Andre Vltchek
OpEds
While I am following closely various discussions on Western mass media and social media, simultaneously engaging in several direct exchanges, one overwhelming leitmotif that I see is clearly emerging: “What is happening in the United States (and the UK, France and other parts of the Western Empire) is not really about race. Let us protest peacefully, let us not allow ‘rioting’ to continue, and above all, please let us not single out the white race, Western culture as a sole villain. Let us have peace, love each other… Then things will miraculously improve; terrible occurrences will soon go away.”
I have worked and lived on all continents, from far away island nations of South Pacific (Oceania), to Africa, the Middle East, Latin America, and Asia. Of course, I lived in Europe and North America, too.
Colonialism, neo-colonialism, imperialism – these are all my topics. Seriously! I have been studying them, investigating them; I wrote and made various documentary films about them. On several occasions I came very close to losing my life, confronting them.
My conclusion after all that I saw and experienced and survived? You can probably guess it: “To claim that the race is not what has been, for centuries, dividing our Planet, is outrageous hypocrisy. Or deranged wishful thinking. Or something much worse: it is calculated blindness that serves only the ruling, white group of people.”
To make it blunt: Our Planet has been reduced to only two races: White and “the other”!
On top of it, the color of one’s skin is not always identical to what the West, in general, perceives as the Caucasian/white race. To be “white” is a state of mind. It means: belonging to the culture which perceives itself as “superior”. The culture which sees itself as ‘exceptional’, and somehow ‘chosen’ to judge and advice all of humanity.
It also means ‘a state of indoctrination and obedience, as well as lack of intellectual courage’. All this, in exchange for the privileges; fabulous privileges! “Plunder the world, and live well above your means; live grotesquely plush life! And while you are living it, do not forget to whine, demand more, and keep repeating that ‘you are also exploited and, actually, a very poor victim’”.
Denying the privileges is part of racism, too, as it demonstrates unexpectable spite for the real victims! Or, perhaps, self-imposed blindness.
Citizens of some countries, such as Russia, Cuba, and Turkey, may look mainly ‘white’, but they are actually not. They are not invited to the ‘club’, because their mindset is different because they are not submissive because they think on their own.
Such conclusions may not be popular in New York, London, Paris, or Berlin. Especially not now, when the United States and the entire West are in turmoil.
The culture which was built on blood, bones, rape, and theft, ‘culture’ shaped by more than 500 years of colonialist terror, is now turning, twisting, and trying to justify itself. It tries to survive while staying in a driving seat. Countless editorials penned by both ‘conservative’ and so-called ‘liberal’ scribes are carpet-bombing the pages of newspapers at both sides of the Atlantic Ocean.
Fear of perhaps mortally injured beast – Western regime and its citizens – is delectable by its repulsive stench, and it stinks for miles.
Suddenly, most of the so-called ‘progressive’ publications do not want to hear from those writers and thinkers who are shooting powerful projectiles in the form of highly uncomfortable truth. Actually, in the West, there are hardly any true “left-wing” sites or magazines left, of course with some shining exceptions. What is really progressive these days? I don’t want to name the sites or publications here, but you are most likely aware of which ones I am talking about: they almost exclusively carry the stuff written by the Western/white men, for other white men’s consumption! They never cross the line: their criticism of the Western white-dominated world is half-hearted, “peaceful”; in short cowardly.
A white man is an individual who has been brought up and indoctrinated in a certain way, who thinks, speaks, and writes in a manner that is expected from him or her by the Western regime.
And all these ‘non-whites’, all over the world, including the minorities in the Western countries, are expected to sit on their asses, shut up and listen to him or her, but mostly him. And of course, to obey. Or else!
Or else: they will be verbally attacked and humiliated, eventually, they will get sanctioned, their governments were overthrown, countries invaded. There will be corpses all over, the stench of burning flesh, overflowing mass graves. And ‘at home’, in the West? Bullets shot at their eyes, or necks squashed by military or police boots.
So, what actually happened a few weeks ago to Mr. George Floyd, has been constantly happening to non-white people all over the world, to the entire communities and countries.
Then, suddenly, people, all over the world, had enough!
Almost everywhere, not just in China, Russia, Venezuela, Cuba, Iran, Libya, Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan.
Enough of being treated as some lower, subservient races. Enough of being treated like a scum; brutalized, killed like Mr. Floyd!
*
Now, in the West, both liberal and conservative media is making noises, claiming that Mr. Floyd was “not a saint”, that he used to serve some time in prison.
