And what better time for British liberals to attack Abbott for racism than towards the end of a week during which they’ve been patting each other on the back for finally ‘securing justice’ for Stephen Lawrence? Indeed, throughout the Lawrence trial, institutional racism was rarely mentioned and when it was little analysis was produced. The reaction to Abbott’s tweet confirms that this absence of analysis was not just down to a lack of understanding, but the feeling that there is nothing there to “understand” to start with.

Of course, one of the reasons racism fails to be seen, let alone understood, is because many people in the public eye benefit from it, not necessarily because they are white, but often because their very internalisation of the assumptions of white supremacy is what has secured their acceptance into the hierarchies of power in the first place.

Only by understanding institutional racism can we hope to understand, and defeat, racism itself. Racism is not simply disliking, or assuming generalisations about a certain ethnic or racial group; it is a system of power in which a certain racial or ethnic group holds social, political and economic power over another racial or ethnic group(s).

The numerous commentators gleefully baying for Abbott’s blood, proclaiming that a white politician making a similar comment – but about black people – would have already lost their job, are probably right about the latter speculation but are either unaware, or deliberately ignoring, the inherent meaninglessness of their analogy. After all, such an equivalence would only make sense in a world in which whites were so victimised by racism as to be unable to even utter the same racialised statements as their socially-dominant Black counterparts. In reality, a white Briton today, whether he/she acknowledges it or not, continues to benefit from a social, cultural, economic and political system that has been built upon, and sustained by, racist assumptions and prejudices that have permeated imperial and colonised societies for centuries.

Of course, a Black individual has, in theory, the possibility of discriminating against another person or people on the basis of their race, but this form of racial discrimination clearly does not have the same effect as white racism does, because the power structures in which we live both amplify, and are themselves amplified by, the latter form.

Let us remember that we live in a system that sees Black people disproportionately affected by educational underachievement, under employment, ethnic cleansing, police harassment, disproportionate sentencing, the demonization of cultural practices and a host of other factors. Consequently, when the beneficiaries of this system take it upon themselves to further ridicule or verbally attack those victimised by it there is, rightly, outrage and offence.

However, when a Black person makes a similar remark, it will have comparatively little or no impact: a white person will still find employment in the highest-paying and most powerful jobs, attend the best schools, dictate foreign policy or occupy the best housing and environments. In short, British society can just about recognise some forms of racism, but is still unwilling to conceptualise its most enduring, nefarious and powerful manifestation, white privilege.

These huge gaping differences in the lives of white and Black people are what dictates the way racism operates within society, and this is why even the most elementary understanding of racism clearly indicates that Abbott’s tweet cannot seriously be thought comparable to a “reverse scenario” statement by a white politician. (Which should indeed have legitimately led to a sacking).

Britain, despite the progress epitomised by the MacPherson Report, clearly has a long way to go before a proper understanding of racism and the power relations that frame it becomes the norm. Only then can we, as a society, really claim to have secured justice of Stephen Lawrence, for his family, and for so many countless others.

(Photo: fawq-jedar.blogspot.com)

While it is widely understood that revolutions endeavor to overthrow political structures and aim to change the social order and power paradigm within any given society, there is still no single, inclusive understanding of what actually constitutes a revolution. Nor is there any consensus as to exactly what a revolution is supposed to achieve.

An ordinary Egyptian is likely to determine his/her take on revolution from various angles: measurable economic advancement – or lack thereof; the ability to voice an opinion without fear of censorship or retaliation; the right to participate in collective action, and influence the overall direction of his/her country.

A revolution can also delve into the realm of self-definition. Some Arab collectives have redefined themselves along religious, nationalistic or ideological lines – by re-coloring a flag or rewording a national anthem – in the hope that this would allow them to cement political change through a collective psychological departure from one era into another.

While conceptual depictions of major phenomena may be achievable, their practical application can be elusive. On January 14, just days after the ousting of Tunisian president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, I warned of the failure to appreciate the unique circumstances of the Tunisian revolution, and the distinctiveness of Tunisian society as a whole:

“There is no harm in expanding a popular experience to understand the world at large and its conflicts. But in the case of Tunisia, it seems that the country is largely understood within a multilayer of contexts, thus becoming devoid of any political, cultural or socio-economic uniqueness. Understanding Tunisia as just another ‘Arab regime’, another possible podium for al-Qaeda’s violence, is convenient but also unhelpful to any cohesive understanding of the situation there and the events that are likely to follow.”

