Anticolonialism, Antiracism, and Ecology
Asked in a recent interview whether or not ecology can and should be the common cause that unites the world today, a well-known white European philosopher, Jacques Rancière, responded as follows:
Rather than opening up a new horizon of hope, ecology presents us with an imminent catastrophe. To the ‘there is no alternative’ of capitalist necessity, hammered into us by our governments, it opposes another logic of urgent necessity: the race to save the planet. We are told this is the only thing to do. But the question is: who will do it? Most environmentalist discourses want to overcome the old political divisions by stating the conditions for the planet’s survival, but, in this way, they short-circuit the question of the political subject: what fighting forces, what forms of struggle can make ecology the cause of all and not that of experts who rely on the goodwill of the masters of the world?
In other words, this white European philosopher is willing to concede that countering planetary ecocide is a “common cause” for people across the globe to rally around today, but he is skeptical as to whether those promoting the cause have answered the question of who will “lead” the cause and who will “follow.”
It is a mark of Rancière’s white Eurocentricity that he hasn’t recognized that his question has already been asked and definitively answered by radicals hailing from the Black, indigenous, and colored communities of the global majority. Simply put, the movement to counter ecocide must be led by radicals belonging to the dispossessed and denigrated races of humanity in communion with non-human others — those for whom ecological catastrophe is not an imminent threat but the accomplished fact of white Eurocentric humanism. Only anti-colonial and anti-racist fighting forces and forms of struggle can make countering ecocide the cause of all, and these forces must be cooperatively led by those most victimized by colonialism and racism.
On the one hand, though the global cause of ecology must be cooperatively led by the dispossessed victims of colonialism in general, it is important for the cause to defer to the victims of settler colonialism in particular: the indigenous peoples whose homelands were stolen from them by white European settlers bent on driving indigenous peoples and their cultures to extinction.
On the other hand, though the global cause of ecology must be cooperatively led by the denigrated victims of racism in general, it is important for the cause to defer to the victims of anti-Black racism in particular: the African peoples cast as socially dead, slave stock to be harvested and deported from their homelands by white European colonizers bent on breeding a slave labor force composed of dark-skinned peoples minted “Negroes.”
Eurocentric humanists have, to a large extent, failed to recognize and defer to Black and indigenous peoples as leading political subjects in global rebellions and resistance movements against the ecocidal machinations of the imperialist white-supremacist capitalist patriarchal world order. Too many believe, like Karl Marx did, that the white working classes and white youth of the Euro-Atlantic’s most “advanced” civilizations have been and will continue to be at the forefront of global rebellions and resistance movements against a capitalism that they imagine can be disentangled from racism, sexism, and humanism. Too many are oblivious to the fact that, for more than five hundred years, the white working classes and white youth of the Euro-Atlantic’s most advanced civilizations have been making deadly and disastrous compromises with global capitalism at the expense of the victims of colonialism and racism, all while the victims of colonialism and racism have instigated and led the most creative rebellions and resistance movements against capitalism. Indeed, the white working classes and white youth of the Euro-Atlantic have only ever been agents of radical change when they have taken the side of and learned from the examples of the victims of colonialism and racism. They have, otherwise, been reactionary forces: either siding with capitalists against the victims of colonialism and racism or turning a blind eye to the suffering of these victims.
This is not to say that the white working classes and white youth of the Euro-Atlantic have no positive role to play in radical peoples’ movements to counter ecocide today. Rather to the contrary, this is to say that the white working classes and white youth need to learn to play accompanying and supporting roles. Every maker and connoisseur of the performing arts knows better than to dismiss the role of the accompaniment and the supporting players involved in a performance, for it is very often the quality of the accompaniment and the supporting players that makes or breaks the performances of the leading players. Who would the great Motown stars be without the remarkable session players who accompanied and supported them on their records and tours?
With this in mind, ecologically-minded segments of the white working classes and white youth of the Euro-Atlantic ought to be asking themselves the following question, “How can we rebel against our bosses and our elders in such a way that we are effectively accompanying and supporting anti-colonial and anti-racist struggles led by Black and indigenous peoples?” In and through asking and answering this question, the white working classes and white youth will learn to attend to the histories and follow the currents of anti-colonial and anti-racist struggles, and to get a feel for the rhythms and patterns of these struggles so that they might accompany them in complementary ways by and through fighting class and generational struggles.
Going further and digging deeper, this does not mean that the white working classes and white youth need to take orders from the victims of colonialism and racism but, rather, that they need to both cue in and take cues from them. In keeping with figures of leadership found in performing ensembles, as opposed to figures found in bureaucratic hierarchies, the player who takes the lead in an ensemble performance isn’t a “decision-maker” who gives orders to the other players. Rather, the lead player is a “focal point” where cues from different members of the ensemble gather and from where divergent cues to different members of the ensemble disperse.
No matter whether we are Black, white, indigenous, or colored, and no matter whether our ancestors identified with the colonizers or their victims, we must all be wary of those who vigorously take up the cause of ecology today without also taking up the histories and currents of anti-colonial and anti-racist struggles with equal vigor. A global ecology movement that cannot be recognized as an anti-colonial and anti-racist movement, and that does not invite Black and indigenous rebels to play leading roles, is an eco-imperialist ruse.
Imperialist white-supremacist capitalist patriarchs have dominated the world stage for centuries, conducting genocides, ethnocides, and ecocides in the name of civilization and progress, and violently forcing darker peoples into subordinate roles as their proxies, redeemers, and slaves. Today, agents of the white-savior industrial complex of Empire are posing as experts and leaders on matters of sustainability and conservation, and they are claiming that the future of civilization and progress demands that they be granted new powers and authorities to administer and supervise the lives of the victims of colonialism and racism. The new found mission of white saviors, the “white man’s burden” of the New Eco-Imperialism, is to intervene in the lives of poor Black, indigenous, and colored peoples in order to teach them the virtues of sustainability and conservation.
Returning to where we began, we must wonder why Eurocentric thinkers like Rancière are so reluctant to openly recognize the past and present leadership of Black, indigenous, and other colored peoples in global rebellions and resistance movements against the ecocidal machinations of Empire. Such reluctance suggests that these Eurocentric thinkers are priming the white working classes and white youth of the Euro-Atlantic West to make a deadly and disastrous compromise with the New Eco-Imperialists at the expense of the victims of colonialism and racism. To this end, Eurocentric thinkers are choosing to engage in the fabrication and fabulation of a radical “people-to-come” from out of the white working classes and white youth of Europe and Amerikkka. These fabrications and fabulations deny the reality that the white working classes and white youth cannot become radical forces for reparative and regenerative change without first recognizing and supporting the leadership of Black, indigenous, and other colored rebels who simply cannot self-actualize and become who they are apart from becoming radical forces for change.
