Late Davosian Holocausts
I have taken to calling the era in which we are living the “Late Davosian” era — named for the town, Davos, that hosts the World Economic Forum, an annual festival celebrating imperialist white-supremacist capitalist patriarchy and the good deeds that it supports via the white savior industrial complex.
The Late Davosian era that we are living through is an era defined by a cascade of economic, ecological, and public health crises fueled by climate catastrophes that are devastating peoples, cultures, and habitats across the globe — especially those peoples, cultures, and habitats that have yet to yield to the advance of imperialist white-supremacist capitalist patriarchy and to submit themselves to administration and supervision by the various organs of the white savior industrial complex.
I have taken to calling the devastating crises of our era the “Late Davosian Holocausts” because they echo the devastating crises that Mike Davis named the “Late Victorian Holocausts”, which took place between 1870-1914. I want to write to you about the manner in which the ongoing Late Davosian Holocausts echo the Late Victorian Holocausts.
I will begin by quoting at length from a previous dispatch, titled “A Case in Point”, in which I performed a reading of Mike Davis’s text on the Late Victorian Holocausts.
During the Late Victorian period, three waves of drought and famine killed no less than 30 million people in tropical Africa, Asia, and South America between 1870-1914, “at the precise moment … when [the] labor and products [of tropical humanity] were being dynamically conscripted into a London-centered world economy.” As Mike Davis writes, “Millions died, not outside the ‘modern world system,’ but in the very process of being forcibly incorporated into its economic and political structures.”
[…] [T]he Late Victorian Holocausts that Mike Davis chronicles were not the inevitable result of the droughts and famines of the time. Rather, they were the inevitable result of the ethnocides that had preceded the droughts and famines. Ethnocide, you will recall, is the extermination of one or more determinate cultures effected by and through the inhibition of the pre-individual processes and the destruction of the supra-individual structures that together constitute the given cultures. The Late Victorian Holocausts that Mike Davis chronicles occurred because White European colonial powers had effectively exterminated cultures that had previously enabled non-White and non-European peoples to collectively endure drought and famine by conserving, sharing, and redistributing resources.
Consider that the Late Victorian Holocausts that Mike Davis chronicles are limited to the 30 to 60 million deaths linked to the post-ethnocide El Niño droughts and famines of 1876–1878, 1896–1897, and 1899–1902. These 30 to 60 million deaths are only a portion of the deaths that can be attributed to the after-effects of ethnocide on the peoples of the colonized world since 1492. Ay, and all these millions of deaths only hint at the many millions more who have suffered and who continue to suffer transgenerational traumas as a result of colonization, ethnocide, mass murder, and mass death by exposure. All of this put together constitutes the makings of the “Third World” which are, concomitantly, the makings of the “First World”. Alternatively, to use the terms currently preferred by Davos Man and his ilk, all of this constitutes the makings of the “developing world” which are, concomitantly, the makings of the “developed world”. The deathly El Niño famines chronicled by Mike Davis only mark an inflection point for all this carnage. The horrors encountered in the apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic scenarios of popular science fiction are pale after-images of the experiences of peoples, White and non-White, who suffered the creation of the developed and developing worlds.
Considering the above, I want to propose the following: the Late Davosian Holocausts are poised to do by way of neocolonialism what the Late Victorian Holocausts did by way of colonialism, marking a new inflection point in the history of the havoc wreaked by imperialist white-supremacist capitalist patriarchy. This proposition, of course, begs the question, ‘What is neocolonialism?”
Think of it this way… During the colonial era, Western colonizers conducted ethnocides on the peoples of Africa, Asia, and the Americas, decimating the different cultures of these regions by attacking the different customs and structures by and through which these different cultures conserved, shared, and (re-)distributed resources. Western colonists then proceeded to institute colonial administrations in Africa, Asia, and the Americas that were designed to extract resources (people, know-how, and materials) from the regions, to enrich colonial administrators in the process, and to leave behind the dregs of the extraction process for colonized peoples to survive on.