What can I say? People, in general, are not saints. People and countries. Very often, circumstances make them behave in a very nasty matter. But if you are raised as a second-class citizen, if you are beaten, day and night, by your own regime, are you expected to turn out to be a romantic poet? Get real!
Our countries, non-Western ones, are not always behaving like saints, either. But they are still better, much better, than those that have been murdering hundreds of millions in their colonies!
Don’t they understand, in Washington, London, and Paris, why those millions of people, from Tokyo to Buenos Aires, from Africa to Asia, are now marching in support for the African-American people? It is because all of us, outside Europe, North America, Australia, and New Zealand, are somehow related to Mr. Floyd!
Yes, we read those phony essays. We observe those cynical little smiles on the faces of the people who are denying racial and racist division of the world. Individuals who are defending the status quo, the rule of that tiny minority over the planet, so they could maintain their advantages.
Some defenders of status quo are now going as far as claiming that the rebellion against the white rulers is actually some sort of dark conspiracy theatre, triggered by the well-concealed business elites, or that it is connected to COVID-19; but above all, that it is not spontaneous at all.
It is clear, where they really stand and what they want to achieve.
It is never “them”. It is always somebody else. They keep pointing fingers at some invisible bankers, or the minorities in their own countries. You know precisely what I mean. As long as it is not them! But it is all much simpler: most of Europe and North America are constructed on white racism. And so is imperialism, colonialism. Citizens in the West are voting right-wing scum, voluntarily, and consistently. Can you imagine a genuine North American or European “internationalist”? Maybe a few. Perhaps 1%. Not more! So, the proverbial gold keeps flowing in. And billions of non-whites are rotting alive, in all corners of the globe.
My friends, my comrades, all over the world, are now opening their eyes, realizing what is happening in the United States and its colonialist daddy: Europe. Many of them, of course, already knew. At least they knew something. But those who did not, are now wide awake, getting well aware of the brutality of the Western regime, as well as of the racist nature of the “global arrangement”.
Those who were, for centuries, manufacturing consent, justifying and glorifying colonialism, imperialism, racial discrimination, as well as Western supremacy, can suddenly do nothing to stop the avalanche of awareness.
This may be the beginning of the end of segregation, of global apartheid. Just the beginning of the true struggle for equality.
A knee of a beefy white racist cop in Minneapolis, which had cut the supply of air, killing an African-American person, somehow managed to trigger that avalanche.
Nobody wants to live like this. Oppressed nations do not want to be threatened this way by those white Western cynics and nihilists: like Clinton and Trump, Navarro, Pompeo, and others. What a hellish troop of third-rate violent porn performers, these people!
Oppressed minorities inside the empire, be they of African descent, Hispanics or Chinese, are sick of the vicious and repulsive racism. Mostly, they are frightened to speak. But now, day by day, they are gaining courage.
The United States of America has been built on the genocide of the non-white people. The great majority of native folks had been slaughtered so the small number of the first and brutal European settlers could thrive.
This is “to some extend” known fact, but learning in-depth what really happened to the original inhabitants of ‘America’ has been thoroughly discouraged. Word ‘genocide’ is hardly ever uttered, in connection with the first chapters of U.S. history. Actually, it is taboo.
Slavery has been turned into folklore. Millions, tens of millions of broken, methodically destroyed human lives, is hardly ever presented in its real, nightmarish authenticity. People in Africa were hunted down like animals, tortured, raped, killed, and shipped like cattle to the so-called ‘free’ and ‘democratic’ “New World”.
Does a country constructed on such macabre foundations have really any moral right to exist, let alone call itself ‘free’? Can it be allowed to police the world? It is as if you would allow that murder cob who killed Mr. Floyd, to run a nation!
And those states which are now forming Europe? Their citizens are the descendants of those who were hunting down millions of human beings. Offspring of those who perpetrated and then got rich on such mass-slaughters as those of the Namibians, or people who used to inhabit what is now known as Congo.
When dragged to the broad daylight, it is all very, very uncomfortable, isn’t it? Better to sweep the truth under the carpet, and talk about “love”, “goodwill”. And then keep robbing and murdering as before, far away from the cameras!
This way, nothing would ever change.
Repeating over and over again: “race does not matter; it is actually all about class”, could make those who are in control of the world feel good about themselves, even sometimes sorry for themselves, which is actually their favorite state of mind. But it is a terribly hypocritical and deceptive position. And it has to be unveiled if there is ever to be justice!