The article was a response to the media frenzy which placed all Arab societies into one category. But this failure of distinction cannot be attributed merely to the overriding ignorance of the Western media and intellectuals in their understanding of Arabs, nor of Western governments’ opportunistic relationship to the ‘Arab world’. Analogous generalizations were also being employed by the Arab media and intellectuals, and even the rebelling masses themselves.

There seemed little harm in Yemeni activists relating to the Egyptian revolutionary experience, or Syrians and Libyans borrowing each other’s slogans. After all, there is an unmistakable cultural and historical bond between various Arab societies, and they are rife with overlapping experiences of colonization, foreign occupation, dictatorship and popular uprisings. But what was meant to inspire a sense of shared values and experiences quickly became a fault line, exploited by those who wanted to ensure the failure of Arab uprisings, or to direct their outcomes.

It was no surprise that the Arab uprisings did not remain the business of the Arabs alone. Even before the governments of France and the United Kingdom signed their infamous Sykes–Picot Agreement of 1916 – dividing Arab provinces (then part of the Ottoman Empire) into spheres of influence – the fate of the region had already been determined by outside powers. And unlike common myths associated with the ‘Arab Spring’, Arab nations have repeatedly rebelled against foreign colonizers and their own despots.

The belated Western response to the Tunisian revolution – and the incoherent reaction to the Egyptian revolution in January 25 – served as a wakeup call to those who inherited the legacy of François Georges-Picot and Sir Mark Sykes Indeed, past encounters continue to define the Western countries’ ties to the ‘Middle East region’, which is appreciated for its many economic spoils and unmatched strategic importance.

“Western security, construction and infrastructure companies that see profit-making opportunities receding in Iraq and Afghanistan have turned their sights on Libya, now free of four decades of dictatorship,” wrote Scott Shane in the New York Times (October 28, 2011).

This short sentence truly sums up the motives of Western intervention, and the West’s overall attitude towards its former colonies. However, there is a strange resolve among many players in the ‘Arab Spring’ – including in Arab media – that discount or ignore the foreign element whenever Arab uprisings are discussed. This tendency is not only intellectually dishonest and perceptibly ahistorical, it is also highly suspicious. Amid the purposeful silence regarding the self-serving and destructive role played by foreign powers, plots are being hatched against various countries under the very pretexts that led to the destruction of Iraq, Libya, and even Lebanon. Yes, in 1982, when Israel invaded Lebanon, it used the concept of democracy as part of its justification.

However, being fully appreciative of the disparaging and exploitative role of foreign powers shouldn’t allow one to turn into an apologist for dictatorship either. A more somber reading of history shows the unshakable bond between dictators and their foreign benefactors – at the expense of the oppressed masses, who are now revolting to reset the course of history on a more equitable route.

True, a revolution can be polarizing for those who are projected to either win or lose once its final outcome is determined. But intellectuals have a historic responsibility to remain vigilant of the uniqueness of each and every collective experience, and to place it within accurate historical contexts. They should not omit inconvenient truths when such omissions are deemed convenient.

This is not moral neutrality, a notion that has been articulated by South African anti-Apartheid leader Desmond Tutu in his iconic statement: “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.” It is rather the responsibility of the intellectual to question what is taken for granted. Edward Said claimed that the ideal intellectual should be seen as an “exile and marginal, as amateur, and as the author of a language that tries to speak the truth to power.”

Speaking truth to power is still possible, and is more urgent than ever. The fate of a nation, any nation, cannot be polarized to the terrible extent that the Arab uprisings have. On both sides of the divide, some are cheering for foreign intervention, while others are justifying the senseless murder of innocent people by dictators.

There is possibly a fine line between the divides, and it is the responsibility of the intellectual to trace this line, and remain steadfast there. He may consequently find himself marginalized and exiled, but at least he will maintain his integrity.

