Unmasking the monopoly of violence, reaffirming an anti-imperialist perspective for black liberation
We present in translation this excellent article by Devyn Springer which deals with the theme of the monopoly of violence, the relationship between racism and internal repression on the one hand and imperialism / anti-imperialism on the other, in the US context. This is a particularly illuminating 2017 paper today given the riots taking place in the USA following the murder of George Floyd by the police.
"I think anyone who is sincerely fighting against racism must fight against imperialism and vice versa" - Assata Shakur [1]
It is deleterious for the purposes of black liberation that we understand the concepts of violence, as well as that of terrorism, exclusively in the way they are proposed to us through an epistemic monopoly. There is a double standard and a white supremacist monopoly on this concept, and although this is not surprising, it is deeply disturbing. Who defines what forms of "violence" are acceptable, who can perpetuate them, and ultimately, who is responsible for unapproved violence? As black people in the West, a people robbed of their freedom on a colonized land, the fact of taking our own definition, normalization and understanding of violence from our oppressors, disguised as civilizers and humanitarianists, should be a disturbing reminder of this monopoly. Within that analysis of the violence,
In order to further grasp this monopoly of violence, especially in the context of black liberation, it is necessary to possess an operational definition of hegemonic power. In short, the United States can be defined as a world hegemonic power; this means that the US, everywhere, dominates in virtually every political, economic, social and cultural context. Such an all-encompassing, and sometimes granite, dominion is perpetuated through violence, but rarely identified as such. Through various coercive mechanisms of state violence, direct and indirect, the US maintains hierarchical power over other countries, and are therefore responsible for the ever deeper disparities between the Three Worlds [2] .
As we unmask the hegemonic power of the United States, we realize how it is maintained not only through mere violent exploitation, but also through the perpetuation of an effectively constructed Western-centric epistemology. Within this epistemology or social perception of truth, the concept of "violence" is built, already at a young age, to be something that is done to the USA and never perpetrated by the USA. The United States does not self-portray as aggressors under any circumstances, presenting subjects such as slavery, colonialism and changes in foreign regimes under a lens of benevolence instead of the actual violence they represent. The ways in which the US creates narratives about, for example, their history of enslavement of Africans,[3] . Another example of such narrative fabrication concerns the legacy of the Black Panther Party , popularly designated as an "anti-white terrorist group" and compared to the Ku Klux Klan, despite all factual evidence demonstrating how far this is from its real legacy. [4] . It is therefore the creation [5] of a specific epistemology, which projects a sense of benevolence and absence of responsibility on the heritage of the United States.
Both internal and international affairs, which involve a perceived aggression against the United States, should be examined and understood within the context of this monopoly of violence, because it allows us to better examine our own positioning in foreign affairs. The fact that images and videos of Syrians attacked with chemical weapons allegedly by the Syrian government, a claim that has been proven wrong and lacks evidence [6], would have "rocked" President Trump into taking action against the Syrian state is a laughable example of such a monopoly in order to generate propaganda. If alleged images of people subjected to abuse by state subjects have the power to persuade the US president to act, because the countless frames of black and indigenous protesters affected, in the United States, by pepper spray, by tear gas, seized by the police, beaten by agents of the latter or by private militias, attacked with dogs, targeted with water cannons at sub-zero temperatures, rubber bullets and with sound cannons [7] do not provoke wide actions by the government US? In short, this violence is labeled "acceptable".
The socially and politically dominant powers divide violence into acceptable and unacceptable. A somewhat simple dichotomy; acceptable violence can be classified as anything that favors the white supremacist empire. Acceptable violence, which can also be defined as "justifiable violence", consists precisely of those mechanisms that are rarely designated as violence, but are instead perceived as necessary and / or inevitable. The notion of "protecting an empire" is inherent in the same form of US existence, and therefore is not seen as real violence besides being rarely questioned. Reason why Obama's legacy, or the use of drones in mainly non-white countries, and that during his presidency reached record numbers causing thousands of deaths, was barely contested, as prescribed as "necessary evil" for the advancement of our empire[8] .
