Bantu villages see themselves as collective "owners" of specific Bambuti bands, considering the relationship as hereditary. In addition, individual Bantu patrons are linked to individual Bambuti clients. In the Bantu's mind, there is no question as to who is whose superior. The Bambuti, for their part, see themselves as free to come and go as they please, and as in no sense dependent on, much less "owned" by, the Bantu. Far from regarding themselves as exploited by the Bantu, the Bambuti think of the relationship as one beneficial to themselves. in which they trick the Bantu into giving them desirable things that are not, strictly speaking, necessary, though they make life much easier and more pleasant.
The Bambuti thus see their association with the Bantu as optional. since they can always withdraw into the self-sufficiency of the forest, merely by foregoing the luxuries of the Bantu villages. So. at any rate, Turnbull (1965) tells us, although he may somewhat idealize the Bambuti's situation.
van den Berghe continues to describe the relatively benign racial hierarchy:
In addition to meat and honey, the Bambuti offer the Bantu their labor and occasionally a woman who usually becomes a junior wife of a Bantu. (Bantu women never marry Bambuti, and the unidirectionality of interbreeding clearly indicates some measure of Bambuti subordination to the Bantu. The Bambuti as a group are woman-losers, and thus their fitness is correspondingly reduced [ed. Maybe they need an ideology that defines children born of Bambuti women as Bambuti].) Turnbull describes the labor which the Bambuti furnish as desultory, unreliable and intermittent, and the Bantu regard the Bambuti as lazy (much as Belgian colonials regarded all Congolese, incidentally). For a few hours of lackadaisical work in the fields, in house construction or in manioc pounding, the Bambuti receive loads of starchy food and a few trinkets. Clearly, their labor is not essential to the village economy nor is the village food to the Bambuti. Both sides regard the transaction as a convenience more than as a necessity.
Perhaps one of the main intangible benefits that the Bambuti bring to the Bantu, and vice versa, is amusement. The Bantu regard the Bambuti as childish pranksters, good dancers and musicians, and entertainers. (In this too, their stereotypes of Bambuti closely resemble the racism of the Europeans toward all Congolese during the colonial era.) The Bambuti are, therefore, called upon to participate in Bantu festivals and are even incorporated into Bantu rites of passage, such as initiation and marriage. The Bambuti, for their part, also find the Bantu villagers amusing, pretend to play their games. act clownishly and delight in tricking them into favorable transactions. The Bambuti regard their sojourn in the Bantu village as something of a lark, a pleasant break from ordinary forest life, during which they are fed in exchange for a little work and clowning. In addition, they get some useful trade goods from it-otherwise unobtainable. When they tire of the game, they simply leave for the forest, until the fancy strikes them again. For the Bantu, too, the Bambuti are an amusing change of pace, a kind of travelling circus of dwarfs, who, in addition to being entertaining, bring meat and do a little desultory work around the house and fields.
So we have an exploitative relationship between semi-distinct, mostly inbreeding tribes (each of which relies upon a different “mode of production”) that is accompanied by a Bantu taxonomic perception of the Bambuti as innately inferior. Simultaneously, the Bambuti are seemingly unaware of or do not believe in this categorization and believe themselves to be unique and free. There doesn’t seem to be any evidence that the Bantu have forced any sort of false consciousness upon the Bambuti in this respect. This makes me wonder whether the Bantu have created this taxonomy to “rationalize” their exploitative relationship with the Bambuti, or whether their taxonomy is, at least in part, simply the result of human perception mediated by the Bantu group self-image.
Van den Berghe concludes by contrasting this situation with others that are less fortunate for pygmies:
[Between the Bantu and Bambuti] is clear evidence of inequality, racism and paternalism. Indeed, Bantu-Bambuti relations seem like a buffoonish reenactment of a classical colonial relationship. What saves the Bambuti from the fate of becoming a conquered people is that they have so far managed to retain a large measure of economic self-sufficiency and that their forest habitat affords them a refuge. How much longer is problematic. Changes in the environment, such as opening the forest to logging operations could drastically alter the relationship, almost certainly to the Bambuti 's detriment. In other parts of central Africa, such as Rwanda, Pygmy groups, such as the Batwa, have indeed become incorporated as low-status groups into states dominated by Bantu or Hamitic conquerors, such as the Watuzi. The Bambuti way of life is doomed. Hunters and gatherers today constitute perhaps 0.02% of Africa's population. While it lasted, however, it was a reasonably good way of life.
The expansion and institutionalization of power and technique (civilization), not the invention of “racism,” has allowed other Black conquerors to subjugate other pygmy populations to a far greater degree than what the Bambuti have suffered under the Bantu, largely because civilization makes it easy to destroy the Bambuti spatial and economic advantages that preserve some of their autonomy from exploitation at the hands of the Bantu.
Nice post.
Much as with the Rwandan Genocide, where a huge number of observers argued that the Hutu-Tutsi rivalry was one created by the Belgians before it spiraled out of control, one wonders how much blame is to be correctly apportioned to the European colonizers here. For Van den Berghe to say the relationship looks like a re-enactment of colonial times (albeit a benign and friendly one) presupposes that there was no relationship like this prior to colonization. I'm ignorant as to whether or not that's the case.
But the overall point that the physical Bantu expansion is what permitted their competition to take on a discriminatory, deadly aspect is undeniable. The Twa are one tragic example, but for inter-Bantu conflict one need only look at the Zulu and the Sotho. Long before the Boer appeared on the scene, the former was rampaging against the latter, and they were clearly able to differentiate each other without a handy How To Racist guide from the nearest trekker.