“Thanks to the generosity of American people and the wonders of modern surgery” – as the Daily Mail put it –, Time Magazine cover girl Bibi Aisha, 20, has been able to put the horrific past of facial disfiguration in Afghanistan behind her and pursue her measure of happiness in the Big Apple, where she currently resides.

Last February, she was seen “smiling happily” while taking a New York subway, trading the “oppressive” veil and the choking confinement to her husband’s home for lipstick, a shining hairdo, blue jeans and the fresh air of freedom.

However, this happy ending makes one wonder if the melting pot – that is to say the assimilation of Western/US values – is the only real alternative for Afghan women seeking equal rights and political participation? So the West would have us believe, but then, as Frantz Fanon writes, “colonialism wants everything to come from it” (FANON, A Dying Colonialism).

Indeed, does not the Women for Afghan Women’s (WAW) mantra “we are us and we are them” reveal itself as a rather miserable idea when ‘them’ means simply a Metropolis-like reconstruction of the Afghan woman into an automaton of her Western counterparts (i.e. ‘we’)?

For all the “wonders of modern surgery” and Western cosmetics, Aisha’s overall refashioning – attempting to erase the horrors of her disfiguration and ‘veiled’ oppression – paradoxically disfigures – or rather, cleanses – her cultural identity. The process is much more one of imitation than of actually granting a voice to an Afghan woman rooted in the cultural traditions of her society.

The latter is quite clear when we look at Aisha’s face surrounded by Time Magazine’s timeless red cover frame. It is a picture of a silent woman, or rather, a “dead woman”, her disfigured body a mere object unto which we project our own conceptions of morality.

Is there an alternative?

In the previous instalment, the path of independent struggle of women’s rights groups inside Afghanistan and of Afghan women in general was suggested as a valid substitute to this, one which in the long run could transform Afghan society from within.

However, it became no less evident that in the past years this very struggle has been appropriated by Western powers – most notably the US – in order to justify a foreign occupation and to calm a rather unpredictable public opinion at home, swinging frequently from enthusiastic to downright hostile.

Unfortunately, in reality this occupation only hinders the situation of women inside the country, as Afghan feminist leader Malalai Joya, Noam Chomsky and other activists and groups have stated repeatedly.

So long as the occupation persists, the path of independent struggle for Afghan women (i.e. the best solution) is compromised, always at risk of being seen as in bed with Western interests.

Are there, then, no other alternatives?

In one of its press releases in 2009, the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA) claimed that if one steps out of ‘modernized’ Kabul (only a little over 10% of Afghan women live in the capital), the majority of women oppose the NATO occupation.

This estimate comes as no surprise, if for instance we consider that according to a BBC News report from late February nearly 2 million Afghan women in a country of some 26.6m are (mostly war) widows who endure “poverty-stricken lives”, the average widow having 4 children to support and a monthly income of US$16.

We have already seen the myriad of ways in which the West – as other colonial powers had done in the past – has made it its crusading and strategic mission to politicize the ‘native woman’, in this case through the ‘veil’ (e.g. the veil itself; the strict confinement of women to their homes; their exclusion from any and all public affairs), a ‘veil’ which – it claims – wraps the woman in repressive passivity.

However, it is quite interesting to find how the majority of Afghan women reject a second form of passivity, that is to say, to accept the West as their knight in shining armour.

In all probability the West’s strategy of politicizing the veil for its own purposes backfired from the very beginning in Afghanistan. For, if the West seeks to ‘unveil’ (i.e. modernize/emancipate) Afghan women and the majority of them oppose the occupation, then for those who wear the veil the garment also becomes a political statement, a political response – one, as it were, of resistance.

In other words, in a way the veil becomes primarily not the symbolic barrier behind which the Afghan woman lies in a state of perpetual passivity and confinement, but the very much active manifestation of opposing a foreign invader and its so-called ‘modernity’.

Impoverished, detached from her political representatives in Kabul who are supposed to vouch for her interests, indifferent to Western women’s rights groups paradoxically championing both her rights and the occupation itself, the supposedly public-banned Afghan woman has found a rather suitable way of making a very public statement of her own.

Here lies an adequate starting point for a possible alternative to Westernization or to falling on the women’s rights’ struggle so frequently tampered with by Washington to further its own agenda.