If, therefore, acceptable violence is that which gives impetus to the empire, unacceptable is instead that which endangers or demolishes it. What falls into the latter category is usually labeled as violence, as well as demonized for the purpose of promoting the dichotomy between its different manifestations. An example can be found in the words of the late pan-Africanist scholar and militant Walter Rodney, who discussed, in his classic volume "Groundings With My Brothers", the outrage of "violence" aimed at restoring humanity and double standards in social perception of violence. Rodney claims:“We are told that violence itself is evil, and that whatever the cause, it is morally unjustified. On the basis of what moral criterion can the violence exercised by the slave, to break his chains, be considered on a par with that of a slave owner? "
In this statement there is an important logic applicable to multiple situations and conflicts in the discourse of history. Why is the violent reaction of marginalized groups demonized and identified as "violence", while the cause of its initial explosion is not defined as such? Why are Palestinians systematically referred to as "violent" individuals, given that their violence exists, more often than not, as self-defense against the colonial entity that inflicts on them a daily structural violence close to the definition of genocide [9]? Why are black Americans labeled "violent" following protests, riots and uprisings that destroy property, whereas the system that dehumanizes us, also placing us under the protection of private property, is not considered as such?
This monopoly of violence not only affects how and who suffers it, but also on the ways in which images of it, such as those from Syria for example, are distributed. Images mainly of government bombing victims that the US attempted to overthrow. However, what is not shown are the atrocities committed by the side that has the support of the United States and its allies. During media coverage of Syria, when al-Qaeda members in Syria were on the verge of defeat in east Aleppo, we heard ad nauseamreports about "the siege of Aleppo", and that the population in the east pocket of the city was on the verge of being raked and massacred by the government. Although this fear has been engulfed by many, there is no evidence that such an event has taken place. On the other hand, no word was spoken in the mainstream media about two Shi'ite villages in Idlib province, under siege for years of al Qaeda-aligned rebels, with a population subjected to tremendous suffering following devastating attacks, the all under the nose of the USA and its allies [10] .
The monopoly on the images and the ways in which we are asked to consume them is common to many places and circumstances around the world. How come we are not inundated with images of the US-Saudi embargo / bombing of Yemen, which in addition to killing tens of thousands of people, has led the country to the brink of famine [11] ? Where are the horrifying images of post-Gaddafi Libya, where black Africans are summarily executed on the streets and sold in slave markets [12]? Images that have not been disseminated, as anything that suggests that the United States contributes to the suffering of humans, on an unimaginable scale, has the potential to interfere with their perceived reputation as global guardians and civilizing authorities and could compromise their monopoly of violence.
In Dr. Eqbal Ahmad's short book, "Terrorism: Theirs and Ours" , he compares the concepts of "terrorist" and "freedom fighter" with the actions of US foreign policy, examining the roots of political violence as well as its narrative /propaganda. In his analysis he states that "yesterday's terrorist is today's hero, yesterday's hero becomes today's terrorist". But what is necessary in order to create a mass movement made up of people committed to identifying today's hero as the villain of the past as of the present? In other words, at what point will we see the United States as the villain behind the hero's mask, the villain he has always been?
In the white supremacist capitalist system, which currently thrives using the trope of the "terrorist Muslim" to justify violent exploitation, the analysis of the concept of "terrorism" proposed by Dr. Ahmad becomes extremely important and useful in recognizing how trivial it actually is. question [13] . He identifies five types of terrorism: state terrorism, religious terrorism, mafia / crime, pathological terrorism and political / opposition terror [14]. Among these five types, says Dr. Ahmad, "attention is focused only on one, the least important in terms of loss of life and personal property: the political terror exercised by those who want to be heard." If the only terrorism on which the dominant media focuses and the debate is the political terror of revenge, or the opposing terror in response to the oppression, then the hegemonic subject is well positioned to be absolved from the responsibility of terrorism. Strengthening the epistemological bulwark on the concepts of violence and terrorism as much as possible, the United States is seen as incapable of committing acts attributable to these two categories. But when almost 90% of drone attacks in places like Somalia and Yemen don't hit their target[15] , injuring and killing civilians, what is the line beyond which we interpret this as an act of terrorism?
