🧵Zelensky being publicly berated by US president and VP (a mass media spectacle par excellence) has left western Europe stunned, shocked, and floundering. There was much ‘unprecedented’ about the spectacle but I want to talk about something that isn’t being discussed.
Over the past 500 years, Western Europe built a world that it looted, occupied, ruled and shaped to its will. This reshaping the world included its settler colonies of which USA is the most imperially successful.
Despite the competition between themselves, European imperial powers (with increasing buy in from the US starting in the 19th century) have repeatedly put aside competition to cooperate amongst themselves to continue their global dominance.
The Monroe Doctrine is a good example of US flexing its early imperial muscles. Yes it blocked European powers from colonial ventures in S. America but it was enforced by UK as part of its own Pax Britannica policy.
It’s easy to pretend that this early Anglo-American partnership was anti-Europe but that figleaf only works if one leaves out the Western colonial enterprise where the same powers would collaborate as needed to extend and maintain their colonies.
Move forward a century and US had become a fully paid up member of the (western) European colonial project. It expanded is dominance albeit indirectly for most part even as Western European empires crumbled.
It even joined the Great Game between Britain and Russia. Conveniently the Russian revolution gave US the opportunity to create a national fairy tale of freedom and democracy. Quickly the narrative became the democratic (but really the capitalist) West against the rest
After their 30 year fratricidal. genocidal squabble (1941-1945), dying W European empires happily handed over the top spot to US. In return they could pretend they were still ‘great,’ be ‘protected’ from a rotating cast of enemies and continue to exploit the planet as they wished
The post WW2 order was intended to continue Western European Empire(s), now with US in the lead. Economic, legal, cultural, political, diplomatic tools were created to ensure that politically liberated colonies would remain shackled to their former masters in all but name
This was a cosy system with exhausted imperial powers basically outsourced dirty work of the empire to the brash new bully in the playground. And the system worked for a while although it has been creaking for a bit
This US-WEurope empire saw the break up of the Soviet Union as an opportunity for expanding its hegemony. Besides this new Indirect Empire was so much cleaner and politer than the old direct one.
This Indirect Empire meant all colonial sins were washed away and W Europe could make pious claims about its own morality while looking down on its uncouth new imperial enforcer, the US.
It meant W Europe could pretend US violence did not ensure its continued hegemony
This imperial handover worked for the US too. It brutalised the world to ‘protect’ Western Europe and anointed itself the protector of liberty
But here’s the unprecedented part: The US empire is now crumbling, in part under its own weight, part due to hubristic over-reach and internal conteadictions, and now due to speeded up self-harm.
For the first time in centuries, Western Europe has nobody it can turn to. Not a more successful fellow coloniser next door. Not a settler-colony spawn that is ready to take their shop keys and keep the business going.
For too long W Europe has retender it could carry on buiness as usual. But yesterday’s disgusting White House spectacle has ended that studied delusion.
Forget the emperor having no clothes. There is no empire to turn to!
No empire goes down quietly so the times ahead are perilous for most of us and the planet. But these are also extraordinary and yes, unprecedented times. And it’s a stage of decolonisation I never imagined could/would happen in my lifetime
End 🧵
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Huge respect Francesca, and specially for your untiring work but sorry, this IS exactly the Europe you belong to!
Going by info on Wikipedia, you were born in the midst of the Cambodian genocide. You began primary school during the Guatemala genocide. 1/n
You were at school during the second phase of Burundi genocide. And through it all, the East Timor genocide continued in phases. Then there was Bosnia, Paraguay, Rwanda, The Congo, Somalia. The list continues. And this is only the period till you reached adulthood
These are all colonial genocides, dirctly or indirectly supported, enabled, funded and armed by the colonial powers. With foundations in centuries of (mostly) European colonial enterprise. Rarely have Europeans - individually or collectively - been held accountable
Short🧵:Western states have long believed (and used) they can are above international law which is a weapon for them to use for their own aims. Their hypocrisy has been clear for decades to most in the ‘global south.’
The whole point of post WW2 world order was that international law was for any state that was deemed enemy, ie USSR and its allies along with any former colony that attempted to defy Western econonomic and political hegemony.
(Aside: it very strange and sad to grow up steeped in Indian diplomacy/IC and compare the calculated unruliness of an India carving a path of its own to its actions now. And I am enough to have personal memories dating back to the 70s)
A slew of ‘big’ books by non-Palestinians and non-Arabs are being published this year. Ignore them. And in some cases, straight up BDS them. #readpalestinians
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Most of these ‘big’ books are by people who have said little about the genocide. Or have have deliberately/inadvertently peddled misinformation, partial truths or uncritical views. And yes these are some of the biggest names in academia and publishing so I am not naming them
But this goes beyond particular writers and academics. We must understand that the Empire pushes its own particular version of the horrors it perpetrates. Either through its own experts or through approved cultural informants. Or through its favourite (token) colonised voices
🧵I have watched Western/White/Imperial (these are overlapping categories) remain silent on Israel’s perpetration of mass sexual violence as a weapon of war since Oct 7, 2023. Many of these women are colleagues and some I even considered friends.
Many have worked for years on understanding and preventing sexual violence, in some cases in combat zones. They inform and form policy at national and international levels. They lead research projects worth millions of dollars/pounds/euros. And yet….
Very few have spoken about Israel’s perpetration of sexual violence against Palestinians in the past 15 months! Then again, very few of them spoke about it before that date too.
Very revealing that so far most of these these generated profiles I’ve seen being discussed (not interacting with any as I refuse to help train this sh*t) are of people from minoritised communities. This matters A LOT!
A 🧵
First cultural narratives are crucial for ensuring how minoritised groups are disenfranchised, oppressed and yes, even genocided. Before a single shot is fired or single cop hired, a narrative is constructed to create the need for bullets, guns,prisons, wars…
You HAVE to diminish, demonise and dehumanise people in order to imprison, torture, mutilate and murder them. You have do the same in order to rationalise that it’s ok to hold children in poverty, to violate women for their gender, to brutalise queer people only for existing
Oh look! ANOTHER one. Longlisted for Baillie Gifford. Even published by the SAME publisher. But I guess if I say a word about it, the literary national treaures of UK will (again!) compare me to Taliban & Daesh? And write 100s of articles smearing me?
Short 🧵
Now before I am accused AGAIN of “policing the imagination” and “not reading the book,” yeah, I read it!
It was the year when I was setting up a book prize and ALL of UK publishing could not scrape together 100 books across all genres by writers of colour for submission
It was also the year THE major literary magazine ran a snide little piece on a prize that rewarded skin colour rather than ‘literary merit.’ Written anonymously of course