Concurrently, if the main objective – for Afghan women as well as men – is indeed to end the foreign presence in the country, then the anti-occupational struggle lies as much in armed resistance as in shattering public support for the war abroad.

Since in the past years the ‘emancipation of Afghan women’ has become more predominant in Washington’s rhetoric than previous favourites such as ‘fighting terrorism’ or ‘promoting democracy’, it is precisely the former that Afghans should attempt to undermine.

The obvious way to go about this is for Afghan women to have a more active role in resisting the occupation – this would immediately shatter the appeal of the (false) argument that Afghan women want the West to remain in the country.

In this regard, the Taliban’s occasional use of female suicide bombers since July 2010 is clearly a self-defeating strategy. The reason for this is the moral outrage with which the West reacts at these ‘savage’ actions, a no doubt curious reaction – since it is this very West which, among other things, supports the Northern Alliance, known to be as misogynistic as the Taliban and for raping and killing Afghan women as early as 1996.

The point here is that if the Taliban were to allow Afghan women to join the armed resistance itself or have a pivotal role in supplying/aiding them – and this eventually became so significant that not even the Western media could avoid reporting it – maintaining the occupation would become excruciatingly difficult for NATO.

This happens because on the one hand, much of its sustenance is drawn from the supposition at the front and the perception at home that Afghan women wish to be liberated by the West, and on the other because on the ground it benefits from playing with the divisions (both ethnic and sexual) within the country.

The furtherance of women’s rights would then become a “natural” consequence of this banding together of male and female fighters. Not only, at an elementary level, would women be fighting alongside men – already a significant breakthrough since they are currently confined to the realm of the domestic –, but in the long term this would loosen the knots of a highly conservative and feudal society.

The Afghan woman would thus move from the prison of her home to the public stage of conflict in the mountains, to the very heart of the struggle against occupation. The “woman-for-marriage” turns into the “woman-for-action”, and this in itself already constitutes‘emancipation’.

It is not enough to rise against the Western notion that “everything [that is good] comes from the occupation”.  We must go to the end and recognize that all hopes for anything good – for all Afghans – must follow from the fight against the occupation itself. This is the crucial catalyst for change in the country.

That change in the status of women will come eventually is unquestionable. It is also unquestionable, however, that the most productive way for this to come about and for the Taliban to expel a persistent occupier is for them to put their conservatism aside and unite with the most important player in the war.

As Frantz Fanon said of the Algerian struggle against colonialism:

“The men’s words were no longer law. The women were no longer silent. Algerian society in the fight for liberation, in the sacrifices it was willing to make in order to liberate itself from colonialism, renewed itself and developed new values governing sexual relations. The woman ceased to be a complement for man. She literally forged a new place for herself by her sheer strength.” (in A Dying Colonialism)

To read the first part of this essay, click here.

The European nation-state is a structure of hierarchical power which was imposed upon Africa, South Asia, Australasia and the Americas during the formal colonial period first conceived in 1498. The states were modelled on the structures which European governments and monarchs used to control their own people – often with devastating effects.

The Berlin Conference of 1884 involved the dominant powers of Western Europe calving up Africa into separate nation-states for them to control. Most of the boundaries were drawn by people who had never stepped foot in Africa, disregarding existing territorial boundaries and prevalent geographical freedoms that numerous African societies had enjoyed and relied on for survival and prosperity for millennia.

The structure of the European nation-state was not imposed solely in order to determine which European power now owned which portion of the African continent, its resources and, in effect, its people. The state is a power structure, which the European powers would use to dismantle and control African societies and their populations.

Controlling the state allowed European colonialism to penetrate many of the most fundamental aspects of the lives of the colonised. Education and Schools, often portrayed as a positive aspect of colonialism, were intrinsic to the maintenance of European supremacy. Nelson Mandela, in his bestselling autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom, recounts the jubilant cheering he and his classmates were taught to deliver whenever a White South African entered the classroom. Europeans were the “saviours” of Africa, and a people to be revered.