The monopoly of violence also plays a central role in the construction of the American historical narrative. We saw it in the way the US shapes the discourse around the foundation of the nation, particularly in relation to the history of the degradation of black and indigenous bodies. A discourse of discovery, and when indigenous peoples are mentioned, the relationship with the colonizers is one of mutual cooperation instead of the genocide that actually occurred. Even today, school children are taught to celebrate figures such as Andrew Jackson and Ulysses S. Grant as pillars of the continuity of this "great nation", despite historical accounts linking both to careers studded with mass killings of indigenous peoples.
Looking back on the American Civil War, we hardly see a subject like Abraham Lincoln thinking of him as a war criminal for sending General Sherman on the so-called march to the sea [16]. We hardly hear Lincoln convicted of human rights violations in reference to the division under Sherman's orders, when it was busy burning crops with the intent to starve and put entire cities under siege. We hardly think of the destruction caused by Lincoln in relation to the enslaved Africans affected by his actions, to whom he is credited as a "liberator", while in reality his military decisions have had devastating effects on them. The destruction done in suppressing the reactionary rebellion of the Confederates was considered a necessary evil in order to preserve the interests of the industrial capitalists of the north. To date, no human rights NGO has tried to demolish the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC, nor did anyone take on the task of deconstructing the glorified colonial violence surrounding his legacy. The context is important, which is why there is always a strenuous effort by the winners, in our case the profiteers of the empire, aimed at controlling the narrative and therefore the context itself.
The pathology of a violent imperialism is, in its essence, sociopathy. Being the oppressor exempts you from thinking about the human cost of your adventures - doesn't require that you think about the consequences - and why should it, when you can simply repackage in yet another, potentially lucrative, opportunity? The expansion of ISIS through Syria, Iraq, the Sinai Peninsula and, more recently, Afghanistan, has been a gift for the US arms industry, in the same way that institutionalized black criminalization has been for the complex prison-industrial. Armaments manufacturers, such as Boeing and Lockheed Martin, made huge profits during the escalationin the drone war under Obama, and Afghanistan has become a testing ground for new weapons, especially the so-called MOAB bomb, developed by the Alabama-based Dynetics company [17] , used on April 13, 2017. At the time the news appeared, most of the media showed that only ISIS was hit by the bomb, fully disavowing that approximately 95,000 people live at the detonation site. Imperialism and foreign aggression, like much internal violence against marginalized people, is motivated by the incentive of profits.
It could be suggested that the United States' approach to violence is via the concept of private property. That is, violence itself is managed as if it were a form of property. Under hegemonic dominance, the violence belongs to the USA, and anyone who decides to resort to it must rent it and receive a stamp of approval from them. As long as hired (or purchased) violence is complementary to the goal of expanding the empire, then it is acceptable. In 2017 alone, we witnessed the murder of at least eight black trans women, an alarming increase in hate crimes against individuals belonging to categories subject to prejudice by the president's electoral base, as well as over 290 people killed, so far in 2017 , by US police officers[18] . Such violence is allowed, but violence in response to it is not.
On a macroscopic level, we see similar relations at work in the field of foreign policy. The United States, and the governments of their employees in the Middle East, in particular Israel and Saudi Arabia, everything is allowed, from missile attacks and aerial bombardments, to the financing, training and arming of terrorist groups in Syria [19]; each of these actions kills with impunity, yet all of this is underestimated by the international community. But the violence exercised to counter such external threats is subject to meticulous scrutiny. If another country, witnessing the horrendous violence perpetrated against black, indigenous, trans, queer and Muslim people (among many others) within the U.S., decided to establish a drone program aimed at a military base in California, using the pretext of "establishing democracy" for marginalized individuals, wouldn't he be called a terrorist? So why on earth, one might ask, is the United States not held up and prosecuted when it acts the same way?
