Contradictions in the anti-racism movement

DR ERROL N BENJAMIN

WITH EACH new day we are swamped with platitudes berating racism as an unjust subordination of any individual or group by another. The one standing out especially is the No to Racism routine adopted at the beginning of football matches across Europe. But on closer look one gets a sense of how contradictory this call for an anti-racism modus operandi really is.

Jordan Peterson, reputable but controversial clinical psychologist and professor at the University of Toronto, suggests in one of his interviews that the human animal, in trying to make sense of his existence, is in continuous pursuit of something which is of some value to him, be it good, bad or ugly. And he sees this effort as functioning within two frameworks, one in which the “sovereignty of the individual” is paramount and the other in which the individual is loyal to the “tribe.”

To my mind, in theory both need not be mutually exclusive for one can respect the rights and liberties of the individual even as you conform to the norms and values of the tribe. In practice, however, this seems less so, for to allow someone his “sovereignty” is to accord him individual rights and liberties with accompanying respect and tolerance, pointing to a world of peaceful coexistence between individuals.

But in a tribally oriented world such “sovereignty” is effectively neutralised for in your loyalty to the tribe you must secure your own identity within it and preserve its status, which means, inevitably, competing, not co-operating, with others, with all the attendant vices such as partisanship, intolerance, malice, lack of fair play and the like which such competition is likely to bring.

Which is why, in nature, this group/tribal culture is so dominant with the “birds and the bees,” all in their own clusters with their own characteristics, each trying to preserve its own “territory” against the other. In true Darwinian fashion, this is essentially a continuing power struggle from which the human condition is not exempt.

It seems the stuff of which we are made as a group, for how else can you explain the slow death of the multiculturalism of the 50s and 60s calling for cultural assimilation and integration and the peaceful co-operation of nations and an end to war and the now aggressive nationalism of which Donald Trump’s “America first” ideology is the supreme manifestation?

China, the US and Russia seem all on a path for war in their quest for world domination and on the group level, the Shia/Sunni conflict continues to simmer and one wonders where the Black Lives Matter/white supremacist dichotomy will all end.

If then we seem to be constituted by nature to be group oriented and to be constantly striving for our own survival, won’t our natural drive be to outdo others, indeed to dominate them? Sure, we can pay lip service to the idea of individual liberty with the rhetoric of true democracy and human rights, but does the Rohingya tragedy in Myanmar speak an entirely different language? And what of our own Andrea Bharatts and Ashanti Rileys whose rights fell away at one fell swoop?

Finally, then, is the bending of the knee on the football fields of Europe saying No to Racism an appeasement gesture far from the human reality?

Just something to think about in a world in which we seem to take everything at face value.