The colonial-controlled state adopted similar patterns in its control over the Church and workplaces. But its most immediately destructive arm was physical control. Within its borders (and at times beyond), the colonial state could at any time call upon its armed forces to curb freedom of expression, movement and life itself. Challenging the dominance of state power over education, jobs and monopoly of violence, was therefore the only option for anti-colonial movements to overcome imperial control.

Today, the interests of the British state either converge with the majority of the media and educational institutions, or are directly or indirectly controlled by them. The same corporate interests which own the media and fund top universities also lobby and fund political parties and their campaigns.

The portrayal of colonised peoples therefore continues to be controlled by interests aligned with British state power. The most popular stories in mainstream media routinely feature sex offenders from Pakistan, violent gangs from the Caribbean, fraudsters from West Africa and of course Islamists, who could hail from any number of colonised nations.

Although evidence tells us that sex offenders are mainly white, serious violence in Britain is not dominated by African Caribbeans and the extreme terrorism carried out by Europe and its allies on Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and Libya (not to mention the terrorism they sponsor in Congo, Saudi, Columbia and elsewhere) is far more destructive than 7/7, indicates that crimes are linked to colonised peoples despite evidence to the contrary, and therefore with a purpose other than reporting the full truth.

The colonial state employed waves of violent coercion to control the movement of populations. This form of ethnic cleansing was most pronounced in the settler colonies of Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe and Zambia) and South Africa.

Today, European nations have far less direct control over the state structures of the once formally colonised nations. Economic underdevelopment through unfair terms of trade effecting job markets, healthcare provision and other social services, however, means the people of the Global South continue to push for access to the wealth of their own nations, the majority of which flows to Europe and North America.

It is therefore unsurprising that huge numbers of Africans, Asians and South American people make their way to Europe in the hope of attaining the jobs and services denied to them by the economic policies push by Britain and its allies.

It is even less surprising that large numbers of asylum seekers wishing to enter the relative safety of Europe after fleeing conflicts in which Europe and North America are either engaged in, or fund and supply weapons to.

The “terrorists” as portrayed by the British during the 1950s were the Mau-Mau of Kenya, whose violent uprising against the colonial state was met with harsh repression, culminating in torture, forced starvation and death camps, leading to the murder of over 13,000 Kenyan terror suspects.

The structures of state power bureaucratised and administered some of the most destructive manifestations of violence of the century, in order to maintain control of the people within its borders.

In order to maintain imperial dominance in the 21st Century, Britain has constructed border patrols and police forces alongside private security firms to repress the people of the Global South through a rationale not dissimilar from the colonial state control of the 19th and 20th century.

The immigration detention centres (recently relabelled “Removal Centres”, in another nod to Orwellian Newspeak) where people are being kept indefinitely, often witness lengthy hunger strikes by the detainees, as has happened recently at Campsfield Detention Centre, Oxford, where Iraqi detainees explained: “if we were returned we would be left to survive for ourselves on the streets with nothing. Some of us don’t even know if our family members are alive or dead because we haven’t had any contact with them for a long time”.

Last week, thirty protesters from No Borders, Stop Deportation and other groups blocked the joint entrance to the two detention centres near Heathrow airport. Six activists encased their arms in glass and plastic tubes attached to concrete barrels. Coaches were supposed to take around 70 people to the airport for deportation, accompanied by twice as many immigration officers and private security guards.

Past actions have enabled detainees to get court injunctions through in order to force the courts to recognise their legal right to stay. Direct action against the state’s monopoly on physical control of people is a well-proven method of resisting the colonial state.

Often viewed through the lens of human rights, anti-deportation and no borders campaign/activist groups are in fact engaging in a form of anti-imperialism which began life in the colonised countries.

Challenging the imperial state from within its core in addition to its military invasions and occupations abroad, offers a modern manifestation of anti-imperialism in which the fight against the empire and its legacies is given another dimension.

If migrant solidarity in Europe becomes as widespread as had the resistance to Empire in colonised nations, an anti-imperialism which builds on the rich history of resistance to state-power led by the Mau-Mau, the anti-apartheid movement and others, can delegitimize, weaken and dismantle the Eurocentric nation-state as we know it.

Adam Elliott-Cooper, a writer and activist, is Ceasefire Associate editor. His column on race politics appears every other Sunday.