As the colonized peoples of Africa, Asia, and the Americas managed to rise up and turnout their colonizers, the “leaders” of these anti-colonial movements inherited the administrations of their former colonizers and, given this, they quickly became the new self-enriching administrators of the extraction of resources (people, know-how, and materials) from the newly created postcolonial territorial nations. They did not become so out of simple greed and negligence, but out of perverse necessity: the techniques and technologies of administration that they inherited had been organized around resource extraction and the enrichment of administrators, and the peoples of the new postcolonial nations would suffer increasingly more dire poverty and starvation if resource extraction and the enrichment of administrators were to immediately cease. Thus, colonial techniques and technologies of administration did not leave Africa, Asia, and the Americas with Western colonists. Rather, the techniques and technologies were turned over to the peoples of Africa, Asia, and the Americas to use on themselves: the corrupt government administrators of the postcolonial territorial nation are the direct descendants of the corrupt Western administrators of the colony.
As I see it, artful reparations for the ravages of colonialism demand that Western nations give the peoples of Africa, Asia, and the Americas time and resources to experiment in (re-)constructing alternative cultural practices for the convivial conservation, sharing, and (re-)distribution of critical cultural and natural resources. Artful reparations have yet to be made. Instead, Western nations have used their financial and military advantages to ensure that the peoples of Africa, Asia, and the Americas have neither the time nor resources to conduct experiments in conviviality. Indeed, Western nations have ceaselessly pressured the peoples of Africa, Asia, and the Americas to maintain and advance the colonial techniques and technologies of administration that Western colonists left behind. Ay, and this is precisely what I call neocolonialism: the use of financial and military advantages to compel postcolonial territorial nations to maintain and advance colonial techniques and technologies of administration.
Footnote: Haiti was the first postcolonial nation to be subjected to neocolonial domination, and the story of Haiti is worth examining as an exemplary informative anecdote in order to understand the genesis of neocolonialism. That being said, however, the genesis of neocolonialism is one thing and the characteristic structures of neocolonialism are another. The exemplary informative anecdotes that are worth examining in order to understand the characteristic structures of neocolonialism are the stories of the most extreme and totally encompassing regimes of neocolonial domination; these stories include, but are not limited to, (i) the stories of the Indian Reserves dominated by the United States and Canada; (ii) the stories of the Bantustans dominated by Apartheid-era White South Africa; and (iii) the stories of the Palestinian territories dominated by Israel. The stories of Haiti, the Indian Reserves, the Bantustans, and the Palestinian territories are worthy of attention not only because they can teach us a great deal about the genesis and structure of neocolonialism, but because they can also teach us a great deal about the insistence, persistence, and consistency of those who have been resisting neocolonialism since its inception.
The ethnocides that began under colonialism have continued under neocolonialism but with three major differences. One major difference is that these ethnocides are now administered by the “sovereign” governments of postcolonial territorial nations rather than by Western colonial governments. Another major difference is that these ethnocides are now perpetrated in the name of “development” — which is the prevailing euphemism for the extermination of cultural practices that are obstacles to the maintenance and advancement of imperialist white-supremacist capitalist patriarchy. A third major difference is that the white savior industrial complex now serves to provide postcolonial nations with “development aid” in order to optimize the number of deaths by conflict, disease, malnutrition, and starvation that take place during events like droughts and famines. Cultural practices that revolve around receiving “development aid” from developed nations have been taken up by developing nations as compensation for the manner in which “development” suppresses alternative cultural practices that would otherwise ward off mass deaths but that are considered obstacles to the maintenance and advancement of imperialist white supremacist capitalist patriarchy. “Receiving development aid” is only the prevailing euphemism for submitting to administration and supervision by organs of the white savior industrial complex in order to minimize the casualties of development
The Late Davosian Holocausts, which have only just begun, are the inevitable result of colonialism yielding to neocolonialism instead of yielding to the making of artful reparations. As a result of neocolonialism, developing nations have been denied motives, means, opportunities to (re-)construct alternative cultural practices for the convivial conservation, sharing, and (re-)distribution of critical cultural and natural resources. Developing nations have, instead, been furnished with motives, means, and opportunities to pursue development and to become dependent on development aid. The problem now is that developing nations are facing a cascade of economic, ecological, and public health crises fueled by climate catastrophes, and they are rapidly discovering that sufficient development aid will never arrive in sufficient time to ward off mass deaths by conflict, disease, malnutrition, and starvation as a result of climate catastrophes.