In Walter Rodney's masterpiece, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, a book dedicated to tireless and detailed research on the various ways in which western countries have thrived from the economic, cultural and interpersonal exploitation of African nations, the author states: "it is a simple fact that no one can enslave anyone else for centuries without drawing from this a notion of superiority ... ". And indeed the USA, with its violent legacy of slavery, colonialism and both internal and global exploitation, is immersed in this sense of superiority, founded on the control and domination of others that Rodney speaks of. The same Rodney who was able to establish the connection of the struggles between the working class of Guyana, the Rastas of Jamaica, those of Dar es Salaam, the Institute of the Black World in Atlanta and the whole black diaspora more generally.First world to better understand their own positioning and responsibilities.
Walter Rodeny is just one of many militants committed throughout history to denounce the white supremacist monopoly of violence, and in studying and celebrating his legacy we see how perfectly his reflection applies to today's conditions. We said many, including Angela Davis, in particular her impressive 1971 interview in which she discusses the themes of violence and revolution [20], Malcolm X, Assata Shakur and Thomas Sankara. Equally important is to mention the militant and Native American scholar Winona LaDuke, frequently committed to highlighting the double standard applied by the USA in the treatment of indigenous peoples in reserves, and how the denial of resources such as drinking water and electricity to these individuals constitutes an act of underestimated violence.
In an interview with Black Agenda Report, ex-Democrat MEP Cynthia McKinney lashed out at the Democratic Party for her warlike stances, saying she felt "shame" and "embarrassment" for the many progressives unable to openly denounce the Obama's militarist work. He also discussed the dangers created by the ex-president for every black movement against the war, describing it as one of the most "concrete evils" taking place in the process of overturning a peace movement built on black anti-imperialist positions. McKinney expresses with genuine eloquence the sentiments of many blacks on the left, presenting us with an explicit frustration about the state of the anti-war movement, of which blacks, and their leaders as MLK jritself, they were once vanguard. At the moment, the principles of anti-imperialism and opposition to the war are completely abandoned. The Democratic Party is more careful to shore up leaders intent on making empty appeals for horizontal representation and diversity, and its base seems more interested in the idea of intersectional imperialism than in rejecting it.
Even more insidious is the total cancellation of the black left, which is intentional and which affects the root of every anti-war and anti-imperialist principle to which black people on the left can still cling. That the commentator, and proud black liberal, Marcus H. Johnson was able to publish an entire article full of logical fallacies, such as merging Bernie Sanders and the "far left", while canceling the voices of the black left, as well as designating clearly the Clinton followers as the "true left", is further demonstration of the backward nature of pacification, or ignorance, characterizing that concrete post-Obama evil that McKinney talks about. As mentioned, Johnson's fallacies in the analysis are manifold, but the most shamefully unavoidable is precisely the cancellation of the black left. Those of us who, following the nature of the anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist policy placed on the shoulders of the black radical tradition and the principles that it embraces, have opposed the entire Democratic Party, including the bogeyman Sanders, must be canceled in order for his argument to persist. Furthermore, the need to reaffirm an anti-imperialist policy, within our perspective of black liberation, is even more pressing in light of the authentic contempt for the lives of blacks and other non-whites, internationally, by that Democratic party which Johnson diligently supports. Not long ago, Malcolm X said that we are "political fools",
Removing the mask of the double standard inherent in the white hegemony on violence also means removing it from those institutions, and individuals, who hinder collective liberation. Put simply, anti-imperialism must once again become a non-negotiable principle of black popular radicalism. The exponent of the Black Panther Party, former political prisoner and militant Assata Shakur said “any community seriously concerned about its freedom must be concerned about that of other peoples too. The victory of the oppressed peoples everywhere in the world is also a victory for the black one. Every time a tentacle of imperialism is severed we are closer to liberation. " As black people, our liberation is definitively connected to that of the global South, and an anti-imperialist policy is not simply an abstract "theory", but a policy founded on enhancing and consolidating this struggle between us and the global South. Anti-imperialism is not cold theory, but the lifeblood of the reality of people internationally,