*
On 3 June 2020, UN News, published an essay condemning the situation in the United States:
“Voices calling for an end to “the endemic and structural racism that blights US society” must be heard and understood, for the country to move past its “tragic history of racism and violence”, the UN Human Rights chief said on Wednesday.
“The voices calling for an end to the killings of unarmed African Americans need to be heard”, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet said in a statement. “The voices calling for an end to police violence need to be heard”.”
Ms. Bachelet, a Chilean, knows precisely what she is talking about! She knows what it is to have someone’s knee choking your aorta. Her father, an army General during the socialist era of President Salvador Allende, was murdered after the U.S.-sponsored coup led by Augusto Pinochet. Ms. Bachelet herself was kidnapped and tortured.
She looked ‘white’, but obviously not ‘white enough’ for Washington and its local assassins.
What is truly significant is that even the United Nations (usually subservient to the U.S.) is now unwilling to remain silent.
*
Race ‘issues’ have to be addressed. Racism, inside the national boundaries, as well as on the global scale, has to be fought against, by all means.
The depressing state of our planet is a result of racism.
Look at the map of the world at the beginning of the 20th century, and you will see: a great majority of the nations were colonized by the West. Colonialism is one of the most evident forms of racism. It humiliates victims, it robs them of everything: of culture, dignity, land.
To a great extent, most of the world is still being colonized. Even right now, as this is being written.
Almost the entire Planet is brutally controlled by the white race. Through the racist West-centric education system, and by the mass media which is controlled by the White boy’s Western narrative. Things have been arranged, so that the people in non-Western countries have been ‘learning’ and ‘getting informed’ about themselves from the Western curriculums and the fraudulent sources disseminated by the U.S. and British media outlets. That is grotesquely racist, isn’t it?
Close to 10 million people have died in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), in just a quarter of a century. It is because they have coltan, uranium, and other essential raw materials, desired by the West. But also, because to the West, their black lives matter close to nothing. My film, “Rwanda Gambit”, is clearly addressing the issue. But who cares? In the West, they rather watch porn, instead of learning the greatest genocide of the 20th Century, which they helped to trigger! And who cares about the West Papuans, who are murdered with almost the same intensity by the Indonesians, on behalf of their Western masters? After all, the West Papuans are blacks, therefore matter nothing.
On those millions, mountains of corpses, huge companies, and even entire countries are thriving, prosper. While their CEOs and Presidents are talking rubbish about some ‘corporate responsibility’ and love for democracy.
And most of the white Europeans, Canadians, Australians, have to sacrifice very little, in order to live their obnoxiously luxurious lives.
Isn’t this racist?
The entire arrangement of the world is!
Soon, it will be impossible to hide behind all those lies.
I work at the frontlines. Where human bodies are crushed by all that “love” of the white colonialism and racism, directly but also indirectly. Racist violence is the most repulsive and the creepiest thing on Earth.
I want it to end; once and for all. I don’t care if some shops get looted or trashed in the process. Peaceniks who are crying over them are mostly sitting in their plush living rooms, watching censored news. They do not see those tens of millions of victims of racism rotting in tropical heat, floating on the surfaces of polluted rivers, thousands of kilometers away!
Images of Mr. Floyd being murdered, slowly and sadistically, is as close as they ever got to reality.
For centuries, they did all they could in order not to see.
Now they are running out of excuses.
Not to see, not to fight against the white, endemic global racism is a terrible crime. A crime that has been taking place for more than 500 years. The crime against humanity.
*
[First published by NEO – a journal of the Russian Academy of Sciences]
Andre Vltchek is a philosopher, novelist, filmmaker and investigative journalist. He has covered wars and conflicts in dozens of countries. Five of his latest books are “China Belt and Road Initiative: Connecting Countries, Saving Millions of Lives”, “China and Ecological Cavillation” with John B. Cobb, Jr., Revolutionary Optimism, Western Nihilism, a revolutionary novel “Aurora” and a bestselling work of political non-fiction: “Exposing Lies Of The Empire”. View his other books here. Watch Rwanda Gambit, his groundbreaking documentary about Rwanda and DRCongo and his film/dialogue with Noam Chomsky “On Western Terrorism”. Vltchek presently resides in East Asia and the Middle East, and continues to work around the world. He can be reached through his website and his Twitter. His Patreon page is here.
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The unspeakable truths that unite both the so called “left” and the “right” in America and in the West – is the denial of the reality of white racism as the underlying “structure” of Western society one the one hand, along with the complete disappearance and “white-washing” of 500+ years of colonial and now continuing neocolonial rape, pillage and plunder all given past and current cover by that underlying “structure” of racism and white-supremacy.