Indeed, this is precisely what the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says: sufficient development aid does not seem to be arriving in sufficient time to ward off mass deaths by conflict, disease, malnutrition, and starvation as a result of climate catastrophes. Responding to this report, progressive liberal policymakers are calling for the construction of more robust development aid programs to mitigate climate catastrophes. In so doing, progressive liberal policymakers are not calling for artful reparations to be made with respect to postcolonial nations. To the contrary, they are calling for the expansion of the white savior industrial complex, and they are demanding that developing nations submit to greater administration and supervision by new organs of the white savior industrial complex that are dedicated to mitigating climate catastrophes.
It remains to be seen whether such an expansion of the white savior industrial complex is achievable, but I hold that such an expansion of the white savior industrial complex is undesirable — such an expansion would only serve to further the insane ethnocidal and ecocidal machinations of imperialist white supremacist capitalist patriarchy.
Indeed, while reading the summary of the latest IPCC report and the progressive liberal policy responses to the report, I was constantly reminded of a passage from the book To Our Friends by the Invisible Committee. It is a passage in which the writers comment upon the manner in which the “objective disaster” of the anthropocene differs and defers to the “subjective disaster” of the anthropocene.
At the apex of his insanity, Man [or, rather, the “White Man”] has even proclaimed himself a “geological force,” going so far as to give the name of his species to a phase of the life of the planet: he’s taken to speaking of an “anthropocene.” For the last time, he assigns himself the main role, even if it’s to accuse himself of having trashed everything — the seas and the skies, the ground and what’s underground — even if it’s to confess his guilt for the unprecedented extinction of plant and animal species. But what’s remarkable is that he continues relating in the same disastrous manner to the disaster produced by his own disastrous relationship with the world. He calculates the rate at which the ice pack is disappearing. He measures the extermination of the non-human forms of life. As to climate change, he doesn’t talk about it based on his sensible experience — a bird that doesn’t return in the same period of the year, an insect whose sounds aren’t heard anymore, a plant that no longer flowers at the same time as some other one. He talks about it scientifically with numbers and averages. He thinks he’s saying something when he establishes that the temperature will rise so many degrees and the precipitation will decrease by so many inches or millimeters. He even speaks of “biodiversity.” He observes the rarefaction of life on earth from space. He has the hubris to claim, paternally, to be “protecting the environment,” which certainly never asked for anything of the sort. All this has the look of a last bold move in a game that can’t be won.
The objective disaster serves mainly to mask another disaster, this one more obvious still and more massive. The exhaustion of natural resources is probably less advanced than the exhaustion of subjective resources, of vital resources, that is afflicting our contemporaries. If so much satisfaction is derived from surveying the devastation of the environment it’s largely because this veils the shocking destruction of interiorities. Every oil spill, every sterile plain, every species extinction is an image of our souls in shreds, a reflection of our absence from the world, of our personal inability to inhabit it. Fukushima offers the spectacle of this complete failure of man and his mastery, which only produces ruins — and those Japanese plains, intact in appearance but where no one can live for decades. A never-ending decomposition that is finishing the job of making the world uninhabitable: the West will have ended up borrowing its mode of existence from what it fears the most — radioactive waste.
Those who continue to champion the expansion of the white savior industrial complex either cannot or will not admit to themselves that the objective disaster of the anthropocene was initially precipitated and is presently being perpetuated by the subjective disaster of the anthropocene. Preceding and exceeding the objective disaster, the subjective disaster is two-fold. On the one hand, there is the ongoing destruction of motives, means, and opportunities for the making of artful reparations. On the other hand, there is the continued proliferation of motives, means, and opportunities for yielding to the advance of imperialist white-supremacist capitalist patriarchy (or an equally ethnocidal and ecocidal would-be successor) and subjecting all life on earth to ever increasing administration and supervision.