Examining the monopoly of violence through an anti-imperialist lens is essentially a pan-Africanist operation, an invitation to remember: what the oppressors are capable of doing to our brothers and sisters in the global South, they can easily do it even in the imperialist center, assuming that is not already happening. Not only do the police and the army share similar tactics to control "native" populations, but the police receive a surplus of military material to do this. [21], which should be understood as an indicator of an oppression that transcends national borders, in the service of preserving global hierarchies. In a society dominated by privileges granted to individuals supported by various systemic and institutional representatives, Western black people should have an anti-imperialist political operation in order to dismantle the US monopoly on violence. Walter Rodney taught us that every African has a responsibility, or if you prefer a duty, consisting in understanding the system and working on its overthrow, not in integrating into it.
How can we deal with the violence of oppressed peoples in a sort of void when, at the same time, black churches, synagogues and mosques are vandalized and hit by incendiary attacks in the post-Trump era; when immigrant families are separated and held in private prisons in poor condition for months [22]? When those who associate with the motto "protect and serve" shoot black people on the street, as if they were prey. If the US believes that it can use violence - justifiable or acceptable - internally, in front of our eyes, barely being challenged, what then to think about international violence to "establish democracy" and "fight terrorism" ? And within this monopoly of violence, who is allowed to use it as a means of helping the marginalized in the United States? And for this reason, in order to conceptualize an effective perspective of black liberation, it is necessary to include an anti-imperialist line that addresses the violence inflicted on us as cyclical and collateral to that exercised elsewhere. The rhetoric surrounding violence must necessarily lead us to deal with neglected issues of our existence under capitalist rule. The first step in deconstructing and decolonizing the violence of white supremacy consists in identifying, unmasking and making known the epistemological mechanisms which they use to justify their actions and legitimize themselves. And, if videos and images are sufficient to convince most of the progressives to collude with Trump on Syria, we must ask ourselves, without an anti-imperialist policy, what separates us from our oppressors? unmask and make known the epistemological mechanisms they use to justify their actions and legitimize themselves. And, if videos and images are sufficient to convince most of the progressives to collude with Trump on Syria, we must ask ourselves, without an anti-imperialist policy, what separates us from our oppressors? unmask and make known the epistemological mechanisms they use to justify their actions and legitimize themselves. And, if videos and images are sufficient to convince most of the progressives to collude with Trump on Syria, we must ask ourselves, without an anti-imperialist policy, what separates us from our oppressors?
"As a black woman, my politics, and my political affiliation, are tied to, and derive from, participation in the struggles for the liberation of my people, as well as that of the oppressed peoples around the world against US imperialism"
- Angela Davis
"Imagine this nation, made up of all peoples, intent on a crusade to make" the world a safe place for democracy! " Can you imagine the United States protesting against the atrocities of the Turks in Armenia, while they are silent on the crowds of Chicago and St. Louis; What is Leuven compared to Memphis, Waco, Washington, Dyersburg and Estill Springs? In short, what is the black man if not American Belgium, and how can America condemn in Germany what it commits, just as brutally, within its own borders? "
- WEB Du Bois
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Original article: Mask Off: The Monopoly on Violence and Re-Invigorating an Anti-Imperialist Vision for Black Liberation by Devyn Springer
Translation and presentation by Zuseppe Sini
https://ottobre.info/2020/06/08/smasche ... ione-nera/
Re-translated by Google Translator